Morning Joy

Deuteronomy 4:9, “But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren."

"Watch out! Be careful..." The warnings that we hear, we refuse because of the stubborn cries of what we want. Then the painful consequences of our choices. But then, with a mighty wind of His grace, if we will call to Him, He always forgives. He can turn the adulterous woman into a wife of noble character. He can take the tainted and make her pure. If we call to Him, He will... If we seek Him, He will... He is a mighty God that can do anything, but He is a true gentleman and He will never force us against our will. He waits patiently for us to turn to Him. He whispers sweetly in our hearts, till we are ready to hear. If we are willing to hear, if we pause just long enough from the lure of our own desires, we can hear Him. He is always waiting for us to let Him help us, to let Him change us.

I speak often about pain, sin, consequences; but the joy of my heat is in my Saviour, my Redeemer. When I speak of the pain I am saying "Watch out!" It is so much harder on your spirit if you choose not to heed the warnings. If we go against God, whatever it may be, if we choose to go against Him there are always consequences. Do you see the warning, yet stubbornly refuse to listen to them. In our pride, in our ignorance we think that we can live our life our way, but there are laws God has set in motion that will always catch up to us somewhere. But, we have a patient, loving God who will wait for us to call Him. When we finally choose Him, He will make us pure. We may have pain in the night of our life, but joy comes in the morning. When we turn on the light of life, our hearts begin to change. He can change the desire of our hearts if we will continually seek Him. He can change our life if we will let Him. I often travel through the painful memories of my past in order to give someone else the ability to make a much more wise decision than I did. It hurts to look back upon your life and think, you were such a fool. The wise learn from others mistakes. No one should ever be able to say, "But I did not know." The warnings are out there. When you do finally turn to Him, joy comes in the morning. Seek Him diligently, so that He can change everything for the better. He can make the tarnished, pure. He can change the desires of your heart. He can remove all of the scars. The joys I sing to Him in the mornings...

Psalm 9:1-2, 10-12, "I will praise You, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things You have done. I will be filled with joy because of You. I will sing praises to Your Name, O Most High... Those who know Your Name trust in You, for You, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for You. Sing praises to the Lord who reigns in Jerusalem. Tell the world about His unforgettable deeds... He does not ignore the cries of those who cry to Him for help."

In Christ we become a new creation. We are born again. He changes our DNA. Seeking Him, changes who we are. It is in seeking Him that I have found the true joy in living. It is seeking Him that I can sing a new song. It is in seeking Him that I have found my purpose for living. He did not come into this world to make bad people good, but to bring life to the dead. Are you alive today?

Arrows Flying

Oswald Chambers, "Purity is not innocence— it is much more than that. Purity is the result of continued spiritual harmony with God. We have to grow in purity. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our character— it is 'the pure in heart' who 'see God.'"

Yesterday I felt a sting. Someone told me that the high school boys had made a statement about a substitute teacher that had been a stripper. It stung. Maybe it hurt because my emotions had already been running high from the funeral. Satan does tend to strike when we are the weakest. If I allowed myself to walk into any situation alone, I would be overcome with fear of my past. I couldn't do this alone. But at the same time, I cannot not do what I know God is wanting me to do, and that is to share my shame so others know they do not have to wallow in theirs.

Even though Satan tries to come in and attack, I have covered myself with His armor so that I can stand and fight. Ephesians 6:10-18, "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests."

With this I feel pure. Even though I have not lived a pure life and I have opened the door for many shots from the devil, I can walk into any room, any situation and hold my head high. Sometimes people think it is easier to keep your past to yourself and never let anyone know what you have done, but I say that is a lie from Satan. “You are only as sick as your secrets,” (Ruth Graham). You don't want to walk around like Jerry Springer is, announcing every time you enter a situation; but you do need to learn to walk in the grace of God. "God makes us pure by an act of His sovereign grace, but we still have something that we must carefully watch. It is through our bodily life coming in contact with other people and other points of view that we tend to become tarnished. Not only must our "inner sanctuary" be kept right with God, but also the "outer courts" must be brought into perfect harmony with the purity God gives us through His grace. Our spiritual vision and understanding is immediately blurred when our "outer court" is stained. If we want to maintain personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean refusing to do or even think certain things. And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us, (OC)"

I have diligently sought God for many years. I still make many mistakes and often say the wrong thing, but by the grace of God, I live and feel pure. I know that if I can do it, anyone can. Christ is our salvation, our rock, our shield, our protector. He can help us when we are attacked. He can, if we will only accept His help and diligently seek Him. So when Satan throws his arrows, sometimes it stings. How I thank God that He can bring me back by His grace and help me to remember with Him I am pure no matter what I have done.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/03/26/devotion.aspx?year=2010

Dirt in the Snow

There is nothing like taking a walk in the cold mountain air. This morning I felt like I had to get out. It has been several months since I have gone out in the morning and this morning was a must. I felt like I needed a new breath. I needed the quiet of the morning, the new birds singing, and the crisp air to awaken my senses from the long winter of being inside too much. I didn't know where I was going, or what I was going to hear, but off I went. I knew there was something that I was going to see for the first time, again. I did.

