Faith

To live like Christ, you must live like a dead man....sounds weird? " I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2:20-21. We must die daily to ourself. No matter if we mess up or not, God has promised that He will complete the work that He started in us.

Always Relief

Psa 5:12  "For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield."

We, as Christians, don't always have it easy from looking at the circumstances, but no matter what happens, Christ is always there, and He will shield us. We will never stay in the valley forever, and we need to always look to God and know that He is there with us and will see us through!

How Am I During The Storms??

The devotional today uses Psalm 57 and talks about praising God no matter what. God wants us to have that steadfast heart that will praise Him and glorify Him even when we don't want to or things are not going our way.

I am the worst about that. When things start going bad, sometimes I am just like "I don't want to talk to anyone....." and that eventually rubs off onto my relationship with God (mainly I think because I know he'll tell me my attitude, etc is wrong!).

Throughout the Psalm, it also talks about mercy and truth which tie in to what Rich is talking about - especially last night!

What Goes On With Your Mouth

Proverbs 4:24 - "Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee."

A lot of times when I have thought of this verse, I have thought about language. Just a generalized language issue.....But, it's soooo much more than that! Froward means deceitful and perverse can be about anything from gossipping to bitterness to just down right meanness. The Proverbs are telling us to not only watch what words come out of our mouth but to watch HOW they come out HOW they are meant. If it can in any way hurt another, it shouldn't come out - even if that person is not around! A simple "see, I told you that would happen," could come out several different ways - we need to make sure it comes out loving and caring not "Haha I told you so!".

When He Looks At Me

The team that is at our church this week includes Michael and Candace Wessburg. Well, last year when they were at our church, they gave us a CD of a group that Candace's brothers sing in. I keep hearing it on my Windows Media Player

Many times in my life, I have let God down

Sins that I committed, broke the bond that we once had

But when I asked forgiveness, He is faithful to forgive

And when He looks at me, it's as if I never sinned.

I don't deserve God's mercy that He shows His sinful child

And things that I'm ashamed of, He forgives and forgets

And each time when I fail Him, He takes me back with open arms

And when He looks at me, what He sees is His son (daughter :-) )

Now I take a moment and reflect upon my life

I see the love that God commendeth that broke the chains of sin away

It's all because of Calvary and His life He gave that day

And when He looks at me, PRAISE GOD HE SEES THE BLOOD!

I don't deserve God's mercy that He shows His sinful child

And things that I'm ashamed of, He forgives and forgets

And each time when I fail Him, He takes me back with open arms

And when He looks at me, what He sees is His son (daughter :-) )

And each time when I fail Him, He takes me back with open arms

And when He looks at me, what He sees is His son (daughter :-) )!

Where We Go

Proverbs 4:26 "Ponder the paths of thy feet and let all thy ways be established."

We should think about where we are going. EVEN if it doesn't seem reasonable, but we know God has said it, we should do it! We shouldn't try to "jump the gun" on getting to where we should be. For example, Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. They concluded that the only "logical" way for Abraham to have the son God had promised was to go to Hagar, a younger woman, and have a child. They did have a child, but look where that child's lineage went! God did bless Sarah with a child also, which was the child He had promised. IN HIS TIME!

We must let all of the choices in our life be established by God!

Where Your Eyes Look

Proverbs 4:25 "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee."

A lot of times when I think of "keeping your eyes pure", I tend to think of men, not women, but that is not so! Even as women, there are many things that we could be looking at to keep our eyes not looking right on and not straight before us. The straight path is the one God wants us to take, but along the path are many many things that are appealing to our eyes. It could be a hobby. It could a TV show. It could be the kinds of books that leave us wishing for a better life than we have (and, yes, that can definitely apply to Christian fiction as well - been there!). Regardless of what our sight temptation is, we have to make sure that we follow God, and we follow Him diligently. A song I used to know goes something like this:

Keep in the middle of the road
Don't you look
To the left
Don't you look
To the right
Just keep in the middle of the road