saltandlight

Have you ever known what it was like to be truly hungry?  I’m not talking about it being lunchtime and your stomach is growling!  I mean, going days or weeks without hardly anything to eat.  I don’t think anyone that I know has ever had that kind of hunger.    It makes me so sad to see those starving children on those commercials asking for help.  If you were to talk to someone from a poverty stricken country that has known that type of hunger, I imagine they would say that we take food and other “luxuries” for granted here in America.

I think the same can be said for our hunger for God.  We are so spoiled.  We can go to church anytime we want to.  We can pick up our Bibles and read it anytime we want to.  Most of us have multiple Bibles in our homes.  We have access to many free devotional books.  We can even pull up sermons online and watch them without leaving our homes!  We have some of the best christian music available at our finger tips (literally, on our phones!).  Alot of people in alot of other countries do not have this kind of access.  And I think that we take all of these things for granted.  (Much like we do our food.)

God is so easily accessible to us that we don’t really feel the need to hunger for Him.  We go through the motions of the christian life.  We go to church rather than be the church.  We “serve” God in many ways in our church and we are content with just doing, rather than having an intimate relationship with Him.

“Good things have become the enemy of the best things.”*.  I read that statement in my daily devotional this morning.  It makes you think doesn’t it?  When we settle for good things, we might be missing out on the best things!

When we fill our time with good things, I’m talking to the Christians now, we do and work in the church and we become so religious that we never become spiritual.*   We get so caught up in doing things for Him that we forget about Him.*

We feed our bodies junk food to the point that we aren’t hungry for the food that is good for us.  And we do the same thing with our spiritual walk with God.  We do all of these “good things” and we miss out on the best things.  An intimate walk with our Father. Our creator.

Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”  All we have to do is seek it.

I want to encourage you to seek out this hunger that I am speaking of.  Seek His presence.  Pray for Him to fill you with His spirit!  Ask Him and He will fan the flame that has gotten down to a flicker!

*Tommy Tenney – The God Chasers

The more I pray lately and the more I study the Word, I feel like the Lord is impressing on my heart that something big is coming.  Satan is busier than ever and why do you think that is?  He knows it too.  I feel like right now more than ever it is so important for people to come to Christ like they never have. We need to fall on our faces before Him.  Surrender our all to Him.  Be a willing vessel for Him!

The time is coming that our faith is going to be tested more and more.  Whose side are you on?  If you are following God, are you showing it?  Or are you a “lukewarm” christian?  The Bible says that if you are lukewarm, you will be spewed out of the mouth of God.  (Revelations 3:16)

Are you part of God’s team but you just kind of sit on the sidelines?  Let others do the heavy lifting?  Well, my friend I want to say to you that bench warming time is over.  It is time for you to get in the game!  The great news about this game is that we already know who wins!

Don’t just take my word for it!  Let me encourage you today to get into God’s word and pray!  See what He reveals to you!

I heard a message recently preached from Luke 5:17-25.  This is the story about the men that were trying to bring their friend to Jesus.  The friend had a palsy and was unable to walk. When they were unable to get to Jesus through the door, they climbed on top of the house and lowered him down from the roof.  They did what they had to do to get their friend to Jesus.

While listening to the message and reading these verses, I thought ‘am I that kind of friend’?  Am I doing all that I can do to bring people to Jesus?  I don’t think that I know very many people that would have done that.

This world is so fast paced.  We are all in such a hurry to get to the next place we need to be.  We can’t even sit through a church service without thinking about what we’ve got to do when we get home.  We don’t have time to be worrying about our neighbors or friends! Who even has time for friends!?  We don’t even take the time to take care of our own spiritual well being. Much less helping our friends.

And if we aren’t getting fed spiritually, and we’re not spending time alone with God, we aren’t much good to anyone else anyways!

What God has been really pressing on my heart lately is how busy we all are.  I notice in my own life that when I slack off on my Bible reading and time alone with God, I’m not much good to anyone.  I leave myself wide open to Satan and his attacks.  I find myself giving into temptation to do things I know I shouldn’t do.  I have to take that time alone with God. (I’ve also noticed that the more time I spend alone with Him, the more I get out of the worship and preaching and teaching at church.)  We can’t be too busy for God!  When we leave Him out, we aren’t hurting Him, we are hurting ourselves!

