Week 3 March 2018

Tweezer Wielding Friend

March 14, 2018

 This may be one of the weirdest blog concepts so far.....if you are not of the right generation or gender you may not get this...might even find it gross.  But bear with me.

Those old enough to understand when I talk about pesky, dark, coarse hair that begins to sprout in places NOT intended for those of  the fairer...less hairier sex will understand, if not relate.

Have you had that friend who would get close enough with her tweezers to pluck that one hair that is driving you crazy!  You can feel it on your chin but can't see it in any angle in the mirror.
They are willing to get right up close and personal...and it doesn't ooog them out, or maybe it does but they love you enough!
 Even close enough to see every blemish...but they stick with it and they pluck out that nasty, irritating hair.

I am fortunate enough to have several friends like that (literally willing to pluck a chin hair 😉) but even more importantly, as Christian women, willing to get up close and personal..to see my "warts"..my sins and all and pluck them out!
Or at least help me, when I can't see them..but by my actions and behavior they see they are there.

📖 A friend loves at all times, and a brother [sister] is born for a time of adversity. Proverbs 17: 17

📖 One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother [sister]. Proverbs 18:24

We are to remove anything that hinders us from walking as closely with Christ as possible, but sometimes we don't see what our closest friends may see.  OR we may see it, but decide not to remove it; too uncomfortable, too painful, or we are just used to having it there.  BUT a true friend, will come to us in love and help us.  Hopefully as gently and lovingly as possible, but let's be honest, sometimes it just HURTS!

We HAVE to remember that it is for God's glory that those ugly, dark little sins be removed....as soon as we are aware they are there.   So they don't grow....just as I spoke about last week in Beware the Frozen Heart.

📖 Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. 2 Corinthians 7:1

Now, we may be the friend wielding the tweezers!  WE MUST BE CAREFUL! We must make sure that this isn't just us wanting to remove something WE don't like from our friend, just because we may not like it.  IT MUST BE DONE with Christ's wisdom, Christ's direction and Christ's love.!  

 📖 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.  Matthew 7:1-5

You must pray and make sure that it isn't something in you first, that you have projected onto your friend. That nothing is hindering you from following Christ.  It is a huge task, being called to "pluck" a friend's sin and should not be taken lightly!  Those "tweezers" you hold in your hand are mighty in power, and only used for God's purpose will they be successful!

I pray that you have someone in your life that is close enough to God and to you to come at you with tweezers if necessary!  And that you are that kind of friend as well.  That you seek Christ daily and follow His direction....and IF you have to grab your tweezers it is done with gentleness, love and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that comes from a close walk with Christ!

Just a note: 

🙏🏼 Thank you God for giving me friends that aren't afraid to pick up those tweezers "in Jesus name"!!♥️

Week 2. March 2018

 March 7, 2018

Beware the Frozen Heart

photo by Rachel Ramsdell Photography

Last week I talked about the heart being pleasing to God.
📖 May the words if my mouth and the mediations of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.  Psalm.19:14

And how God is more concerned with our heart than our outward appearance.
📖 The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

When I was thinking about the condition of the heart a song from the animated Disney movie Frozen came to mind...and no, not Let It Go!

Beware the Frozen Heart 
Born of cold and winter air
And mountain rain combining
This icy force both foul and fair
Has a frozen heart worth mining

Cut through the heart, cold and clear
Strike for love and strike for fear
See the beauty sharp and sheer
Split the ice apart
And break the frozen heart

Beautiful, powerful, dangerous, cold
Ice has a magic can't be controlled
Stronger than one, stronger than ten
Stronger than a hundred men

Born of cold and winter air
And mountain rain combining
This icy force both foul and fair
Has a frozen heart worth mining

Cut through the heart, cold and clear
Strike for love and strike for fear
There's beauty and there's danger here
Split the ice apart
Beware the frozen heart

(Music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez)
📽 Beware the Frozen Heart

 Now I am going to take some liberties...as the song writers, I am certain, had NO spiritual message wrapped up in these lyrics.

But for me and my "funny" brain..
We must "beware the frozen heart."  A heart that becomes hardened with bitterness, anger, resentment, deceit, self righteousness, jealousy, fear, worry.
"powerful, dangerous, cold"  that is what these things are.  They can be very powerful....powerful enough to destroy relationships, powerful enough to change the course of our lives.  So powerful that we justify letting them stay in our heart...."I was hurt so I can be angry and bitter."  "I worked as hard as that person did yet they get the reward, the promotion."  I don't have to be honest, it would just cause turmoil and pain...and who is it hurting if I keep this secret." "I know I am right, and they are just being ridiculous."  
And as we continue to justify the unChrist like attitudes they will continue to make our hearts hard, and frozen.

