Gripped by Love

Wow! It has been a while since I written. I went home to see my family in North Carolina for a week. It was wonderful to see my family again and enjoy some warm weather.

 This is my Mom, sister, and I on Easter Sunday

This is my Mom and Dad and our little dog, Ellie.  

This morning I was reading Luke 9 about the blind man Jesus gave sight to. This man was blind from his birth and Jesus. When Jesus saw him, he had compassion on him. Jesus took clay from the ground and smeard it over the man’s eyes, then Jesus commanded him to go wash in the pool of water. When he washed in the water, he opened his eyes and he could see clearly everything around him. The Pharisees saw this man who was once blind and he proclaimed to the Pharisees how we received sight from Jesus. The former blind man’s parents feared and would not answer the Pharisees. The blind man was not ashamed because he had expeirenced the power of God. He openly proclaimed who Jesus was. The Pharisees rejected him and cast him out but he went away and began worshiping God! This man was not afraid to proclaim truth!

After reading this, God brought conviction upon my heart. I thought of different times where I could have proclaimed God’s truth to others and I did not because I was afraid of rejection. I know God is real and have seen Him work in my life, yet I was like the former blind man’s parents and did not proclaim His truth.  I believe a lot of times we are afraid to proclaim the gospel of Christ to those we meet because (1) we value the opinions of man more than pleasing God thus making man an idol. (2) We lack grateful for God because we have lost sight of what He has done for us. I think this is often true in my life, when I am afraid to share God’s truth with others. Although I can see physically, I somtimes lose sight spiritually of all the good things God has done for me. I become hardened and ungrateful to God. This once blind man could not only see physically now but he also saw spiritually all that God had done for him. He was focused on God’s goodness, that is how he could walk away from being cast out by the religious leaders of the day and begin to worship God. How about you are you seeing spiritually well today? Do you ponder upon God’s goodness to you or have you lost sight of God’s working in your life? Are you proclaiming God’s love and truth to others or are you more concerned with what man thinks rather than what God thinks?

 I also believe another reason why we are afraid to proclaim God’s truth is because we have not expeirenced God work in our life. We do not know if God is real or not. I know that for my life, I cannot see God work in my life in an area until I surrender that area of my heart to God and apply His ways to what I surrenderd. I have seen God work in my life as I have surrendered myself to Him and continue to surrender myself to Him. This gives me more boldness to proclaim God’s truth because I know He is real and can work in any one’s life.

Psalm 55:22, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

There have been times where I expeirence walls in my relationship with God. I am striving to love the Lord and yet there sometimes can be walls. What causes these walls? The Lord has shown me that whenever I feel a wall between me and Him, it is because I am trying to bear a burden that God has not called me to bear. I define a burden as trying to control the reigns of something that belongs to God. When I do this, I put unecessary pressure upon myself, wear myself out, my heart is consumed worry, and my relationship with the Lord suffers. When you are carrying a burden that is not given to God, you are not surrendered to Him in that area of your life and thus you are not able to enjoy a full sweet fellowship with Him, causing you to fell walls between you and Him. 

What then prevents us from giving our burdens to God and letting Him control the reigns - FEAR. Fear that God is not good and loving enough to do what is best in our life. We sometimes believe that we can take better care of the situation than God and we know better. The truth is we do not know what is best for ourselves, only God our Creator does. He created us and gave us our personailities and strengths and He knows what will truly satisfy us and what will turly give us pleasure in life. Besides, God is the giver of all true pleasure and pleasure is at His right hand. Psalm 16:11, “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at they right hand there are pleasurs forevermore.” It is His desire to give you pleasure in life and He will lead us down the path that He knows will bring us pleasure and delight!

What we may think will make us happy, once we get it we may find it was not what we wanted. Like when Solomon got all the riches of the world and pursued what He felt would make him happy and then he looked back at the and of his life and said it was all vain and sorrowful!

We can trust the Lord with our lives and know that whatever He allows in our life is for our ultimate good, happiness and pleasure in life. Every trial He sends our way He has a plan and purpose for. He wants to use it in your life. It is not His plan for you to fear but to trust Him with it and allow Him to bring about His perfect will for your life. Release your burdens upon the Lord and let him sustain you and be your strength and reward. Yield control to God over what fears and pressure you are facing and watch what He does! Let Him have those reigns, He already does, just acknowledge His complete contral and surrender to His perfect will.

Every new year I enjoy journaling about the past year. I record the ten most incerdible things God did in my life, ten greatest memories, and I also take time to evaluate last year. What failures did I have this past year, what hinderd me the most in my walk with the Lord, what robed the most joy from me? I seriously think about these things and then repent of wrong attitudes and failures and ask God to give me new goals and insights for the upcoming year to overcome these weakness.

