What's Your Super Power!?

Yesterday was one of those days when the Spirit was speaking as clearly as if He were using a PA system.....at least one only I could hear.


I did the scripture reading in church yesterday...1 Corinthians 13 (funny thing...I chose it to be read) and the theme message at our AWANA Kids Club at church last night was love and some verses on love.

I would like to share with you what I saw/heard through out yesterday
I read the full chapter 13 HCSB version:
I prefaced  my reading with the fact that even though this scripture is read at weddings a lot...and is thought of as the qualities of romantic  love...it is Christ's LOVE, what Christian love should look like
📖  Love: The Superior Way

If I speak human or angelic languages
but do not have love,
I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy
and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith
so that I can move mountains
but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor,
and if I give my body in order to boast^[a]
but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.
Love does not envy,
is not boastful, is not conceited,

does not act improperly,
is not selfish, is not provoked,
and does not keep a record of wrongs.

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness
but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.
But as for prophecies,
they will come to an end;
as for languages, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

For we know in part,
and we prophesy in part.

But when the perfect comes,
the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I put aside childish things.

For now we see indistinctly,  as in a mirror,

but then face to face.

Now I know in part,
but then I will know fully,
as I am fully known.

Now these three remain:
faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

Without love there would be no hope or faith

📖  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.       John 3:16-17

Because God LOVED first.....whoever  believes God gave His only Son so that we can have eternal life is faith. The Son came to save us is hope!

We are called...commanded to love like Christ

📖   My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.  John 15:12-17

It was super hero night at AWANA and I was Captain Valentine and my "super power" was LOVE.  I told all the kids they can have the same "super power"...and the source of that power is .....Jesus Christ.
You have it too you know....not just Captain Valentine or his team of AWANA super hero's....
Any one who puts their faith in Jesus Christ and their life in His hands has the super power love!
📖 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' Matthew 22:37-40

But we have to USE our super power... and use them for the good of others and for God!!
Patient
Kind
Giving
Encouraging
Forgiving
Selfless
Respectful
Humble
Gentle
Serve


SO What is your Super Power?!

The Greatest is LOVE!

🎶 Amazing Love (You Are My King) Newsboys

more Water please

I am finding last weeks post...which was only a few short days ago...to be something of a consternation to me.
It took me all week to post and then as soon as I posted it other scriptures that I  originally intended on using came to mind.  They weren't anywhere in there as I was writing!
SO maybe there needed to be a part 2....MAYBE there was more in this that I needed to hear!

This is what has been in my head since I posted Friday. The song As the Deer and the verses from Psalm 42

In reading this I see the writer cry out in his "dryness" and then remembers where his "water", his resources, his Hope, his LIFE comes from.
It shows a person being real, I put in bold the HOPE;

As the deer pants for streams of water, 

so my soul pants for you, my God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

    When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

By day the Lord directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Haven't we all been there?  I know I have!  I pray that you can also say that you have also found your Hope in Him, and say "I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God"!


📖 The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
²He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul;
 Psalm 23:1-3a (NKJV)

I pray you find restoration for your soul today!  You allow the Living Water to wash over you and revive your spirit!

Listen:As the Deer - Robin Mark

Dry Spot

A bit of an explanation about this post being so late!  Things get a bit crazy and it is all of a sudden Tuesday or Wednesday.  I actually started the blog....got interrupted and when I went back to it it wasn't there! Then more things distracted.  I wasn't sure if I should try to rewrite the same subject, but nothing else was coming to me,  maybe I was "dry"!?
AND then, "should I even post....so late?"
Well, God in his AMAZING, AWESOMENESS showed me at my Ladies Study group last night, that yes....the right subject and post as soon as I was able.
The verse from last night:

📖 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land 
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
 like a spring whose waters never fail.  Isaiah 58:11

 so here is what I started earlier in the week:
Have you ever felt that way, like you hit a dry patch?  were wandering in a desert?  Your well is empty?
I think we all have those days, weeks or even seasons where we feel empty, parched even.
Days when you feel you haven't any reserve.

BUT if we get to that point, I believe that, at least for me, it isn't God who is lacking, but ME!
 He is always there, He is always ready to fill me up,

📖 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." John 7:31-38

That is Christ's promise to me, to you....."Whoever believes will have living water flow from within!"
You can't be dry and parched with water flowing from within!
And Jesus hasn't gone anywhere, hasn't moved from His throne on high!  So it is me who has "moved" or "wandered"  so-to-speak.
During our study and discussion last night I was shown that we have to choose to spend time "soaking in the Living Water"  Jumping in with our whole bodies, and not just "dabbing a bit on with a cotton ball".  We have to want to be quenched.  Just like wanting that cold, refreshing drink on a hot day....we should desire a long drink from the Living Water that is offered to us any time.

