The Real Reality

Most people know the quote "we walk by faith and not by sight", and sometimes it even comes across as a little bit cliche.

So it is with the reality of WHO we are in Christ and WHAT we have. Did you know I am RICH? If you are a Christian, so are you? Of course, today as I sit here, I don't have two pennies in my purse to rub together, but nonetheless, I am rich. I am blessed. I am chosen, I am sealed with the holy Ghost. I am forgiven. God has accepted me in the beloved.

We are continuing our study in Ephesians 1 in Sunday school and this was primarily what the theme was about, and it went well with the Sunday morning message as well--which was on Psalm 108, and standing fixed or steadfast.

I'll be the first to admit, I fail more often than I wish I did in these areas. I am an analytical person. I know people always say women are more emotional and men are more analytical but I tend to not fit in that mold. I like things to make sense to me in black and white, on paper (or computer screen). I don't naturally walk by faith. I like to make out goals and plans, and have all of the contingencies covered. When things go wrong, sometimes, if I am in the Spirit, I react properly, thanking God anyway, and all that. If I am in the flesh, I have some degree of meltdown, temper-tantrum or hissy fit. I do NOT like my plans being messed with.

BUT, God has a plan for our lives too...and sometimes that plan conflicts with our plans. When we're looking at ME--my plans, what I want, etc. instead of looking at God...what God has done for us, what God is doing for us, what God has promised us, that God is involved in our lives working out His plans and purposes in just the right way...we can be miserable. When we look at God and what He is doing, it changes everything.

Someone in our church lost their baby in the middle of the pregnancy--but God is still faithful, and is working out His plans and purposes in their lives. So many health great health issues. One dear saint I know online lost her husband this week, and another wrote to an egroup about losing her dad---and yet God has a plan and purpose in all of it.

The real difference in how we handle the adversity we deal with based on whether or not we have our eyes on God or if we are "looking out for number 1" (ourselves). I've found that the God who declares the end from the beginning is much better at deciding what is best for me than I am, because I only see in the here and now, as do you.

Read Ephesians 1 today...and think about it.

Defending the Faith Sunday (Oct. 28th, 2007)

This week, I read an article (wish I had it now) about a scientist whose work is often quoted in creation science books and articles, who noted back in the 1960s about the unlikelihood of life just happening...the man is an evolutionist, incidentally. Well, last week there was an article about him recanting his whole paper that he wrote on that topic because of how disheartened he was about the creationists "misusing" his research. He basically said that his paper there was not very serious, and downplayed the importance of it.

When someone is confronted with the reality of God at work, and hears the gospel and/or sees miracles happen before his or her eyes, they have two choices--they can choose to believe or not. Sometimes when you take evangelism courses, much is covered about apologetics (the extra=biblical evidences for the Christian faith), but the truth is, if you have ever talked to someone who is hard hearted, some people don't really care if there is evidence or not. They will even get angry, start to cuss or even get violent...they don't want to be confused with facts.

Even someone like Darwin, who titled one of his chapters of Origin of Species, "The PROBLEM with the Fossil Record" (the chapter laments the fact that no proof exists---yet---to prove his insane claims, only the proof of natural selection within species), will reject truth if it doesn't line up with what they want to believe. He'd rather wish that some day we might find proof to back up his ideas, than believe in a Creator.

For the record, no proof has ever been found. A few times a "missing link" was found only to be later disproved. If however, life existed for billions of years, would we not expect the fossil record to be FULL of transitory creatures? No such creatures exist...but I don't have time to go into all of that now.

I read this quote this week which I think sums it up quite well: "Even if a miracle should be wrought in the open marketplace before a thousand sober witnesses, I would rather doubt my senses than admit a miracle" (Voltaire, French Philosopher).

And you thought science was about observing and classifying facts! Silly you! Not everyone who claims that they believe in infallible science and not so-called "blind faith" religion is being honest about that.

This sort of thing has been going on since the beginning of time...even on the day of Pentecost, 120 people get filled with the Holy Ghost and start speaking in other languages which the audience can understand as their own home dialects, and the skeptics immediately think they are drunk. Oh, sure, don'tcha know that when you get drunk you can always speak in foriegn lanaguages. LOL (as was pointed out during a recent Bible Institute class I was in)

Some people would rather you not confuse them with logic or facts.

Chosen and Accepted----by GOD!