This year God really showed me my biggest hinderance in my relationship with Him was a lack of faith and discontentment with circumstances. There were times last year when it seemed God was crushing my deepest dreams and desires. I did not respond correctly but got fustrated. However, now I can see how those things were all apart of God’s plan and He has now fulfilled the deisres of my heart in a greater way than I could have imagened.

In life, it will many times looks like the circumstances are against us, but they are not. It is only then that God is working behind the current situation to bring about His ultimate good and perfect plan for our life. It is during these times we must have faith and choose to rejoice and be joyful trusting in our good heavenly Father, who will never leave or forsake us. He has promised He will withold nothing good from those who love Him and He promises to work all things together for good to those who love Him (see Psalm 84:11 & Romans 8:28). We can trust these promises. I love this quote by Charles Spurgen, “If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem be against us, we do not believe God at all.”

 This was my challenge this year! To trust God and rejoice no matter what my circumstances may be this year. It is not what I go through this year that determines my joy and happiness but my response is to what happens to me. This year I want to be filled with God’s joy and gratefulness trusting in His good and loving care.  

Merry Christmas Everyone!! May the Lord richly bless you with His joy and peace as you celebrate the birth of His Son!!Remember the true meaning of Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ and we are celebrating all He has given us through His birth and life. Do not forget to take time to thank God for His Son, Jesus, and to ponder upon the Christmas story.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the goverment shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”                                                                                                                                                                                          -Something I look forward to every year is exchanging gifts with Jesus. For the past two years, I have asked God what He would like from me for Christmas, and I give Him for what He asks. He has asked me to give a special donations to a ministry or He reveals part of my heart that I have not given Him. I then ask God what He wanted to give me. I know God has already given me everything in Christ Jesus but I am asking for a special Christmas rehma “word” from God. God usually gives me a very special promise or rhema “word” from His Word that serves to guide me for the new year and the rest of my life. This has become a very special time for me. I challenge you to do the same thing, it is really incredible. 

What is in your heart you will see. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs. What you think in your heart, is your belief system and that determines who you are.

There are so many needs around us, people suffering, hurting, without hope, and without Christ. What is in our heart, will determine, whether or not we will see the needs of others. If you are focused on what you can get in life, then all you will see is how can others help you and always wonder why you cannot get more. If the thoughts of your heart, are on how you can love the Lord and encourage, strengthen and help others, then you will notice the needs of others around you. 

How does one become a giver? By learning to wait upon the Lord. “My soul, wait thou only upon God: for my expectation is from Him,” Psalm 62:5. Waiting upon God means looking to Him alone to meet all your needs and expectations instead of looking to people to meet those deepest needs of your heart, which they can never meet anyway because they did not create those legitmate needs in your heart. Only God, who created those needs, can fill them. As we wait upon God, we will not only have those deep needs in our heart meet but we will also be able to see the needs of others because we are not looking to others to meet our needs but we are looking to our Heavenly Father and He will give us His spiritual eyes to see the needs of others. Waiting upon God also takes away all fear because we can know that God will never leave nor forsake us, whereas people can.  This will give us security in God instead of putting security in people, which only produces emotional stress on a relationship and prevents you from becoming a true giver to that person. 

“It is more blessed to give than to receive,” Acts 20:35b. The word blessed in that verse actually means “fully satisfied.” Thus, you will only find full satisfaction in being a giver. As you give to others, you will find a deeper satisfaction in your heart than focusing on meeting your needs and wants. I know for me, I have a greater joy in life when my focus is right and I am looking to meet the needs of others. True joy and friendship is found in giving. “Every man is a friend of him that giveth gifts,” Proverbs.

This Christmas season, focus on being a giver to others around you and look for someone who is lonely or suffering during this season and encourage them by some act of kindness.

Acts of kindness to give to those around you:

• A smile (If someone does not have one, give them one of yours)
• An encouraging word or note (”Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop, but a good word maketh it glad”,      Proverbs 12:25.)
• A listening ear and understanding heart
• Meet a physical need of someone, who cannot meet it himself (such as shoes, cloths, food)
• Buy a Christmas gift for someone you know will not receive one, otherwise
• Visit a nursing home to play an instrument, sing songs, or to visit
• Share the gospel of Jesus Christ with someone (what Christmas is all about!) 

This is a copy of my newsletter I just sent out today. If you would like to receive my newsletter please go to my contact page and leave your info and I will add you to my newsletter contacts.

I hope everyone is having a happy Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is more than just having turkey and good food. It is about a day set aside to give thanks to God for all the things He has done for us this year. It easy to think of good things that God has done for us this year. He has provided food for us, clothing, shelter, and most importantly He has showed His love to each of us in many ways this year.