Just as Jesus offered the Living water to the Samaritan woman, He offers it to us;

📖 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”    “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”     Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  John 4:10-14

The complete story   John 4:4-26

So IF you are feeling empty today; dry, parched, in need of a long drink...spend time with the only One who can fill you, the only One who can sustain you in times of drought.  You will be blessed and be able to bless others!

📖“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of droughtand never fails to bear fruit.”   Jeremiah 17:7-8

Son Tracking

It may seem odd that I am posting something about the sun after we have been blanketed in about 1-2  feet of snow, and no sunshine to be seen,
but maybe it is the PERFECT time!

In your travels have you noticed open fields covered in solar panels, large black table like objects?  The ones that inspired this blog are the ones that are on pivoting heads so that the solar cells can always be pointing in the direction of the sun's rays, the source of power.

I am sure you can see where I am going with this.....
We need to be SON trackers!  Always facing the Source of our power, our Light.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  John 8:12

Jesus Christ is the source of our Light, our power, our strength.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Isiah 40:29

 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

But what if it is dark, there are no rays of sun to be seen? You feel buried?
We  have to remember that there will be no time when it is completely dark, where there is no light.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. Psalm 139:11-12

There is NO darkness with Him....His light outshines any darkness!  That is our hope!  When we trust Christ we trust that though times we may struggle and it seems hopeless, His light is always there!

With the solar panels when there seems to be no light that is when the stored energy is used.

We need to "store up" by instilling God's word in our hearts so that when dark times come we have His Strength and Power to draw on.

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Deuteronomy 6:6

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11

I keep my eyes always on the Lord.    With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken  Psalm 16:8

If we maintain our Son tracking, daily turning our face, our eyes, our souls to Christ, we can remain a source of Light for those around us!
 The chorus to the old hymn, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus sums this up well for me:

And turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace     Songwriters: Helen Howarth Lemmel

Click on the link if you want to hear a full version  Turn Your Eyes. Upon Jesus. Lauren Daigle

I Love You Lord

I love You Lord and I lift my voice
to worship You, O my soul rejoice.
Take joy my King in what You hear,
may it be a sweet sweet sound in Your ear.

Songwriters: KLEIN LAURIE B

I Love You Lord lyrics © House Of Mercy Music, UMPG BRENTWOOD-BENSON PUB. OBO MARANATHA PRAISE, INC., UMPG BRENTWOOD-BENSON PUB. OBO HOUSE OF MERCY MUSIC

A short, simple praise chorus that I learned years ago.  It is one that goes through my head often....pieces of it have been in my head when I couldn't seem to come up with anything else, not even a prayer.
Recently it has become an integral beginning to my prayer time.
One day while I began to pray and this immediately began in my head....I realized it had become an automatic part of my communication with my Lord....and I began to disect it...was it a good way to start my prayer time? .... Was it a prayer in itself? Etc etc...

So I decided to look at it in parts:

"I love You Lord"
The basic tenant of who I am, of who any Christian is. We choose to love our God, to follow Him.
📖  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Matthew 22:37

"And I lift my voice"
That is what prayer is, praise is, worship is.
📖 I will lift my voice to sing Your praise, O my Strength—
    for You came to my defense.    O God, You have shown me Your loving mercy. Psalm 59:17 (the Voice)

"To worship you"
Not just during prayer time, but with my whole existence, worship my God
📖  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:24

"O, my soul rejoice"
I take joy, pleasure in the depths of my being in my relationship with my creator.  My soul, which is His.
📖  Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Philippians 4:4

"Take joy my King"
It becomes not about me, but about Him.  How can i serve Him? How can I Love Him? How can i bring Him Joy?
📖  For the Lord takes delight in his people;    he crowns the humble with victory. Psalm 149:4

"In what You hear"
It is about my responses to Him.  Not just the words I "speak" to Him, but what "sounds" resonate off my life, off all I do!!
📖 "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
    and his ears are attentive to their prayer, 1 Peter 3:12a

"May it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear" 
At the end of it all...my prayers, my activities, my day, my life...
may ALL of it separately and collectively bring honor, and glory to God the Father, but this line speaks of something even more intimate...what we do brings something to Him personally, meant only for His "ear"
and I pray it be melodious and sweet!
Now listen with your heart to the song and may it penetrate your prayer time!

I Love You Lord Petra