We are driven more by fear, debt, loneliness, our children, our responsibilities rather than being led by God.  All because we do not go to Him.  We try to take on all of these problems and responsibilities as if we have to carry them by ourselves!  We have an almighty God willing to carry the load.  He can handle it all a lot better than you and I can!  But, in trying to do all of this ourselves, we stay busy.  Busy with work, church, kids etc.  I don’t know what y’all are busy with, but those are the things that I am busy with.  And those are not things that I can do away with.  It’s not like I can quit my job, and I sure don’t need to quit going to church!  It’s about prioritizing.  We can get alot more accomplished if we take a few minutes a day to talk it out with God.  Give it all to Him, and ask Him to direct our steps.  And worship Him!  I listen to christian music at work alot and sometimes I have to stop what I am doing and just worship Him for a minute!

Listen, I know how easy it is!  Believe me I KNOW how easy it is to get busy and not take the time with God that is needed.  Satan makes sure to make it very easy.  He fills our calendars to the point that we are exhausted.  But, I also KNOW how much I need it!  Yes, there is work to be done, everywhere we go.  At work, at church and at home. I KNOW! But, there is a much greater work needing to be done in our hearts.  That takes priority over everything else!  Don’t you want to be the best you can be?  The best Mom?  The best wife (or husband)?  The best at your job?  Then seek Him first!  He is the only one that can truly help us and truly understands us better than anyone else!

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Matthew 6:33

Life is hard, we can all agree on that.  A lot of times we have some big issues that we are dealing with in some way. We worry and we pray and when God does a mighty work, we praise Him for it.  At least I hope we do.  But, what about those small victories?  There are so many times that God does this thing that seems small, although it might seem big to us at the time, but do we shout praise to Him and give him credit for it?  Or do we quickly move on because we are in such a hurry?

I’m guilty of the latter more times that I care to admit.  But last week my daughter’s birth certificate got misplaced.  We were needing it and we couldn’t find it.  We looked everywhere that we thought it might be.  Finally I stopped to pray and asked God to show me where that birth certificate is at.  Within seconds I had my hand on the birth certificate.  I do not chalk that up to coincidence.  I fully believe that my obedience in praying and asking Him to show me and believing that He would led me to the place where it was.

21 years ago, after only being married for a few short months, my husband lost his wedding ring.  We had gotten our rings at a small jewelry store that was going out of business.  They are very unique in that they have a cross in the center of the band. In other words they weren’t easily replaceable.  Well, he worked at a warehouse at the time.  He had lost his wedding band at work.  It could be anywhere.  He was upset, understandably.  I tried to reassure him that it was okay.  One week after he had lost his ring, he was at work when the Lord spoke to him.  The Lord led him straight to a box of pulleys and there in the back of that box, sat his wedding ring!  No one can say that wasn’t God!  I am still amazed by that and have told that story many times.  We are human and we make mistakes.  We lose things.  We forget things.  But, God is bigger.  He leads us and guides us when we are open to allowing Him to.

I was reminded of this just this morning when my son couldn’t find something that was important to him that he needed for college.  I prayed and I told him to pray.  I asked God to lead him straight to it.  When he got to school, within a few minutes he was texting me to let me know he had found it!  I knew he would.  I already knew, I felt it in my spirit that God was going to use this as he has with me plenty of times before. To teach us how powerful he is.  And to show us how He cares for us, and that we can trust Him even with the small things.  He loves us that much!

Seek the Lord and His strength, seek His face continually. 1 Chronicles 16:11

So, this year has had it’s challenges.  I’m sure I’m not the only one that can say that.  I’m also very sure that my challenges are small compared to some that others are facing.  Don’t get me wrong, alot of good has happened this year!  Alot of my prayers have been answered this year!  But, one small problem can cloud our vision.

Let me say first off that I have always been one that has had tremendous faith in God.  I’m not bragging about it, I just want you to see how the enemy works.  I was always the optimist and never have been much of a worrier. I actually would call the amount of faith that I had, child like.  My faith wasn’t so much because I was such a good Christian.  It was more of a natural thing.  When my husband was sick, had to quit his job and I was pregnant with our first child – I had faith that God would get us through.  When we left our church because we felt God was leading us to leave and had no idea where we were going next – I had faith that God would see us through.  The Bible tells us that we should have a child like faith.  Why child like?  Well, children seem to have more faith than we adults do, don’t they?  Children – they believe what we tell them.  They have not yet been hurt by the lies of the world.

