Which voice?

The voice of TRUTH must make its self known!!! Hop over to the BLOG and check it out!

Striving for Unsatisfaction!!

 Satisfaction is highly over-rated! Check out my blog Walkin' it Out to find out why!!!!

Faith or feelings ?

“For without FAITH it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6)

We can’t allow our feelings and emotions to dictate our faith. Our faith has nothing to do with feelings. Our faith has nothing to do with our emotions. Our faith is based solely on the Word of God and who He is.

We absolutely can't please God without faith . The Word says it is impossible!

Faith takes prayer. Faith takes patience. Faith takes endurance. We must never give up but we must stand fast and believe!

We are willing to try everything else first, but not faith. You see, our faith begins with perception. It is truth. It is not seeing but just believing. It's about imprinting our minds with the truth of God’s Word and the truth of who He is. That knowledge of His power and authority is what  strengthens our faith in God. Our faith is only as strong as the object of our faith. If our faith is in anything other than our Creator, we will be let down and disappointed.  When the object of our faith is God, we can't fail. It's all about knowing who He is and what He can do, and then believing.

Our faith will follow our trust. What we trust is what we place our faith in. Do we need other things to prop up our faith or do we cling to the truth and allow that faith in God to stand alone? 

So, is it our feelings and our emotions? If that is the case, they will always let us down. They will always fail us. They will always disappoint us. Feelings falter  and emotions change from day to day. So, when we place our trust in those things that are temporal and not permanent, we get temporary satisfaction.

But listen to God’s Word:

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly  abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” ( Ephesians 3:20)

We can't do anything worthwhile on our own. But through our faith in God, we can please Him. It is through His Power in us that this is possible. It is because He is constant and unchanging that we can place our trust and our faith in Him. He can do more than we could ever imagine in our lives if we would completely give Him the control that is already His.

By faith, Abraham walked in obedience. Immediate obedience. By faith, Enoch walked with God. By faith, Abel had a heart for God and offered the acceptable sacrifice. By faith, Sarah trusted in the promises of her God!

So, what about us? Has our faith set us apart? Has our faith made us different?

Is our faith causing us to be prayed up? Is our faith causing us to be surrendered?  Surrendered totally and willingly and lovingly with no questions asked?

Do you know what pleases God? Our submissive and immediate obedience to Him. Obedience when we can't see the end results. Obedience when our flesh is screaming ‘no’. Obedience when it seems impossible.   Obedience when it seems too hard. Faith requires response. It must be put into practice. And that is only accomplished through a deep faith in our God. Faith grabs hold of the truth in God’s Word and is energized by it and inspired by its Holy fire!

Faith determines our relationship with God. The whole weight of our faith rests in His Word. It is us looking to God and trusting in His promises. If we want to know what those promises are than we must be studying His Word. If we want that kind of relationship with our LORD, we must be cultivating our faith by looking deep into the scriptures. 

Believing God. Resting in Him. Trusting His Word.

True bible faith is not just submissive obedience, but it is also confident obedience. It is knowing that in spite of the situation or the circumstances or the consequences, we have placed our trust in the perfect source. We can know that God will never let us down. He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. He will always lead us down the perfect path that He has ordained for us.

“…For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say: The Lord is my helper; I will not fear…” (Hebrews 13:5-6)

When we develop our faith in Him, several things will begin to take place in our lives. We will begin studying His Word more. We will begin to have a strong desire to read the bible and hear from Him. We will begin seeking Him in all that we do. We will start to listen for His Voice and we will hear.

God speaks – we hear and  we trust and believe.  So, then we act.

Our faith is our total response to what God has revealed to us.

When our total response is simply obedience, we begin to set our minds solely on Him.

“Set your mind on things above not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2)

* Christ has to be first and foremost in our lives.

* When He is first, we will seek those things that are above and not just here on earth. 

* We come to Jesus for Jesus, not for a rescue out of a situation or from a situation.. But we         come just for Him.

Do we only want God when we are desperate? When we need something? When we have reached the end of ourselves and our solutions?

Do we want a healing or do we want a Healer??

Do we want merely salvation or do we truly want a Savior??

We can't have heaven without a sacrifice. Jesus isn't merely a rescuer. He is a Redeemer and a Restorer. He doesn't just save us from a situation but He will walk beside us through them.

Truly, when our faith is based on Him, it removes our eyes off of our own weaknesses and places our focus on Christ. Our life is then hid in Christ with God. We begin to understand what it means to be crucified with Christ and live no longer. We begin to die to self.  