We had a great day at church yesterday. Most of the time, I always Intend to blog about what God was showing me in church, but so often that does not happen! I get so busy with *LIFE* that I forget to share ;). In Sunday School, we are going through the book of Ephesians. We were in Ephesians 1:3-6 yesterday. There was a lot of meat there!!

When you really stop and think about it, what an amazing thought that God has chosen and accepted us into His family--and that His acceptance of us is not based on our performance but on what Christ has done! I think that latter part many of us struggle with the most.We will say we were saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9) but we live as though our works will be what keeps us saved. However, if we weren't good enough to earn salvation, how on earth can we possibly be good enough to keep it on our own? Such a thing just isn't possible!

My husband and I were involved in lots of different churches over the years...we were just talking about it, but we have been at our current church the longest! That's a scary thought, as I still feel so new; however, we've been here for almost 7 years. There are a lot of variations on this teaching. I've been in churches where you could feel both saved and lost dozens of times each day--every errant thought sent you back to damnation. I've been in churches where only the "really big sins" made your salvation unsteady. I've been in churches on the other end where, because of God's grace, we were told we weren't supposed to change anything of our lifestyle or do anything the Bible teaches because we're saved already. So many teachings...and yet they didn't sit right with me as neither seems to me to be teaching the character and heart of our Lord. Is He a mean, abusive Father who stands over us with a big stick, waiting to beat on us for messing up and rejecting us the second we don't keep a standard only His Son has been able to keep? Is He a jolly Santa figure, who plays the permissive parent, and delights to let us run wild because "it's all grace, anyways"? Or is He a firm yet loving parent, guiding us step by step, loving us even when we fail, but loving us enough to gently chastise us when we go astray, and lead us in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake?

Maybe it has something to do with upbringing too--that is how we were raised affects how we view God. Growing up I heard "I love you" a lot, but I didn't feel loved or accepted.There was verbal abuse that undermined any affect those three empty words ever did in my heart. For a long time, it was hard to accept that God did in fact love me unconditionally, that he didn't dismiss my hearts desires with a cruel "Don't be so foolish!" and realizing that He didn't look down on me with a look of rejection whenever I screwed up. I think everyone's upbringing, to one way or another, colors how they view God until they mature in the faith to the point where they know God well enough to know His character is contrary to the flawed ways earthly parents raise their children.

In churches where eternal insecurity (the doctrine that you can lose your salvation) is taught, usually the argument is made that if we are saved by grace, what reason would we have to obey God? How about love of a father? Imagine this: if you were a teenager, and your daddy indicated to you that every time you messed up he was turning his back on you, and no longer your father, what sort of feelings would you have for that guy? If you are like me, you'd say, FINE! I'll take my chances down at the soup kitchen and homeless shelter, and you'd move out. If you aren't so outspoken, you'd maybe silently resent that, and leave as soon as you were old enough or maybe harbor some bitterness. You'd NOT be motivated by love to please your daddy. If you obeyed at all, it would be just to keep a roof over your head. However, if you know that you are loved even if you were a teenager, and you came home to tell your parents you were pregnant or if you called them from the county jail for stealing cars, you'd probably be more motivated NOT to screw up and disappoint them. For a while, believing that God would cast me out if I were to mess up "too badly", I lived paralyzed in that fear of rejection. When I did mess up, I usually didn't quickly grovel back to Him...I ran from Him. I messed up and have lost my salvation, so time to live like an unsaved person for a few days (or months)! However, when I know that God, in His mercies, loves and accepts me, and sent His son Jesus to die on the cross for my sins (that is, every sin I ever committed and will commit!), then of course I am going to not want to disappoint my heavenly father.

My heart's desire is to please Him, and to bring Glory to His name. I so often fail...but He still loves me. Father God looks at me and sees Christ's blood instead of my failures. We thrive in the security we have as believers. We are not worried about earning God's love, or performing. Practical truth in light of positional truth, we were taught yesterday, means that I have freedom to live securely in Christ. Amen and amen!

What a blessing!

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is this: "Do you ever get discouraged regarding finances/living on one income/financial struggles/hardships/hard times?"

The short answer: yes.

I think it is human nature...we are all control freaks to one degree or another LOL. When things are out of our control and going badly it feels like you are racing down a road with no breaks and no steering wheel.

I was having one of those times again recently. About 6 months ago, someone hacked my shopping cart (they didn't steal information, but instead used my shopping cart as a proxy server), and then when I was fixing the problem I had the classic "one thing after another" go wrong...including deleting my database by accident. Unfortuately, MySQL doesn't warn you before you drop a table from your database...it just does it and there is no undo button....and in all of that, my orders dropped to zero, and I felt like I had to take care of some needs that I knew were stressing my dh out.

