Tag: life

What kind of movies is God watching?

It isn’t like God sits down in front of a TV to relax. He is at work all the time but He has the ultimate big screen. He sees it all, even behind the scenes. He sees the gentleness and the violence, the love and the hate, the gladness and the sadness, the drama and what really goes on in our hearts, the war and the peace, the pure and the obscene, the funny and the serious, idleness and action, horror and courage. He looks down every day at the lives we live and sees it all. He cries, laughs, gets angry and has compassion on the people that won’t trust Him with the script for a better (plans to prosper not to harm), easier (my yoke is light), more satisfying role (purpose) in life.

God can handle what He sees even if He does not approve but we should be careful what we allow our eyes and mind to be exposed to. Not all things are beneficial.

Women Are Important To God

Strong Women: May we know them. May we raise them. May we be them.

We live with less power than we have available to us. We can gain access to that power by continuing to learn who we are in Christ and then applying what we learn to how we live.

Beth Moore has said, “We can know so much more than we know”.

Women are important to God and He has a purpose for each of us and wants us to know Him more fully.

We have all experience closed doors and open doors in our life. That is God’s way of leading us. God has a plan for each of us.

11 In him we were also chosen,[a] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:11-12 (NIV)

God chose us and it is through Him that we find out who we are and what our purpose is. He knew us before we knew Him and had plans for us that would give us hope and joy. He will work all things together for His overall purpose and His glory.


Paul during his 1st missionary trip was enjoying success. And then he looked to the north, south, and east but had road blocks. Those closed doors led to an open door in the west. Lydia was there and responded to Paul’s message.

Max Lucado wrote “Is Lydia the reason the Holy Spirit blocked Paul’s path? Was God ready to highlight the value of his daughters? Perhaps. In a culture that enslaved and degraded women, God elevated them to salvation coheirs with men. Proof? The first person in the Western world to receive the Christian promise or host a Christian missionary was a female.”

We are all loved and valued by a gracious God that wants us to know that we are loved. The more we learn about God and draw closer to God, the more we will realize the love He has for us.

Jack Hayford says that those who answer Christ’s call are the freed. The freed then become the freers.

He writes, “Christ’s light seem  to penetrate gradually. Boldness does not come quickly, but only as the freed learn the truth. Ongoing patterns of discovery, then, are needful–a constant challenging of old patterns of thought through growth in the truth. Ignorance is rampant, even among the enlightened. Bondage straps minds, even among the freed. There are power-releasing truths to be discovered. Truths which will become implemented as keys, as the freed become the freers.”

 When we realize what we have in Christ, we need to share it with those that need it. It is something that we should desire for everyone. It is by this process that we can take back ground that was once ours that Satan has stolen from us.

God is working. There is power within reach and if we continue to desire to have more of God in our life, we will see that power work. He won’t just give it to us. God wants us to have it but we have to want it, ask for it and seek it.

Some notes from listening to Dr. James Diehl

His Sermon was from Revelation 1, John being put on the island of Patmos. He compared it to Alcatraz. We all have our Alcatraz, our tough times we have to go through. He told us the story of losing his son to cancer. Nearly all of us will face an Alcatraz of some type. We were never promised to not have an Alcatraz, but we are promised that Jesus would go through it with us and we will survive. We do win. We do come out on the other side victorious. We may not get the answers to our why’s. We have to give it to God over and over if necessary. satan (no that is not a typo, satan is little and I have come to a conclusion that I am no longer going to consider his name proper even if it is the start of a sentence) uses our Alcatraz to try to steal our joy and we can’t let him do that. We have to keep asking God to fill us. John was in the Spirit on that island with no choir to sing to him, no music to listen to and no one to talk to but God. God came and spoke to him. If we seek God in our car, our work place, our school, etc., we can also hear from God. The Holy Spirit will talk to us in our Alcatraz. We do not have to allow satan to use our Alcatraz to steal our joy. We can’t give up even if we feel like it at times. We can have joy through Jesus Christ no matter what we go through. John didn’t die there. God will be exalted. We should exalt Him and He will work. We can be on the winning side. God is bigger than all our problems and any Alcatraz that we must face. God is good.