We are transformed into a people of faith. Faith in Him and Him only. When this happens, our lives will show it and we will be the “different people” that God has called us to be. We no longer base our trust in God on our feelings or our situations. Instead, our faith is based on the power of God. For His honor and His glory and His praise. Forever.

Real faith says:

I will…. I do… I accept it and I receive it!

oh, how I love Jesus....

Oh, how I love Jesus!

 

Master.... Savior... LORD

 

He reaches down with His mighty arms and rescues me when I feel hopeless.

 

He reaches out with His loving arms and embraces me when I am weary.

He stretches forth His nail scarred hands and issues healing when I am in need.

 

He is Powerful.

Mighty.

Strong.

 

He sees broken hearts. He is aware of shattered spirits.

He tenderly touches the tears upon my face and wipes away the evidence of grief.

 

My God, the God who can walk on water;

 raise the dead;

 give blinded eyes their sight;

make the lame to walk and the deaf to hear.

 

He takes what is wrong and makes it right.

 

He cares about our hurting souls. He listens to our wounded cries. He hears the despairing utterances of our lips.

 

He knows.....

He knows the problem. He knows the pain and agony. He knows the outcome, because....

 

He is....

He is the first and the last.

He is the Almighty.

He is all Sovereignty and all Authority.

 

Master of the Sea.

Keeper of the Stars.

Creator of all things.

 

He is Maker. Redeemer. Righteousness. Ruler of all.

 

He is seed to the sower. Bread to the eater. God of the whole earth.

 

He knows the way that we take. He is our souls delight!

 

When we cry out in our frailty and deep need,

He extends sweet mercy upon us and responds.

 

Our unknown is known by Him. Our blindness of spirit becomes His surety as we follow Him.

 

He is HOPE.

He is LIGHT.

He is GRACE.

He is TRUTH.

He is FORGIVENESS.

 

The God who formed the earth and all that is in it,

 

loves us,

tends to us,

comforts us,

heals us,

saves us...

 

He is the great I AM. The beginning and the end.

 

He is faithful. He is true. He is peace. He is Holy.

 

The mere knowledge of who He is becomes our refuge.

 

We can trust without fear because He is our strength and our song and our salvation.

 

He leads us and guides us and never forsakes us.

 

He is the WORD. Perfect and Holy and Righteous.

 

Reaching down to lift me up. Reaching down to fill my heart.

 

Loving.

Caring.

 

He is my all.

 

Oh, How I love Jesus.

Master... Savior.... LORD....



do we walk in the light?

"God is light and in Him is no darkness at all"

(1 John 1:5)

~~~~~~~~~~

I love scriptures that just cut to the chase. No fancy preliminaries. No segues needed. Just the plain truth of the gospel issued in a few words. In God there is NO darkness. None. Not one bit.

I read this verse and asked myself a very important question. Am I walking in the light? Truly? Or am I allowing just a tad bit of darkness to creep in. Just enough to do some mighty damage if not replaced with the soft glow of Christ's light.

Am I allowing myself to possess the old nature in a certain matter? Instead of allowing the light to take over this darkness, I am giving power to it and in turn letting it have some form of control over me.  It doesn't take much darkness to dim the glorious light of TRUTH. Even just a shadow casts enough darkness to dim the brightness that existed first. 

Once this darkness is recognized, it is so important to take the necessary steps to drive it away. If we don't take immediate action it will interrupt our wonderful fellowship with Jesus.

 It will hinder our growth. It will steal our joy. It will cripple our walk. It will put out our light.

But thankfully, because of the precious and redeeming blood of Jesus, we can be forgiven. We can obtain new mercy. His generous grace can be applied and we can be free of that bondage of darkness.

You see,  God never breaks relationship with us. We won't lose our salvation. We can't be 'unborn' as a Christian once we've experienced rebirth in Him and through Him. But we can lose that close fellowship with our Savior when we allow the dark to overshadow the light.

I don't want to walk in darkness. Not even for a little while. I desire the glorious, radiant, blinding light of Christ to cover me and illuminate my every step.

I want to walk in TRUTH. I want to walk in the light of the one who is LIGHT. I want to walk in Him...

~~~~`

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and

just to forgive us our sins and to 

cleanse us from all unrighteousness"

(1 John 1:9)

Does fear ever grip you?

"Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.

In God I will praise His word,

In God I have put my trust;

I will not fear.

What can flesh do to me?"

(Psalms 56:3,4)

Does anyone besides me ever allow the deep pit of fear to consume them?

Literally,  allow it to take over any conscious and rational thought process that is trying to peek through?

And then when any resemblence of peace starts to settle in, that wave of undeniable, heart-stopping, fearfulness just swoops right in and just single-handedly knocks peace right off of its proverbial feet.