📖 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

    there is no one who understands;

    there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away,

    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”

“Their throats are open graves;

    their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

    “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

   ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”

   “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile,  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—  he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Romans 3:9-26

I know that is a big chunk of scripture but I couldn't find a place to stop....it all was "IT"

We can not be righteous, not one of us, we can not be acceptable or pleasing to God, our hearts are frozen!  

and the frozen heart may be strong.....

"Stronger than one, stronger than ten

Stronger than a hundred men"

EXCEPT!  

NOT stronger than THE ONE! CHRIST!

Through Christ's blood and death on the cross He cuts through the frozen heart!  

He strikes with love!  love for us!

We need to be diligent and careful, not to let even a shard of that frozenness start to grow....

Otherwise it will spread as fast as frost on a window pane!  

📖 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32

We are all going to have times when the pieces of ice are there and seem to want to grow, but remember, through Him we have the power to "split the ice apart"

📖 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 5: 8-11

Can I get another AMEN!!!!
🙏🏼My prayer for you is that you are ever aware of those "shards" in your heart and that you allow God to melt them away!❤️

Week 1 March 2018

 March 1, 2018

Heart and Mouth

📖 " May these [Let the] words of my mouth and this [the]meditation of my heart be pleasing [acceptable] in Your [Thy] sight, [O] Lord, my Rock [Stength] and my redeemer." Psalm 19:14 NIV [KJV]

I had been working on another thought for this weeks blog....but yesterday this verse was part of my devotion...and it really spoke to me as I meditated on it...broke it apart and looked at it.
(It is a life verse of a very dear friend of mine, and when I see it I always think of her! ❤)

It is totally amazing to me how God has been continuing to show me "rest"  in verses that keep coming up!  As I read this, even though the word "rest" isn't in the verse it solidified things, for me at least.
REST, as I have said, isn't just the physical staying still, stop moving sort of rest.  Quiet our soul....so that we have nothing of ourselves in our minds as we rest....but we are filled with Him.



📖 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 1 Peter 1:8

It is fairly easy (well, maybe not for everyone) to control the words of our mouth.  In James it talks about how difficult it is to control the tongue. 
📖 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. James 3:5-6


but if we try hard we can usually stop those words from coming out our mouth.  BUT the thoughts are still in our mind!  We have them in our hearts! We may not tell that person just what we think of them, or that situation or that choice they made,  but we sure think about it....even dwell on it ...let it make us angry or bitter or resentful.  Or just self-righteous.
If the meditation of our hearts aren't all Christ then we can not expect our words to be pleasing.  And if we have "pleasant" words, but what is on our hearts is not pleasing ...those words are not pleasing to God.

The verse says ....the words of my mouth AND the meditation of my heart!  We must rest in Him so that we can capture every thought!

📖 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

 So that what is going on inside is as pleasing to Him as the outside seems.
What I see in scripture and what I know of the character of Christ.....He is as much  or more, concerned with matters of the heart....what's inside!  (another BLOG!)
📖The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

So as I read the verse, Psalm 19:14,
I realized that the stillness/rest I seek is for my soul....so that I can meditated on Him....so I am filled with Him.  and then the words of my mouth will flow from that...from Him...and then both, the mediations of my heart AND the words of my mouth, please Him today!
And my prayer for you is the same!

🙏🏼

📖 I thank my God every time I remember you.  In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,  so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,  filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. 
Philippians 1:3-6, 9-11

❤️

Week 4 February 2017

February 27, 2017

Random Acts Of Kindness 

I wonder, is there really such a thing as "random acts of kindness"  at least for those of us who are followers of Christ?

We are CALLED to perform acts of kindness.....SO that means that they aren't random right?
Stay with me.....

IF we have Christ in us then we have His Spirit in us....

📖 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,  gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-25

and as God's we are to "wear" kindness, like putting on a comfy sweater.
 ^📖 Therefore, God’s chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,  Colossians 3:12

The parable of the Good Samaritan is very clear about showing kindness.....not randomly, but when it is right in front of us.  click on the link to read the whole parable.

📖Luke 10:25-37

as does the Sheep and the Goats

📖Matthew25:31-46

But what about when it might not be needed......

as Christians even if kindness is not needed it is necessary!

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6

📖We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, and no one will find fault with our ministry. In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food. We prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love. (NLT)

Paul also says in Philippians 1:20-22

📖 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me.

LIVE as CHRIST!  And Christ showed kindness where ever He was, to who ever He came in contact with.

So today, this week, show kindness where ever you are to every one you meet and remember you are doing what you have been called to as a child of God!  and I believe it is why we are are here!

📖 Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-24 (HCSB)

Kindness and love to you until next time!