Prayer Journaling

 Prayer is important, but sometimes our thoughts are every where...so writing your prayers is a great way to keep your thoughts on track and remember what you've prayed about. I've been writing my prayers for about 5 years (on and off) and its been very awesome to see where I started and how I've grown in the Lord. All you have to do is write down what's on your heart. Pray about anything...things that your going through, family, a friend, your country, your church, ect...The Word inspires me when I pray.  Different scriptures speak to me and I just talk to God about them. Nobody will have the same kind of journal, everyone's journey is different, but it's all about communicating and sharing what's on your heart with God. And listening Him in return. Sometimes God places a scripture in your heart right after you wrote your prayer (I know cause it happens to me lol). Just pray and seek after Him and He will be found by you! So, have you written down your prayers? What has your experience been like on your prayer journey?
 

Jesus Makes Sense

I read this devotion this morning and found Annie had typed it already (I was feelin lazy lol) :) 

What God did makes sense. It makes sense that Jesus would be our sacrifice because a sacrifice was needed to justify man’s presence before God. It makes sense that God would use the Old Law to tutor Israel on their need for grace. It makes sense that Jesus would be our High Priest. What God did makes sense. It can be taught, charted, and put in books on systematic theology.

However, why God did it is absolutely absurd. When one leaves the method and examines the motive, the carefully stacked blocks of logic begin to tumble. That type of love isn’t logical; it can’t be neatly outlined in a sermon or explained in a term paper…

Even after generations of people had spit in His face He still loved them. After a nation of chosen ones had stripped Him naked and ripped His incarnated flesh, He still died for them. And even today, after billions have chosen to prostitute themselves before pimps of power, fame, and wealth, He still waits for them.

It is inexplicable. It doesn’t have a drop of logic nor a thread of rationality…

Bloodstained royalty. A God with tears. A Creator with a heart. God became earth’s mockery to save His children.

How absurd to think that such nobility would go to such poverty to share such a treasure with such thankless souls.

But He did.

In fact, the only thing more absurd than the gift is our stubborn unwillingness to receive it.

Max Lucado, from My Time With God by Thomas Nelson Bibles

Hope...

 Hope is important! Without it what is there to live for? Hope is believing in something against the odds. God gives the hopeless sinner everlasting life and when they receive Him, they receive HOPE! They have a new life and a salvation! It's awesome to see hope in others when your feeling disappointed or down. Hope always encourages and lifts others up.

 The Word of God gives hope also. What Bible verse(s) bring you hope?


"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:17


 I have hope because Jesus came and saved me! I don't have to worry about being condemned. I can live freely and know that I am loved by Him and He saved me! :)

Has anyone ever told you that God loves you and that He has a wonderful plan for your life? If you were to die this very second, do you know for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you would go to Heaven?
Let me share with you what the Holy Bible reads. It reads "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" and "for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". The Bible also reads, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved". And you’re a "whosoever" right? Of course you are; all of us are.  :)


If you would like to receive the gift that God has for you today, say this with your heart and lips out loud.


Dear Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me of my sin. Wash me and cleanse me. Set me free. Jesus, thank You that You died for me. I believe that You are risen from the dead and that You’re coming back again for me. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Give me a passion for the lost, a hunger for the things of God and a holy boldness to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m saved; I’m born again, I’m forgiven and I’m on my way to Heaven because I have Jesus in my heart. 

As a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I tell you today that all of your sins are forgiven. Always remember to run to God and not from God because He loves you and has a great plan for your life.

The Pity Party

  “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.  But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
 ^{Luke 15:25-30}

I've been through a lot with this one person in my life, and I love them...but I have to be honest and say in this relationship I felt like the older brother from the parable of the prodigal son. Many times, I have found myself hurt, rejected, or jealous but God always comes as the Father reminding me that everything He has I am a co-heir to. So I can have a party whenever I want! But the question is is it a pity party? God has revealed to me while I was talking with a friend the other day, that I should rejoice and be glad when this person in my life returns to Him! He revealed to me what was in my heart and the feelings that I had. I asked God to forgive me and help me to change my attitude and feelings. I want to be there! Apart of the celebration and giving God praise for this person's returning.

 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”  Luke 15:31-32

 I am thankful that one day this person will return and become the prodigal son, but until then I'm praying for this person to return and come to know the Father's love! So I have to ask, have you ever felt like the older brother or the prodigal son?