About 3 years ago, I did start having some anxiety. My faith started to get weak.  I knew what needed to be done, I started praying and studying my Bible more.  I got into the scriptures and prayed and prayed.  And of course my anxiety got less and less.  My faith grew stronger. Well, as this year got busier and busier guess what? I studied scripture less and less.  And the old devil just snuck his way right back in.  I started doubting that God could handle my problem.  Well, not that he could handle it, but rather that he would handle it.  I thought maybe He isn’t going to help me this time, because I’ve done this to myself.  I’ve brought on some of these problems and I’m going to have to find a way to handle it myself.  (I know, I can just see the Father shaking his head at me)  So, of course things didn’t get any better.  And my anxiety got worse. That devil is so sneaky.  If we let our guard down at all, he finds a way in.

So, God started speaking to me in many different ways.  Through sermons, through friends and even through songs.  I heard a song on the radio one day that really spoke to me.  I had heard the song before, but I actually listened to the words of it and it was exactly what I needed to hear.  It said, “When did I forget that you’ve always been the Kind of the world?” (by Natalie Grant).  Wow!  It was God speaking to me and saying, “Now, are you ready to trust Me!?”  The answer was Yes!  So, I’m on the verge now of really watching God do something here.  I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

Father, it’s me again.

First of all let me thank you and praise you for who you are. I am so thankful that I can come to you with everything.

Lord, you know what is on my heart right now and what has been consuming my thoughts.  I’m anxious about some things.  I know that I shouldn’t be worried, I know you have got this.  But, still I worry.  Maybe I haven’t been talking to you about it enough.  Maybe I wasn’t prayed up enough before this situation started.  My prayers have been scatterbrained ramblings a lot of the time.  But, Lord, the awesome thing is that you know my heart.

Lord I just pray right now that you cover my children with your mighty hand.  Please  push them in the right directions.  Please keep a wall of protection around them.  Lord, you know their hearts and their struggles.  Please give them wisdom in making decisions and warn them when they are walking into a bad situation.  Lord I will even be bold enough to ask you to stop them when they are tempted to make a bad choice. Even when they have put themselves into a tempting situation.

I pray for their future relationships.  I pray that you will send people into their lives that will make them happy and will serve and worship you alongside them.  I pray for someone that will encourage them and help them grow closer to you instead of push you away.  Lord, I know their paths will not always be easy.  I know from experience that we have to walk through some things in this life that seem hard, but if we allow you to work, we will grow from it.  I just pray that they recognize that you are always with them.

Father, I give them to you.  I place their lives in your hands and I understand that I have no control here.  But, you do.  I thank you for taking care of them and molding them to be the people that you will have them to be.  I thank you for allowing me the privilege of being their mother.

In your Holy and Precious Name,

Amen!

The tongue, as we all know, can get us in trouble sometimes.

It truly can speak life or death. Our words can truly make or break someone.  That old saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me” is just not true.  As much as I insisted that it were when I was a small child that had gotten hurt by someone’s words.

The book of James in the Bible speaks very strongly about our tongues.  James 3:5-8

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:  But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

I’ll be the first to admit that I struggle with my words.  Have you ever thought back over a conversation and thought “why did I say that”, or “that didn’t come out right”?  Well, I definitely have!  Many more times than I care to admit.

A couple of years ago, I had a conversation with someone about a mutual friend.  Well, our mutual friend who was a guy was currently dating someone that neither of us approved of.  And I didn’t say anything about the person they were dating exactly.  All I said was that I was concerned about our friend dating this girl.  I didn’t say why I was concerned.  The person I was talking to said that they had heard this and that and I just nodded my head in agreement.  I knew that I shouldn’t have even been engaging in this conversation.  Well, about a week or so later, I was confronted with none other than the person that we had been talking about, not our mutual friend, but his girlfriend.  I was accused of saying all kinds of things that I had not said.  And I assured this girl that I had not said any of those things and I didn’t even think that about her.  But, the damage was still done.  She said she believed me, and I hope she did.  Well, that really threw me for a loop.  I mean, I hadn’t said the things this girl thought I had said about her.  After talking to our mutual guy friend, undoubtedly the person that I had engaged in conversation with had gone and told our mutual guy friend that I had said this and that about his girlfriend.

