TRUTH or CONSEQUENCES

I have been questioning my walk with God lately...in a good way.  I know that I am devoted to God and have disciplined my self to do what I should do each and every day.  Devoted means that I am loyal to Him, faithful to follow His ways, committed to be a Christian with no turning back and constant in reading His word.  I have disciplines in my life, to spend the first hour, or more,  of each day reading His word, some worship, some prayer.  I know HOW to be a Christian and am walking forward to be conformed into His image. And yet, something is still lacking.  Even in my devotion and disciplines I can get into a rut.  Doing the right things, but no passion.  Passion is defined as having strong and barely controllable emotions; feelings of unusual excitement and enthusiasm.  I have moments during a worship service, at times, where I have a somewhat passionate encounter.  But I am seeing, that daily passion to follow Jesus, is...

I was reading in the Old Testament this morning, in Zephaniah, and this verse jumped out at me (1:6) ... " And I will destroy those who used to worship me but now no longer do.  They no longer ask for the  LORD’s guidance or seek my blessings.”  I immediately wrote in my journal...Lord remind me to ask for your guidance every day and seek your blessings!  I want to be one who always gives my worship to my God.  And I understand that part of my worship is being dependent on my Father in Heaven.  That He wants me to ASK of Him...he wants me to seek His blessings in my life. Jesus reminded us of this in the New Testament too.  In Matthew 7: 7-11 he told his followers... “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. “You parents—if your c...

Here is thought for you...God is always speaking, how much of what He says do I hear? I remember when I was on the mission field and organizing a nation wide outreach.  I was traveling around the nation, with my translator Agnes, visiting pastors to see if they would host a group from abroad.  One young Pastor named Pavel, listened to my request and then said he needed to go upstairs and talk with God.  About 10 minutes later he came back and said God had said yes they were to participate.  Agnes and I joked that Pavel must have had a direct phone line to God upstairs to hear and respond so quickly. In actuality, all of us have a direct phone line!  We have His ear anytime we want to talk to Him.  He is looking throughout the earth for anyone who is seeking Him.  He always wants to spend time with us, the question is how much of my time and my heart lean toward wanting to be with Him and listen to Him? My prayer this week has been... "Help me Lor...

That is a BIG word. To be sanctified basically means to be set apart from something to something else. In Christianity, every church has a doctrine about what this means.  I am not familiar with them all, but I am familiar with the Assemblies of God.  They view sanctification as a two part process that happens in our lives.  First, when I initially ask Jesus into my life, the Holy Spirit comes in and I am beginning the process of my walk with God.  At that point I am set apart from who I was, into who I am becoming in relationship with my Heavenly Father. (2 Corinthians 5:17...Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things are passed away, behold all things become new.)  The second part is that sanctification is a process.  In God's mind and heart I have been set apart for His family and Kingdom, but now I have to walk that out.  I have to make daily choices to no longer just live for myself, but to do thos...

To delight in something means to take great pleasure in it, to find satisfaction in something you choose.  Psalm 37:4 says.... Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.  The scripture tells us in many verses that the Lord God delights in us i.e. Psalm 18:19... 19 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.  35:27... “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant.” There are more. God uniquely forms each one of us in our mothers wombs to be one of his children. Everyone of us is different in looks and personality, in soul and spirit. We are created for two purposes, to be in relationship with Him and to bring Him glory.  So how do we fulfill these two purposes? It is not enough to ask him for forgiveness one time, and then keep doing what we have always done. It is not even enough to attend church on a regular basis. ( Although I must add that we need to be around other beli...

Matthew 6:21 says..."For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." My question to you today is "what do you treasure?"  The right answer, of course, is that you treasure your relationship with God above all else!  But for the majority of people that is not  a true answer. There are many, many things that occupy our hearts.  From husband/wife relationships, money, kids, sports, TV, hobbies, etc.  The things we put most of our time, energy and money into tells the tale! The scary part is that Paul wrote to Timothy in his second letter an exact description of our day in verses 1-5... You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control...

I want you to have the understanding today that one of the enemies greatest tactics, against you and I, is to move us to the place of discouragement!  That is an absolute fact.  Discouragement is a feeling we get when things seem to be against us; that the future is bleak, no hope, no confidence that things will work out. I started this new year with high "expectations" of new things and moving forward in some issues important to me.  I have been determined to press into God for revival and be right in the center of what He is doing!  I have wanted to get into a place of good health, physically fit, as well as spiritual health.  In the last blog I told you about making three small changes every week. Well this week I had a BIG change come my way that was not expected! Saturday, just going about my business of building a project for the house, I slipped on wet wood down an incline.  The result, torn ligaments in my knee, plus a nasty cut on the ...