He that has given us His own Son to die for all our sins of the cross, how shall He not also freely give us all things? God has for everyone done little and big things throughout the year to show His love and care for us. He did this even when He knew we may not recognize it or even show gratefulness for what He has done for us. Why, because He loves us and wants our joy to be full.

Thankful for the Little Things

Our God is a romantic God and everyday He does things to pursue our heart and to show how much He loves and cares for us. God created women with romance in their heart so that He could fulfill that desire with Himself, if we open this area of our heart to Him. He already pursues and seeks to win us by wooing our heart to Him. He does this by doing little and big things that may seem like a concidence but they in reality they are not but are evidences of God working through people, nature, and circumstances to show His love for us and win Him to Himself.

For example, my dentist randomly picked out of all the colors a night guard container that was pink. For those who know me, my FAVORITE color is PINK. I know the dentist randomly picked this color because when I saw the case was pink, I remarked joyfully about how the case was pink and said I like pink. She then said great, we have several colors and I just grabbed this one. Well God knew my favorite color was pink, and he put in the dentist heart to give me a pink case just to show that He loves me and knows me intimately. Now every time I see that case, I think about how intimately God knows me and how he wants me to have good gifts to delight my heart. I know this story may sound kind of simple, but our God is like that, He knows everything about us and delights in doing even little simple things to pursue our hearts, as well as the big things. I could go on and one with stories of God doing little and BIG things to delight my heart but I just wanted to point out God’s love in the simple things that we often overlook and do not recognize the hand of God in our lives so intimately. John 10:14, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”

The same things that God has done in my life, I know you have similar stories because we serve the same God who loves and cares for your intimately too. I would love to hear these stories, if you want to share one. These Take time today and everyday to contemplate on all the little and big things that God has done to pursue your heart this year and thank Him for those and delight in the aspects of God that gave you those moments.

Song of Solomon 2:2-3, “As the lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloed among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

Thankful for the Bad Things
Ok, so it is easy to be thankful for the good things that happened to us this year but are we also thankful for the bad things? God is a sovereign and nothing can happen apart from His will, even the bad things. Matthew 10:29-31, “Are not two sparrow sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your hear are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are or more value than may sparrows.”

Why, then might you ask would God who is so good and loving allow bad things to happen in our life? God only allows bad things in our life so that He can break us through them so that His loving hands can mend up our heart and remold us in His Son’s image. As He does this He puts every precious tear we shed into a bottle and He sanctifies us and purges us from things in our heart that actually hurt us more deeply than the pain the trial brought to us. For example, through trials God rids us of our wicked pride, selfishness, fears, and most importantly idols that actually bring us harm to our lives. God then fills us with more of Himself, who is the giver of life.

The Bible says, “Blessed is the man, that endureth temptation for when He is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him,” (James 1:12). The Greek meaning of the crown of life is a joyfully fully satisfied life in Christ. We all want this type of life but we can only get it from going through trials. It is through those trials that He fills us with more of Himself, who is that rich abundant life. Our God is a god of compensation, He will not take something from us or take us through something giving us more grace and more of Himself. Elizabeth Prentis, who went through many deep trials beyond what most of us will ever face said, “I have never seen God be so good to me, when He seemed yet most severe.”

Every trial that happens in our life, God has a plan for it and there are benefits from it if you look for them. Something I try to do, is make a list of benefits of the difficult things that God has taken me through. I then thank for what He allowed and thank Him for the benefits. Then I soon realize that the trial is a blessing in disguise of a curse and I thus can be thankful for what God allowed in my life, for what I first may have thought was a curse. Deuteronomy 23:5, “…But the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee.”

Do not forgot to thank the Lord for the bad things as well and all the benefits He brought through it to you. You will find much freedom and healing in doing this, believe me I know I have.

May the Lord richly bless each one of you with a grateful heart to Him and more of Himself.

I have discovered a secret to conquering fear. I had a major problem with fear for the past two years. I have been clenching my teeth together every night tightly out of fear. I know this was from fear because it started when I became fearful about an incident that happened in my life. I would have nightmares of people chasing me and would often wake up in extreme fear. Whenver nightmares happened, my teeth would be clenched extra tight. I had tried everything to conquer this fear by fasting and praying but I could not get through to be delivered of this. I also had fears during the day too, such as being left alone or especially being alone in the dark outside.

I am now fear of all these fears and clenching my teeth and I want to share with you how I conquered this problem. This solution was shared with me by Dr. Bill Gothard, who I work for. I went to him one night and asked him how to conquer clenching my teeth. He told me that it was from stress and he believed it was the stress of fear. He encouraged me to make m bed an altar and offer myself as a sacrifice to God as I went to sleep at night. This concept is based on the verse in Psalm about not sinning and communing upon our bed with God by making sacrifices of righteousness. I had been making my bed an altar for several months and I had not conquered fear yet, so I decided I would ask God to show me why it was not working. I figured I must be misunderstanding the concept.