So, I got really upset about this.  I was angry at both of my friends.  My friend for twisting our conversation around into making it sound like it was my words and not hers.  And I was also upset that our guy friend had gone and told his girlfriend all of this without talking to me first.

I prayed about it and prayed about it.  I was really angry and didn’t speak to either one of them for a while.  But, then while praying about it over time God started showing me something (and I really knew this but I didn’t want to admit it).  What if I could go back to that day and change the course of that conversation?  I could have changed the course of that conversation or not said anything at all.  I am sure that she meant well.  She was trying to get our guy friend to realize he needed to be careful with the girl he was dating.  She may have even gotten our conversation mixed up in her mind and actually thought that I was the one that had said those things.  There’s no telling.  I’ve forgiven them both.  But, I learned something from it.  (Isn’t that the point?-God allows these things to happen sometimes for us to learn)

I’m sure you all have stories of your own that you have either been the victim of gossip or been part of the gossip that caused someone to get hurt.

It’s why James wrote so strongly about it.  “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”

Proverbs 15:4 “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.”

Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”

So, how can we ‘tame our tongues’?  We can’t, James said it in verse 8.  But, God can when we submit to him.

So, here are some ways that our tongues can be tamed:

Rely on God’s strength daily.

 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.  Philippians 4:13

 (Think before we speak!)

Dedicate your heart and your tongue to the Lord each day.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,          my strength, and my redeemer”  Psalm 19:14.

Your words are an indication of what’s in your heart.

Put your heart in tune with God’s Spirit by daily reading His Word.

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” II Timothy 3:16–17

Assume responsibility for every word you speak.

“But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account    thereof in the day of judgment.” Matthew 12:36.

Ask for forgiveness for any unloving words or attitudes.

For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man . . .” James 3:2

Learn to speak words that will encourage, comfort, inspire, and edify.

Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom” James 3:13

This is something that I think we all struggle with.  We either say something we didn’t mean to say, or it comes out the wrong way.  But, by stopping and thinking before our words come tumbling out, we can say a quick prayer and allow God to control our words.

A conversation with my son this morning reminded me of a verse in the Bible.  I knew part of the verse but I couldn’t quote it word for word so I looked it up.

Matthew was discussing people “in the world” that are also Christians.  But the songs they sing or the way the act tells a different story.  So, I said “You know the Bible says that not everyone that says Lord, Lord will enter the gates of Heaven”.  I sort of confused him with this, so then I had to explain and look up the verse…

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

These are some powerful words spoken by Jesus himself.  The reason this verse came to mind this morning was because a friend of mine had just mentioned the same verse a few days ago in conversation.

There are many that call themselves Christians, but aren’t really.  We can know those people by their actions. One verse up, Matthew 7:20 says Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.  We aren’t to judge them, but we aren’t to get down on their level either.

Another verse I’d like to share is James 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.  We are only hurting ourselves if we hear the Word, but we don’t put it into action. 

We must all check our own hearts.  When we pray, ask God to show us our own faults and what we can do to improve.  The more we pray and study, the more God will convict our hearts (in order to guide us).

But, this can only happen if we are truly saved.  We cannot expect God to guide us if we have never truly accepted him as our Lord and Savior.

In order to be sure of our salvation there are a few things we can ask ourselves to “check our hearts”:

Can you recall a time in your life that you accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, (this would have been a life-changing event)?

Do you find yourself wanting to follow God’s word?

Do you have a genuine love for others?

Do you feel conviction of wrong doing?

If you say No to any of the above questions, you need to thoroughly check your heart and pray about whether or not you are truly saved.  Talk to a Pastor or other Christian leader.  There are many that have come to Christ late in life after thinking that they were saved.

Christians are not perfect.  But, when we make mistakes we should at least feel convicted about it.  We can know that we have a Father that is perfect and wants the best for us.  All we have to do is put our faith and trust in Him.  Walk with Him daily.  I promise you that it is definitely worth the effort!