Good Decisions Or Bad Decisions

Much of our life is determined by the decisions we make.

The type of decisions we make are often based on the ones we have made in the past. If we make good decisions, it is easier to continue down that path of making good decisions. The same goes for bad ones.

If we are going down a path of making bad decisions, it seems to escalate and the results continue to get worse. With bad decisions, it is hard to change directions. If we want to reverse directions, we must be intentional. We need to start doing positive things on purpose. As we choose to make good decisions, it is also true that it will escalate but it will be in a positive directions. The results will continue to get better.

Once we get switched in the right direction, we must continue to train ourselves to choose correctly. If we have made bad decisions in the past and have chosen to get on the correct path, we still need to be on guard that we are not deceived into taking a wrong turn. If not recognized quickly, we can be headed in the wrong direction long enough that it will take more effort to get back. This can happen to any of us no matter what path we have been on in the past so we all need to stay aware of where our decisions are leading.

Our brain needs to be trained and it will usually follow the same path whether good or bad. It is our choice which direction we want our life to be heading. The longer we are on a certain path, the harder it is to change. If we follow a bad decision path, it will take great effort to get switched to the good path. That switch can be painful at times depending on where our bad decisions have taken us. If we follow a good decision path, it will get easier the longer we are on it but we have to continue to be watchful. Most importantly to be aware that we have the ability to fail at any moment. We will never be above making a wrong choice. Keeping God at the center of our life will increase our chances of making good decisions.

God gives us the choice. We will benefit by asking for His help in making our choices.

God Can Get You Through “It”

I went to a Gordon Mote concert. As Gordon took us through a series of songs, it occurred to me how God had a plan in my life that I could have never understood as I began to walk with God. In my late teens, maybe early 20’s, our pianist at our church chose a song for me to sing. It was Through It All. That song resonated with me because it is not easy to be a teen or a young person and not have some struggles. I was thankful at that time for the struggles that God brought me through for I knew I would not be the person I was becoming without the struggles that God allowed.  I believe those struggles may be greater today for teens, but I don’t know some say it is the same but it probably depends on our perspective and our experience. That is a long time back to remember but I believe I knew then that no matter what I would face, God would be there to get me through it.

Through It All

As Gordon Mote finished that song, he said he didn’t know what the “it” was in everyone’s life but we all have an “it” that God can bring us through. Some of you know what my “it” is during this season of my life and I would have never expected to be where I am today. Gordon went on later to sing Something Beautiful. We had just sang that song in church the Sunday before and I was thinking how it says that God brings beauty when we bring him our confusion, our brokenness and strife. I think of the confusion we bring to Him when we come to Him for salvation. In the midst of my current confusion, I believe that God can bring beauty from any confusion that we go through while we walk with Him. When I mention confusion, I don’t mean the kind satan throws at us but the confusion of now knowing God’s plan in the situation and what outcome He is striving for or how long it is going to take.

Something Beautiful

 I am not sorry for my struggles that God is allowing because I know that I am stronger because of them. One thing I believe I am doing is making Satan sorry for even trying to mess with me and someone that I love. I don’t plan on stopping that mission. I am waiting for the beauty that will come from the confusion that I am currently going through with my “it”. God is good in the midst of  anything that comes our way that we may be confused about. We don’t always know what God is doing but we can know that it will be right because God is always right.

Something Good Is About To Happen

Humble yourselves and pray looking to heaven expecting Him to work in your situation.

Praise Him in all things no matter what your current situation. He will get you through it.

I believe the longer and the closer you walk with Christ, the more you will see the fingerprints He has made in your life before you even realized how much He was there with you, even before you were walking with Him. Once you begin walking with Him, you will realize He was there all the time. You will begin to see those fingerprints that you didn’t notice at the time and they will mean more to you than they would have then.