I prayed about it and God showed me I was misunderstanding the concept. To make my bed an altar meant to fully surrender myself to the Lord. I realized I had not fully surrendered myself to the Lord in the area of fear. I then as I was going to sleep that night I surrendered myself fully to the Lord. I told the Lord that I was not going to fear anymore but I was going to trust that He was good and loving and thus trust that whatever He allowed in my life was done in His love for me and was good. I then told God that I would thank Him for whatever He allowed because He is sovereign and everything He allows in my life is for a purpose based on Romans 8:28, “All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His puposes.” I fully committed and surrendered this area to God. I then felt immediate freedom.

I went to sleep quoting the verse in Psalm, “I will both lay me down in peace, for thou O ‘Lord only maketh me dwell in safety.” I woke in the middle of the night and my teeth were not clenched for the first time in almost two years. I felt God presence in the room and I was filled in my heart with an overwelming since of His love for me. I then told God with all my heart I loved Him too. I felt such sweet communion with God. Then the next morning I awoke refreshed before my alarm went off with joy in my heart.

I am now fear of fears. I do not clench my teeth anymore unless I go to bed with an unresolved issue. It has been two and a half weeks of freedom from fears and clenched teeth and I continue to make my bed God’s altar every night. I am also not fearful about being along, I have a new security and confidence in God. I am safe in His arms and I know nothing can happen to me outside of His will. So I have learned the secret of conquering fear, surrender to your fear and trust God. Nothing in our life can happen where God is not deeper still and He will not hold our hand through. I also learned that my fear was blocking me from intimate fellowship with God and when I cleared up the fears I was able to commune with God in a deep way upon my altar.

I challenge you to make your bed an altar tonight and let me know what happens.

It is said that you will be the same ten years from now, except for the people you meet and the books you read. The companions that we are around will shape and mold us, either more like Christ or they will bring out our vices. They can determine our destiny in life rather it is good or bad.

Proverbs 18:24 says, “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” The word “show himself friendly” in that verse actually means in the Hebrew to compromise godly standards. (see below) Strong #7489; to spoil (lit. by breaking to pieces); fig. to make good for nothing, i.e. bad (phys., soc., mor.)

To be popular among the crowd means compromising in what is right. Friends who do not want to build us up in the Lord and who are not desiring to be fully commited to following Christ, will destroy us by breaking our character into pieces and making us good for nothing in the hands of the Lord so that we cannot be used by Him. In essence, these types of friends are our foes because they are going to spoil our character and hinder us from having a fruitful and fulfilling walk with the Lord. We should not avoid these types of people but we should not make them our close friends either. As Christians we must be open and loving to all but only intimate with a few people, who you know have tested and proved character.

Many people, lonely on the inside, believe that they can find fulfilment in these types of friendships, however the Bible tells us we cannot. We will not find fulfilment in friendships that are not uplifting us to follow the Lord. They key to fulfilment is an intimate relationship with the Lord and serving Him by making discipels. Fulfilment is not found in friendships, trust me I know. I have been there. I was that lonely person one time, who thought I could find fulfiment in friendships so I compromised to make friends and I made friends but I did not end up with fulfilment but hurt, pain, and regret from the compromises that I made.

We all want deep intimate relationships with other loyal people. This is a natural God-given desire. God created us with a desire for compansionship when he made man in the Garden in Eden. Our sole existence is to have an intimate relationship with God. God wants to be our best friend. If God created us with a desire for companionship, then we can be sure He wants to fil that need with Himself first in our heart.

You may be wondering then, what type of friends are right to have? First and foremost, God has given us our parents to give us guidance on who we should be friends with. We should ask our parents counsel about friendships and have their blessing upon those we choose as our close companions. If we do not have their full blessing then things will not go well for us because of the friendship we made against their authority (see Epheisan 6:1-4).

But it is good to have friends who have a whole hearted desire to follow Jesus Christ. You can both encourage and uplift each other in the Lord. Proverbs 27:17, “Iron sharpenth iron; so a man sharpeneth the counternance of his friend.” It is good to have friends that will be able to go to you in love and correct you when you are wrong and to encourage you to keep pressing on the narrow way. Proverbs 27:5-6. “Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

If these type of friends are not around, then it is best not to compromise your relationship with the Lord but to use that time to draw closer to the Lord and know Him in an intimate way. If you are in this position, then you will have greater grace from God to develop a more deeper intimate relationship with Him. I was in this position for a few years and I treasure that time because I was able to build a deeper relationship with God. I know I would not have the blessings upon my life or a deeper walk with the Lord that I have now if I did not spend that time to get to know the Lord in a intimate way. God became my best friend to me during that time. I was also able to build a deeper relationship with my siblings and parents.