How can a Christian woman who is firmly grounded in her faith allow this to happen?

How can a woman who knows that her God is sovereign and powerful let an emotion like that grab hold and threaten her like that?

How in the world could I let myself get wrapped up in the tight fist of fear when I know clearly that the Word of God tells me not to fear?

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

(2 Timothy 1:7)

Simply put? I let my guard down and allowed my weaknesses to gain footing.

The devil knows just what our weakest traits are and he knows our areas where we are most vulnerable. And you better believe that the devil can and will use that to his greatest advantage every single time we give him the opportunity to do so.

All too often, we just leave ourselves wide open for him to attack.

I don't deal with this type of fear very often. Praise God for that. But there is one particuliar thing that I fear in a BIG way and satan loves nothing better than to torment me with the "what-if's" of it. Most of the time, I stay strong and am able to confront the fear and the lies that the devil tries to convince me are truth. I am able to confront and dismiss them only with the help of my precious Lord and Savior.

For whatever reason, this past week the devil was able (if only for a short period) to cause me a few days of misery as I allowed this unsubstantiated fear to wreak havoc on my spirit!  It literally was driving me a little crazy as I just allowed it to begin to take control of my every thought! How absurd is that? How utterly ridiculous was that on my part?

And all this took place after I had such a sweet time of communion with Jesus on Tuesday! The devil knew that I had met with Him in a mighty way and he just couldn't stand it.

Thank goodness, as I kept in the Word, the Lord was able to cut the old lying devil off at the pass. As I remained solidly in the scriptures and literally scoured every devotion book I own, I found peace everywhere I looked. I found Him in each place that my frenzy took me. God was busy calming my nerves and settling my fear.

One thing I learned from this. We have got to keep ourselves grounded deeply in the Word. We have got to keep ourselves imbedded in the scriptures at all times!

We need to KNOW His Word and we need to KNOW the Truth of His Word.

When we feel things like fear, that we know without a shadow of a doubt are NOT from God, we need to immediately rebuke it and cast it out. We need to replace that thought with a TRUTH from His Word, and stand firm on it. We need to stand on the promises of His Word. We need to quote the Truth of  His Word over and over to ourselves until it just soaks in our spirit. 

I am so thankful that God allowed me to emerge from this unscathed. He showed me mercy. He showed me grace. He lovingly guided me to His Word and led me to the fountain of Truth. I drank in that Truth deeply and let is satiate that thirst within me.  As it settled and calmed my spirit, I was able to see Him more clearly. Once again, He met me there in my need.

Praise you, Jesus, for your power and your might. Praise you for the Truth of Your Word. Praise you for loving and giving. You are my peace. I love you with all of my heart.

In the tight fist of Him,

Beth

Resolution? How about a life changing revelation?

I really don’t like the phrase “New Years resolution”. I’ve probably made hundreds of resolutions over the years. I’m sure I have made more than I have kept. I’m sure that I have made some that I had no intention of keeping. I know that I’ve made some that were broken before the first day of the new year was over. I have also made some several years in a row.

I made them with good intentions. I meant well. I wanted to do better. But the truth of the matter is, I need to make more than just a resolution for the new year. I need to be making a resolution that is life changing, not just year changing. A new years revelation. A life changing revelation.

I need to be focusing on what I can do to change my heart. Change my desires. Change my choices. Change me.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in Jeremiah 29:13-14.

“And You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord.”

My desire for my life in 2010 and beyond, is to be a seeker of God.

A true lover of and diligent seeker of God.

I want to know Him deeper and seek Him higher. I desire to know Him more intimately. I want to learn how to apply His Word to my life like never before.

I want to focus on embracing His plan for my life. Embracing it even when the circumstances are adverse. Learning to change ‘me’ during those times instead of expecting God to change the circumstances.

I want to focus on what He is teaching me and then surrendering to where He is leading.

I want to search the scriptures and find truth. Truth that speaks. Truth that convicts. Truth that changes.

My hearts cry is to be captivated by God. Be a true seeker. Walk in His ways. Keep His commandments. Love like God loves.

Oh, I want to be found by Him. I want His presence to consume me. To overpower me. To overwhelm me.

I pray that 2010 will be a year that God’s church rises up. A year that the people of Christ begin to let our voices be heard. A year that God speaks to us and we listen. A year that we take what He is speaking and we put feet to it. I pray that we will be true seekers of God. True seekers of the Truth. True lovers of the Word.

It’s time to seek the Lord!

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12)

Oh, Lord, as I seek You, consume me. Draw me close. Find me.

In the grip of His precious Grace,