Feel free to leave a comment and share your story :)

The Dream War

The Dream War

April 18, 2012 by Rosanna Tomiuk... http://darlingmagazine.org/the-dream-war/

I read this today and it's so true! How many times we have this battle....

I didn't write this but wanted to share :)

 

There’s a war inside us. We all feel it. One moment you’re chasing dreams, the next you’re being pulled toward laziness and sluggishness. You, like many others, seem to exhibit the never-ending irrationality in human behavior.
Author and expert marketer, Seth Godin, described it as this: “We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule…We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read that book the boss lent us. The contradictions never end.”
The good news is the two opposing forces of this war within are identifiable. The great news is the good guy can win.
But first, who is the bad guy?
Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, calls it “The Resistance”: “The Resistance is a repelling force…Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work…if we give it so much as a nanosecond, [it] will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications, and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do.”
The Resistance almost automatically engages situations with a propulsion to eat, attack, run or reproduce. It doesn’t care about dreams, it cares about survival. And anything that threatens survival, like risk or change, is a major threat that it wards off. So, when you’re considering quitting that job you never really liked or starting that project that will revolutionize your entire life, The Resistance is in top gear. As soon as you venture to destabilize the status quo, it becomes the voice that pleads with you to play it safe, to stay on the couch, to remain mediocre. Survival!
Yet, there’s the other force at work inside of you as well. The good guy. Your dream. It has opened your eyes to beauty and possibility. It keeps you awake at night, tells you you’re unique and encourages you contribute to humanity in an incredible way.
And it can win. The Resistance can lose its power and our dreams can be fulfilled.
The truth is, the good guy wins step by step. There’s no quick fix or immediate solution to winning the war within us; however, there are answers. In my efforts to write a meaningful story with my life, I’ve discovered a few tools:
1. Be friendly with The Resistance. Instead of being astounded by the fact that you’ll most likely want to flee in strenuous moments, acknowledge this reality and carry on. Some days I find myself saying, with a little tenderness, “Good morning, lizard brain, you’re awfully loud this morning. But we’re getting up, honey.” I tell it we’re gonna survive, and the chatter softens.
2. Follow through on commitments. I get up because I said I was going to get up. In other words, doing what I say I’m going to do increases my confidence to fight for my dreams. If you’ve never been one to follow through, start small. No matter what the voices in your head say, ignore them and, even if in a robotic manner, do what you said you were going to do. If you set your alarm to wake up at 7am to workout, don’t turn that alarm off! It’s better not to set it than to set it and break your commitment. Keep your commitments and celebrate the increase in trust you’ll create once you follow through!
3. Have a dream. Hone in your interests and choose something to work toward. Something I’ve always struggled with is wanting to do too many things, but I’ve heard countless experts on success communicate that we must narrow our focus if we want to see results.
4. Create a due date. Once you’ve built confidence in your ability to follow through with commitments you make to yourself, make a commitment to your dream. Write down the due date. Post it on the wall. Make it real.
5. Work hard, endure pain. There are a few people out there that get a kick out of pain, but most of us would rather treat our headaches with Aleve, our loneliness with Facebook, and our heartbreak with chocolate. We don’t like pain, but as soon as we understand that achieving the life we’ve always wanted takes sacrifice, we accept pain as part of the process.
As I train for Olympic qualifications in a few months, I am able to observe The Resistance actively at work, telling me that it’s all just too difficult. I have learned to acknowledge the survival mechanism at work and carry on, understanding that joy costs pain. This idea is put so well by Donald Miller, author of A Million Miles In A Thousand Years: “Here’s the truth about telling stories with your life. It’s going to sound like a great idea, and you are going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you’re not going to want to do it. It’s like that with writing books, and it’s like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.” 
No matter where you are on your journey, identify the war within. If you sense its existence, it’s because you are being called to greatness. You are being called out of mediocrity and sluggishness into a story that you are intricately and uniquely woven into. And this is a war you can win.
The only question remaining is will you take the necessary steps to conquer?

Photo Credit: http://ourmidnightchaos.tumblr.com/post/6374704150

Talk about Worship!

