saltandlight

I came across this image today.

This spoke volumes to me this morning!  I’ve been praying for people that I know need the Lord.  I have many on my heart that I believe God could use in a mighty way if they would just surrender it all to Him.  I’ve seen it happen with other people and I just know what God can do! I know what He has done for me!

Sometimes when we pray, we don’t really believe that anything is going to happen. We just say a prayer and keep going on as normal. Not really believing any change is going to take place. But, when we pray believing…..  That is when the magic happens!

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” Mark 1:22-23

I believe that God is going to move mountains!  We are going to see people turn to God that we never thought would!  I have been feeling in my heart for several months that God is moving and people are accepting and allowing Him to move in their lives more and more.  Small changes have been happening.  I’ve been praying for a downpour!  And I am feeling today like I better get my umbrella ready!

I had a conversation yesterday with a coworker that has been on my mind ever since.  She is agnostic. She believes that maybe there is a God, but there might not be.  And there is definitely no such thing as Hell.  And she does not believe Jesus is the Son of God. He was just a man.  And she does not believe in the Bible, it was just a book written by man.  And of course I sweetly disagreed with her and tried to explain to her why I believe the way I do.  It will be a process but I will continue to pray for and plant seeds in her!

I’m not angry with her.  All I could think was “you are going to wind up in hell and you don’t even realize that I’m trying to save your life”! It’s just so sad.  She is very confused but she truly believes that she is right about everything. She has it all figured out. She has picked up bits and pieces of different religions and things she has learned and created a truth for herself to believe in.  We just agreed to disagree and ended the conversation but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I thought to myself, how does someone get so lost?  Did she have a bad childhood?  Did she fall in with the wrong crowd?  And then I got to thinking about myself.  How I could have easily gotten into the wrong crowd and how God intervened in my life.  He loved me so much that He just guided me right where I needed to be.  I could have so easily turned away and went down another path.  I can literally look back at certain times in my life that I could have made a different choice and I know it was only God that picked me up and turned me towards the right path.  He kept me from walking down those dark paths.

But, why?  I mean, why me?  You may have heard that song “Why Me, Lord”?  That is what I have been thinking about last night and this morning.  What did I ever do to deserve this Grace that He has shown me? I haven’t done anything to deserve it. None of us have!  That’s why it’s called Grace.  And He wants this for all of us.  We all have a choice.

But, God did this for me. He gave me a christian upbringing.  He put people in my path that would lead me to Him.  And he nurtured my faith with more people that were grounded in their faith.  So, now my question is what am I doing with this gift?  Yes, I’m living right and I’m in the Word and I’m trying to be a light to others.  But, am I doing enough?  There is a reason He has kept me on this path. What is my gift and how am I using it?  So, I’m asking you the same question.  What are you doing for the Lord?  What is He calling you to do?

Dictionary result for fear

1. (noun) an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
2. (verb) be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening.

Synonyms: terror, fright, fearfulness, horror, alarm, panic, agitation, trepidation, dread, dismay, distress; anxiety, worry, angst, unease, apprehension, nervousness, timidity, disquiet, unrest, foreboding, misgiving, doubt

Fear is something that I think people are dealing with today more than ever.  I have heard of more people experiencing fear and anxiety than I ever have.

If we think about it long enough, we can come up with plenty to be worried about and fearful of.  I never worried about things too much until I became a mother. Instantly I started worrying about all kinds of things and it hasn’t stopped.  It’s worse the older they get!

But, see that is exactly what Satan wants.  He wants us to be gripped with fear and anxiety.

We are all going to have times that we are afraid or worried.  But, sometimes we allow ourselves to be overcome with a spirit of fear.  Have you ever seen someone that is just always worried or upset about something?  Maybe you have been that way. It’s easy to let this happen.  Satan makes it very easy for us to find something to worry about and if we get caught up in worrying about things then we will lose focus on God and forget to trust Him.

Trust me when I tell you that I have plenty to worry about.  I have a son in college and a daughter that is fixing to start driving by herself.  I have family members that are sick, and other family members that need Jesus.  There is no way in this world that I would be able to handle that unless I put my trust in God.

Do we think that worrying is going to change the situation?  It’s not.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

There is a difference in having a spirit of fear and just being afraid for a moment.  Obviously when there is immediate danger, the holy spirit gives us a sense of fear to protect us.  If a snake crawled across our path, we would jump back out of fear that we would get bitten.  That is not the kind of fear this is talking about.

A spirit of fear is having constant anxiety about a situation. Worrying about things and allowing Satan to overcome us with fear and worry.

Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Again, we are being told Fear Not!  The words “Fear Not” are in the Bible 62 times!

