You see, I remember the times I prayed. When I was a teenager, I prayed for a husband. I asked God over and over to give me a husband. You see my dad pastored in a pretty bad part of Memphis, Tn and let’s just say there was no one around to marry. I even told my mom God won’t send anyone here for me to marry. You see, I did doubt that God could do it…maybe I didn’t doubt God could as much as I doubted that God would do it for me. I was discouraged, would God ever send me my future husband?
Read MoreNo! my year has not stopped. Although at times, I wish it had. Neither has then been a year where I have just stopped serving the Lord. But this has been a year where I have tried to stop and in every major situation take the time to pause.
Read MoreOh how often I feel IT'S NOT IN ME ---but God shall give an answer of peace! Life can be so pressing at times and I don't have an answer. I'm thankful that I can run to Jesus. Psalm 86:7 In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: FOR THOU WILT ANSWER ME.
Read MoreAgain, living for the Lord has many mountains and valleys. It’s not an easy road,
but don’t give up, or you will miss the best of the best!
Read MoreI was born into a Christian home and went to church every Sunday. I remember one Sunday morning sitting in church listening to the message and when it was time for the invitation I knew that I needed to accept Jesus as my Saviour. I went home and that afternoon my dad sat with me on the couch and clearly explained the Gospel to me and I accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour when I was 4 years old. I was baptized the next year.
There was an old saying about trusting all one’s goods to one ship. It was replaced with the phrase “Don't put all your eggs in one basket,” which is a proverb or idiom first recorded in 1710, that means you should not risk everything or depend entirely on a single thing or course of action. It advises against investing all your resources, time, or efforts in a single venture, as it leaves you vulnerable to failure or loss. If you gather all your eggs in a single basket, there is a potential danger of dropping the basket and losing everything you have worked diligently to obtain. In contrast, the proverb advises considering different options and distributing your eggs across multiple baskets, so you don’t find yourself in a desperate situation if one of your endeavors fails.
Read MoreMost of our lives are spent going the same speed and the same direction. Once in a while we change lanes or even merge onto a new highway, but then we resume where we were.
1 Corinthians 2:4 reminds us that “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” Faithful, not just in those exciting moments, but in the Days in Between.
Read MoreNothing replaces reading your Bible every day and praying to our Father in Heaven. No podcast, devotional, sermon, blog post, or any other kind of post will do for you what the Holy Spirit through the Word can do.
Read MoreWebster’s dictionary defines special as the following:
special
1: distinguished by some unusual quality
2: held in particular esteem
3: readily distinguishable from others of the same category : being other than the usual
4: designed for a particular purpose or occasion
Those definitions sound like a description of a Christian. Read again.
Striving to remain humble. Realize that all we are and all we have is because of the Lord. Having a humble attitude as we go through a trial will allow the Lord to teach us things that we need to learn in that trial.
Read MoreWhen I’m feeling bad, useless or lonely, just knowing that my Lord is there in my time of need brings me peace and joy.
He never sleeps. He’s never tired. He’s always there to keep me, to shield me, to preserve me. Isn’t that wonderful?!
Their, Joy, their contentment was the key that unloosed their chains. HE WAS ENOUGH FOR THEM! He was everything they needed. There wasn’t a material possession that they lacked because their contentment was in the ONE who delighted in them!
As we go through our lives and about our daily business doing all the right things, all the good things, are we living “in him”. It can be so easy to go into auto pilot. If we are not careful we can almost become robotic. Not intentionally, not even with a bad spirit, but we are doing all the things and checking off all the boxes of things to be done without giving our full attention or full spiritual awareness to them. Stop and think about it for a minute.
Read MoreI don’t have to wallow in my imperfections. I trust in His mercy, because He has promised it to those to seek it, with a broken heart. My hero. The valiant defender of my heart. The Rock of my strength. How does He strengthen me spiritually? By being who He is. Lift your voice in praise, thank Him for who He is. Take His Word before Him! He loves and delights when we dare to take Him at His word. Mercy, marvelous mercy. He delights in me. Why? I can never answer that question because I know who I am. I challenge every lady reading this to read 3-5 Psalms a day. Repeat these verses out loud in your prayer time, He will take you to High places. Then, you too will sing and shout and in tearful words in prayer say, Marvelous Mercy! What a God I have! We don’t have to be perfect, just faithful.
Read MoreI desperately needed a flesh and blood friend; a person with skin on. I knew I had my wonderful Heavenly father, and I decided to never leave Him nor forsake Him nor blame Him no matter how bad my life seemed to me. But God also gives us a need for humans. During the whole ugly, crushing, debilitating process; I needed a friend. I was so very confused, devastated, and broken: I needed a friend!
Read MoreI was an eighteen-year-old girl with no knowledge of the Bible, but that truth was clear to me that night as a soulwinner took me off into a room at the First Baptist Church of St. Clair, Missouri and explained to me that all the good things I was trying to do would never be enough for me to get to Heaven.
Read MoreThe ocean is one of my most favorite places on earth. The overwhelming enormity of both its sight and sound is always a reflection of the thoughts of my heart, both good and bad. I am always overwhelmed with something. And while on this journey of sanctification, I see-saw between the overwhelming “somethings’ of God’s goodness and my own sinful tendencies.
Read MoreI've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart! I just love this little chorus, and many mornings I sing it while I'm getting ready for the day! It always helps me to get my mind focused on joy instead of perhaps a situation going on in my life or the cares of this world.
Read MoreThere is nothing better for refreshing my soul, uplifting my hurting heart, or encouraging my spirit than being in God’s amazing creation! God definitely meets me at these special moments. Because of this, on the anniversary of my husband’s home going, I always plan an outdoor adventure. Along with that, I send up a balloon with a tract attached to it. My husband was a passionate soulwinner and it is a way to honor this important part of his life.
Read MoreAnd there’s the gem. Those two little words Trina would use so often in her conversation. MY Jesus. The most important lesson I ever learned from Trina, though I wouldn’t even realize it until YEARS later, was that He needs to be ‘MY’ Jesus. When you speak of your Saviour, it should be personal. The same way you say, ‘My kids’ or ‘My husband’. Possessive. Loving. Is that how you think of Jesus, or do you not really think about that relationship much at all? We all hear quite regularly in preaching that we need to have a relationship with God(Jesus), but do we really think and ponder and try to figure out what that entails? Oh sure, there’s the ‘read your Bible more! Here’s a 1 year plan!’ and don’t you dare misunderstand me, reading your Bible is paramount in a Christians life, but are you just going through the motions of Bible reading so that you can check off a little chart? You’ll be closer to Jesus than if you weren’t reading at all, sure, but would you feel that possessive love? Trina challenged me without even saying it to get that possessive love. To thirst for it. And it’s so funny because, the closer you get the more you want.
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