I read this blog a while back and wanted to share it with you guys...
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Missionary Scripture #1 from The View From Here (Ukraine)This missionary Scripture is Exodus 4:31. Cara has been blogging since October 2005. She now has a new blog here, but this is from the blog she wrote when she was in Ukraine. Here's what she has to say about her missionary Scripture choice...

"And when they realized that the Lord had seen their misery and was deeply concerned for them, they all bowed their heads and worshipped".
Exodus 4: 31 NLT
I always tested high on all those personalities test as a sanguine or choleric. I don't think I once came out as a melancholy. But now I feel like I get up on the melancholy philosophical side of bed more and more these days. Not depressed, not unhappy, just aware of the hurt in the world.

I don't know if it was moving to Ukraine - a country who has faced so much pain and suffering, or just getting older and starting to face more and more of my own weaknesses and failings, or simply just long cold winters that give you too much time to think...in the dark!

NOTE:[The sun goes down usually around 4:30 in the afternoon. Today was a BEAUTIFUL day, it was 5:15 and still not dark!] BUT Spring is coming! Ok, MONTHS away, but still...its coming!

So this is a very melancholy glance at an actually very optmimstic truth: SPRING is coming! And I don't just mean on the calendar. There is coming a time when this winter that holds the world in frozen stillness will end.

The cold hardness of hearts that calls evil good and good evil, the harsh winds of suffering that blow throughout the world, and the cold rain of sickness and disease that truly falls on the just and the unjust....someday it will all be over.

Lots of people believe there is a God. Or Something or Someone bigger. Maybe they even have a list of things they know about Him. Things He likes. Things He doesn't like. But pain and suffering...well, pull up your bootstraps and face it on your own.

Even religious people (being one I can speak with some authority! Ha!) have their own ecclisiastical "bootstraps"...."need to pray more, serve more, give more, do more...." the list goes on. Even worship more.

But what does this verse at the top say? It was realizing that God sees. That He in fact saw. And saw it all. Saw not just "the misery in the world" but THEIR misery. Saw the unrighteousness done to them. Saw the unrighteousness they did to others....and...what? Judged? Condemned? No, "was deeply concerned for them".

Lest I get a million emails from my wonderfully "Berean" brethren (you know who you are!)...yes, there is a time for God's judgement. And sin was condemned and paid for once and for all with Christ's death on the cross. All who wish to hold to that crucified reality,to the side of death and not the side of resurrection, hold to sin and all that means, yes - they will experience condemnation and judgement....but that's not the only option. "God is willing that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance".

So, ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming..

Jim, from http://Missionary-Blogs.com asked some of us to write about "A Passage I Love". A passage from the Bible...and first of all, I love that wording...a passage..because it really is a journey with the Bible. The book is alive, I'm tellin' ya! It moves, it speaks, it has something new to show me everytime I open it. It is a "passage", and it takes me to the heart of God.

But just ONE passage I love? You that are happily married...ONE thing you love about your spouse? I hope their are millions! About your children? About your parents? I can list right now lots of things about my family that I love without even trying (my apologies that I don't tell you all often enough...but I do love so much about all of you)...so...ok...ONE passage that I love?

Well, here it is again, folks. "And when they realized that the Lord had seen their misery and was deeply concerned for them, they all bowed their heads and worshipped".Exodus 4: 31 NLT

Whatever is your misery right now...God sees it. If you feel like no one sees it, God does. But He doesn't just see it, He cares. And He doesn't just care, He is DEEPLY CONCERNED.

More than your friends. More than your family. More than even your church, priest or pastor. His heart breaks on behalf of those He loves. He died for you. He loves you. These aren't just words, they are truth and they are life.

If you open your heart to them you will be amazed. True worship is this, it is a response. How can worship that which we do not know or that which we do not recognize as being worthy of worship. That's what is called religion. Going through the motion. WORSHIP is an outflowing of the heart in response to a realization that God IS and that He desires relationship with you.

He really loves you so much. He has drawn near to you at the Cross and through His Word, draw near to Him. Poke your head through the snow and turn to the Son. Spring IS coming!

GREAT is His name and GREATLY to be PRAISED!

Categories: Other Bloggers

From Dream to Destiny: How a Dream of a Missionary Life Awakened My Spirit

 I recently joined a challenge from julianna morlet who challenged the readers of her blog to write for an hour everyday for 7 days...