Well....thankfully the Lord provided for that through a series of web design jobs and I was able to meet those needs after tithes. A few weeks later though as I was in my prayer closet, I felt convicted about the fact that I started this business as a means to give a faith promise offering to missions, and God had faithfully provided the amount that I had promised Him towards missions (and often beyond that amount)...but now I was using what I earned toward other things...not that they were bad, but I had become behind by two months in what I had promised the Lord all because I was feeling really panicky about money and spending what I had promised God in private towards missions on other things. Ever notice that? When you get really worried about money, most of us don't cut out things that matter to us in the here and now, day to day--we cut out things we give to others, and to the Lord.

Anyway...long story short...I felt very convicted about that, and I have prayed and asked the Lord to help me be more faithful, and also asked Him to renew my faith, and to supernaturally provide my faith promise. Today, after praying, I heard the ding that indicates I received an email, and lo, an order for the amount of my delinquent faith promise plus enough for the ATM fee (LOL God thinks of everything).

I shared this with my 14 year old dd who rejoiced with me, and then said, "Mom, I am trusting God for my faith promise too, but I haven't had any income because I get paid only when you sell a Bread by Hand Ebook (because she illustrated it), and you haven't had any sales..." so we prayed, and when I came back in tonight to check email, she had nearly enough to give her faith promise.

It's exciting to watch God move and to be a conduit of His blessings...receiving so we can give.

And that is what we often forget when we are worried about provision...we forget how unbelievable awesome it is to watch God use means other than a steady income to provide. If I had "a real job" (whatever that is ;)), I would have a regular income, and know that next week I will get paid x-amount of dollars...but when I am first and foremost a keeper at home, with a small amount of income on the side through an online business, I don't have the same "security"....but it is more exciting watching God move and also watching Him teach me during those dry times.

Great Music!

I just found the most wonderful Web radio station, Abiding Radio.com What a blessing.

This radio station has some gorgeous traditional-style music on it, including the music of the Steve Petit team, Outreach Quartet, and others. Check it out!

Happy Born Again Birthday to Me :-)

God is so good.

It's been 17 years of serving Him as of today. Seventeen years ago today, I wandered around lost in Prague, Czechoslovakia in the heat of the blazing August sun (lost both literally and figuratively), until I ran into someone who told me of a Savior who loved me and who died for me. I had long been convinced of my need for a Savior but was convinced through wrong information that I had gone beyond the point that God could forgive me. How very wrong that notion is! There is no one so wicked that God would not save him or her if they would only call upon the name of Jesus.

As much as it disgusts me sometimes (in my human frailty and fleshly sense of "justice), even Adolf Hitler, were he to call upon Jesus while still alive, would be in heaven today.

Even Osama Bin Laden is not beyond salvation's reach--that's how powerful Jesus' blood is.

Even Napolean. Or Mussalini. Or any of the wicked persons of past or present. Jesus can and will forgive anyone.

He even forgave and received me, when I called upon the name of Jesus.And, He'll do the same for you.

If you need the savior, call upon His name today! For more information about the free gift He has for you, click here.

Careless Blasphemy

Have you ever noticed how often those around you (maybe even you!) use the phrase "Oh my G--!" or even the sanitized "Oh my Gosh!"?? I'm not sure why I was thinking of this again recently, but today while I was at the bank and then the grocers, I noticed how many people I walked passed, or interacted with (in however remote a way) used that phrase. I wasn't in the store more than 20 minutes and I think I heard it about 100 times, in addition to some other uses of God's name (none of which were in the "reverencing God" context).

I think that most of our culture seems to commit what I would call "Careless blasphemy" on a daily basis (maybe even hourly! or maybe "minute by minute")...I say careless because few people even seem to be phased at all by it or notice it or are bothered by it...if you watch TV or see a movie, chances are that will be rampant throughout.

When I was a new Christian, I didn't even realize this...I think alot of people don't. From birth this sort of thing was so common in our family, that it was just a normal part of speech that I didn't even notice I said...until an older, seasoned saint took me aside and spoke to me about it. I admit to being a little put out over it because I couldn't grasp that I was saying it that much, after all...but sure enough, I started to notice it more and more, and actively work to break that habit!

How do you handle the Lord's name? Carefully, reverently, or carelessly?