Putting God First :)

What does that really mean? What does that look like in a person’s life? When we see a pastor or a missionary it’s easy to see that they are putting God first. But what about for us regular folk? For we are not all called to be Pastors or Missionaries.

It’s easier than it looks. We can reach out to our neighbor. Talk to the person at the grocery. Hug someone. Be nice even when someone is crabby. Reign in the desire to be right and let someone else be right. Be quiet. Give to the Homeless. Go to work on time. work hard and be nice. Read the Bible and share it with others. The list is endless.

Stand up for Father, for Christ and the Holy Spirit. Pray both privately and publicly. So often we hear that we should only pray in private. But the world needs us to pray in public too. Because there are those in the world that need the encouragement right now of seeing others turn to God :).

And don’t be afraid to share your short-comings. We all have them and knowing we have a few and are still following Christ might encourage another to keep going.

We live in a time where many are falling away from faith. The most important thing we can do right now, is encourage others to keep going. To hold to their faith in Jesus.

Time grows short. we need to help each other as much as we can now!

God’s Love Will Give Us Courage!

“You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah”-Psalm 32:7

We live in difficult times. Truly difficult times. And fear is a completely understandable emotion when one looks around the world in which we live. But courage is not the absence of fear, it’s the facing of it.

And that’s exactly what God’s love enables us to do. Have great courage in the face of great fear. Because no matter what happens on this earth, because of Jesus, our future is in Heaven. It’s a fact. And nothing can change that. Nothing.

So when the going gets tough, and it will, remember that and hold on to it. We will not struggle forever. We will dance with joy forever 🙂

Heaven awaits us. God loves us. And nothing can hurt us-not really. For because of Jesus, our joyful triumph is already assured 🙂

The Joy Of The Lord :)

“12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalm 51:12, NIV

A friend of mine told me that she was praying this verse, and it got me thinking. What is the joy of our salvation?

And I realized, it’s the way God loves us. It’s different than any earthly love we experience. It’s always there for us, surrounding us, no matter what.

On earth, we’d like to think that love is unconditional-but it’s really not. Imagine cheating on our spouse multiple times? Think they will still love and stay with us? Perhaps not…But when we mess up, God still loves us. And He stays no matter what 🙂 There is no mistake we can make, no amount of failure, no length of time in which we do not honor and love Him as we should that will stop God from loving us. For God is faithful to us, even when we are not.

And there is no time that we can not turn back to Him. Because He loves us and He’s waiting for us with open arms.

So close your eyes for just a moment and imagine this, God lifts you up and twirls you around. And both you and God are laughing with joy. The kind of joy that fills every part of you. Because you are finally home, safe and sound, in God’s arms as you were born to be.

Pray. Don’t wait. Be with God today 🙂

Taking A Stand For God!

Persecution of Christians is Growing, both here and abroad! We need to stand up before it’s too late!

In India for example, the main religion is Hinduism. India is not a country that we usually think of when we think of Christians being persecuted, but it is definitely becoming one!  Those who follow Christ or who share their faith are sometimes murdered-simply because they are following Jesus.  They are sometimes interrogated and beaten, while the government turns a blind eye to it all. There are 66,194,000 Christians in India.  Please pray for them.

In America, we are so Blessed.  And yet, how often do we fail to realize just how Blessed we are?  In India, a person may lose their life for simply following Jesus.  In America, all we really have to do is stand up to peer pressure, and yet how often we fail to do so?

There are many types of “bullying”.  There’s the physical bullying as we see in India and there is the emotional bullying that we see in America.  But how often did our parents tell us that “sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never harm you.”  We can take a stand now-or wait until the emotional bullying becomes physical.

After all Jesus suffered for us, should we not be willing to stand up to the bullies in our country?

We “were born for such a time as this! It’s our choice, we must pray that we choose wisely. Be the Light!

Take A Stand For Christ!

For those who don’t know, Jim Caviezel played Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ. (This video is well worth watching 🙂 )

Some of his great quotes include:

“Freedom exists not so you can do what you want;  freedom exists so you can do what you ought”

As we pray today before the eve of the Prayer Day being held in Washington DC tomorrow, we need to realize that we, each one of us, will need to make a choice and we will need to live with the consequences of those choices.

We will need to choose between God and Satan. Between Good and Evil. Let’s hope as a nation, and as individuals, we choose wisely.

As Jim Caviezel said, “you were not born to fit in; you were born to stand out”. Stand for Christ!

“Be The Light”

Isaiah 59: Does Our Father Forgive Us?

Of course He does, He loves us 😉

Often we read of forgiveness in the New Testament, but it also speaks of forgiveness in the Old Testament (Isaiah 59).

Isaiah 59 starts with a reminder that God is all powerful and can save and hear us. But because of our sins He could not.  So clearly our sins do separate us from God.  Good thing for us that we have a Savior that forgives us and wipes our slate clean. Because of His Great Sacrifice, God can hear us and we are saved 😊

And in fact, towards the end of Isaiah 59, God clearly wishes to save His people, even if it is from themselves.  And so He looks to find one good person who truly stands up for truth and justice, who seeks to turn the people back to God, but sadly, He can’t even find one.

So at the end of Isaiah 59, our Father promised to send a “Redeemer” to save us Himself-Jesus Christ.  God could have given up on us. He could have stopped loving us. But He didn’t. God Loved Us Always. And because He loves us so, He sent Jesus to Save us.

And because Jesus came and we accepted Him as our Savior (Redeemer), we are completely forgiven. For God not only forgives our sins, He erases them.

And we should do the same for others 😊

The Blessing

We’ve posted The Blessing being sung in many states and countries. What a gift they have all given us! A reminder that it is our very differences coming together that truely create beauty.

God loves us all. Jesus died and rose again for everyone of us. And we should love each other, just as Jesus commanded. Always.

People follow Jesus all over the world! Each of them are our brother and sister in Christ. We need to be reminded what a Blessing and Gift they are to us all 🙂