A life changing moment for me was a dream I had. In this dream I was in a meeting with a bunch of people. I was sitting in the back and the door was nearby. I walked through the door and heard a friend’s voice, and he was telling me that God has called me. And then I started seeing myself on a  mission field! I could not explain why, but I had so much peace! Usually, normal people would freak out if they were suddenly in a foreign place. But nope, not me! It is crazy now that I think about it because I could not see myself as a missionary! But God was showing me a part of His plan for my life! Then, I saw myself running on a dry, open field. I do not know why I was, but I could tell something was not right. Out of nowhere, I fell down face forward into the dirt. But as I fell, I knew I was dying! Then it was all over, and I woke up. Only God knows the plans He has for me and only He knows what tomorrow holds. But my life has changed because of it! Sometimes it is not a good thing that I had this dream because I am constantly wondering and thinking about what it means. But I am learning to trust in His plans and just live for today. Today has enough worries of its own (Matthew 6:34). Before I had this dream, I heard a preacher said, "The difference between being called and chosen is saying yes!" Saying yes to Him! I want to say yes and be a vessel that the Lord can use to advance His kingdom! I know it will be hard to follow God's call sometimes, but He said you will receive a hundred times as much as you gave up (Matthew 19:29). Do you have a life changing moment that shook you to your core? I would love to hear about it!

Categories: Other Bloggers 

 

To Live and Not Die

Suicide is something that we are faced with in this day. Over 1 million people commit suicide each year. Every minuet someone attempts to commit suicide. Why are so many people doing this? Is it because in this generation we have stopped showing people how much we love them? Or how much their appreciated and wanted? This subject is very dear to me because my sister's ex-boyfriend committed suicide a few months ago. He was about 15 years old. That's so young! He had the rest of his life ahead of him and then he was gone. It devastated her because she didn't know if she made him want to when they broke up. She has to live with the sadness of losing a friend and that guilt for the rest of her life not knowing why. A little of my own story has been dealing with depression, but I have found hope in Jesus Christ. I believe if more people knew how much God loved them less people wouldn't feel so alone. If they could just know that they have someone that understands then they wouldn't feel so isolated and left out. I think the more we talk with others about how we feel and what were going through we  find out how many people actually love us and care. I wish I could have known him before. I wonder what he was facing at home. A teacher could have talked to him and maybe helped him, but he didn't feel like anyone would listen. And that's all it takes. No one to listen. No one to show him they cared. It's sad that so many people feel like they have no one to turn to. No hope in life. Jesus said I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is life! He cares for every single person. God loved you so much that He would send His one and only Son to die so that you could live. You don't have to go though life wondering who cares. When He comes into your life there are battles and trials we face, but He will get you through them! You just have to hold on and trust Him. He doesn't want anyone to perish but for everyone to have eternal life. I don't know if you have asked Him into your heart, but I pray that you will...please pray:

 Dear Lord Jesus, come into my heart right now. forgive me of all my sins. Wash me and cleanse me. Set me free Lord Jesus. Jesus I thank you that you died for me on the cross. I believe that you have risen from the dead and that you are coming back again for me also. Jesus fill me with the Holy Spirit. Give me a passion for the lost, a hunger for the things of God and a Holy boldness to tell others about you. I confess that I'm saved, I'm born again, I'm forgiven and I'm on my way to heaven because I just asked you Lord Jesus to come into my heart. Amen!

 You don't have to live with guilt or shame from your past once you have asked Him into your life. You are free and all of your sins are behind you! You need to read the Word and renew your mind. Don't believe the lies of the enemy , believe truth. I'm so grateful that Christ has helped me through many seasons in my life. I couldn't have made it through without Him. This world is looking and searching for someone to notice them and God has given us the resources and commandment to tell them about Him. Where they can find hope and peace from this world. I'm tired of walking by and seeing so many hurt and suffering. I'm only one person and your only one person, but that's all it takes. Just one person speaking life into someone! Lord, I know we walk by so many! I know I have walked by when You have told me to tell that one person about you, but help us to see them. Help us to notice! Lord, I pray that this generation would care for one another and see others. Let us care and show others that we do. Let others see the hope we have found in You and help us share what You have given to us so freely! Thank You for loving us and giving us hope. Let our lives be testimony's that others would see there not alone! Amen!

I heard this amazing song and wanted to share it. Listen and know your not alone!