That’s not to mention other times in the Bible where it says “Be not afraid” or “Do not be afraid” etc.

The Bible is constantly telling us not to worry and to put our trust in God.  He already knows what is going to happen and He has it all under control.

The more we pray to Him, surround ourselves with Bible verses, the more trusting Him will come natural to us.  (I tell you this from my own experience!)

It’s the only way to survive this world with all of the sin and problems we have going on today.  God is our only hope!

When dealing with fire you have to be careful.  It is a powerful element.  It can be dangerous when not handled correctly. Fire is strong but can be easily put out.

It’s been real heavy on my heart lately that we as Christians are losing our fire for God. When we first accepted Christ as our savior, were we on fire for Him? Or were we just using Him as fire insurance? If we were on fire for Him, over time, has our fire diminished?  Have we lost that excitement to serve Him?  If you only accepted Christ as your Savior in order to keep from going to Hell, then maybe you need to check your heart and revisit the matter.

Have you ever heard a really worshipful praise song or hymn and you just felt moved by the spirit and threw your hands up in praise almost as if you have no choice? That is the kind of worship I would love to see in our churches.  Not because we love the song. But, because we are in love with the Savior we are singing about!  We need to stop going through the motions of “church”. Instead of going to church, we need to BE the church. The hands and feet of Jesus.  That is what Christians are called to be.

We have gotten lazy and complacent in our walk with God.  We’ve lost our fire.  Our governments are signing laws that make it okay to kill babies.  Our government approves same sex marriage. Our government approves and gives benefits to people that are here illegally.  I don’t hate our government. I feel so sorry for the people in office that are so lost that they can’t see how wrong they are.  We need to get on our knees and pray for those people.

I know what the Bible says about this world. I know the time for Jesus’ return is getting closer.  That is even more reason for us to pray and get back the fire we once had!

Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee. – Deuteronomy 9:3

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. –  Hebrews 10:31

What are the things that we think about this time of year?  Christmas time…  I asked my Sunday School class this question yesterday and this is what they came up with…

Jesus’ birth, Family, Food, Lights, Movies, Music, Gifts

If you think about all of these things and what they have to do with Christmas, you can trace it back to one common denominator. Love.  Jesus was born as God’s gift to us because God loves us (and Jesus loves us).  Family – we spend time with family because we love them. Food – is the thing that alot of us use to bring everyone together and it is a way to show our love (by cooking their favorite things). Lights – people put out Christmas lights as a way to spread Christmas joy and they do it out of love.  Gifts – we give gifts to those we love at Christmas to show our love to each other (as the wisemen brought gifts to baby Jesus). Movies – the class thought they had me on this one. So I challenged them to name a Christmas movie and I will show you how it is at least connected to love. They gave me some hard ones – The Grinch, The Santa Claus (all 3), Polar Express, Elf just to name a few. (And I was able to make the connection).  Music – We use Christmas music as a way to spread Christmas cheer and spread the story of Jesus’ birth, which comes from love.

So, you see?  Christmas is all about LOVE.  The reason for Christmas was because of God’s gift to us. He came to earth in the form of a baby just so that He could one day die on the cross for our sins.  If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16

Forgiveness is something that I believe everyone struggles with at some point in their lives.

As a teenager I experienced a situation in which I needed forgiveness and I need to forgive as well.  This situation haunted me well into adulthood.  After I got saved, I said that I forgave the other person, but for years the mention of his name caused me to cringe.  I also shared some of the blame in this situation.  I asked God to forgive me of my sins over and over.

One day (years later) I was at home alone. I was in my twenties. (This was probably 10 or 12 years later!)  I had an encounter with God.  I could feel in my spirit that I needed to deal with this unforgiveness in my heart.  I prayed and prayed, I don’t think I realized at the time what was going on other than time alone with God.  I didn’t realize the transformation that was happening. In that tiny little living room, I found it in my heart to forgive myself.  Yes, myself.  I didn’t understand it completely at the time, but I had blamed myself and put myself down so much that I didn’t realize that I needed to forgive myself before I could forgive anyone else!  All that time that I was asking God to forgive me over and over (as if it took more than once), I really needed to forgive myself.  He had already forgiven me.  I felt the presence of God more that day than I ever had.  A lot of healing took place that day.  Then and only then was I able to truly forgive the person that I had spent a good many years blaming.

When we carry unforgiveness in our hearts, we are saying that Jesus dying on the cross for our sins is not good enough.  Who are we to say that we can’t forgive ourselves or others?

I have struggled with forgiveness plenty of other times as well.  And the devil reminds of my mistakes quite often. But I remind him that I’m forgiven!  I’ve been washed by the blood of the lamb!

John 8:36 “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

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