Have you ever seen a pile of snow that has been scraped off of the road? After the snow starts to melt the dirt is left on the surface. What once looked like fresh white snow, now looks like a mound of dirt. The city has a field where they leave the snow, from all winters snow removal, right by my house. For some reason I was drawn to this field. I traveled down a pathway that the trucks had been taking and piling up snow on each side. I felt like I was I was walking between two mountains. By the time I reached the end of the piles I was getting very cold with the sun behind me and a light breeze blowing in my face. Once I turned around I started to warm up with the sun shining in my face. It was such a contrast to finally be getting warm, that is when I really started noticing the snow.

The snow that was facing the sun was now just a pile of dirt, but the side that was not yet affected by the sun still looked clean, fresh and white. While I was much more comfortable walking toward the sun, the piles facing the sun were getting exposed and you could see them for what they really were. That is when it hit me, this is what we feel like when we finally let Christ expose us for what we really are. Now that is unattractive! This is what so many people are afraid of when they are faced with Christ. When we finally look at our true selves, there is nothing pretty about us. Now why would anyone want to face the Son and risk being exposed in this way! Because this is when you can feel the warmth of His love. This is when you can finally let go of all of the junk you carry around with you on the inside. You know, the stuff you try to cover up so people can only see the surface that has not yet been touched by the Son. But here is the truth of it, even if you cover it well, dirt is still the part you are really made of. Maybe you think that no one else can see it, and maybe they can't, but you do. The hard part is facing yourself for what you really are.

Our natural tendency is to run from what hurts. It seems easier to try and cover over our own guilt, than to face it. We dress it up, make it look pretty, then we walk around trying to make sure that no one sees us for what we really are. Once we finally surrender and turn our face towards Christ, it hurts. But then after the season of the thaw is over, and He can finally reach us, He washes us truly clean. He is the only one with the power to take all of the dirt, expose it for what it really is, then replace it with something that is really clean and pure. Nothing feels better than to walk toward the Son when you are feeling cold and the breeze of this world is trying to keep you for its own.

By Faith

Hebrews 8:10-12, "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know Me already. And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” Do we realize that we all have God's law written on our hearts. Through the death and resurrection of Christ the new covenant has been placed within all of us. This new covenant has taken away the works of the flesh and the sacrifices that the people were required to make. (9:9), "This is an illustration pointing to the present time. For the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them. For that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies—physical regulations that were in effect only until a better system could be established."

(10:22), "For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water." I am free! There is no bondage in my living any longer. I used to to be a slave of sin. Everything about the way that I lived my life was horrible. I had no freedom to life. From my daily living, to the fact that I thought I would have to get my life in order, before I could be saved, all of it was living in bondage. I had no freedom in my thoughts. I had no freedom in life. I was a slave, bound by the desires of others, all because my faith was weak. But then something amazing happened, I was set free!

(11), "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation." Through faith I was saved. It was by faith that I was finally able to let go and allow God to rescue me. It was by faith that I was brought to a new way of living. It was by faith that I allowed God to change my friends. It was by faith that I was given a husband who could show me who I was in Christ. It was by faith that my addictions were conquered. It was by faith that all of my world is different. It is by faith that I now live.

Oh, how I love my redeemer. How grateful I am that I can finally breath. How thankful I am that I did not have to work my way into His loving forgiveness. Thank You for turning my weakness into strength. (13:5-8), "'I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.' So we can say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?'... Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." If He can love me, and rescue me from the prison that I was in; If He could come in and save me, when I was unsaveable, then He can save anyone. He can reach into your very world and give you new life. He can change your very existence and give you a new reputation. It is not by works, but by faith. It is in the acknowledgement of His very being. It is in Him that we are brought to salvation. All that He asks of us is for us to trust in Him enough so that we can take that shaky next step in faith. We do not have to have all of our actions correct. We just have to believe enough in order to let go, just enough, so that He can change our lives.

Oswald Chambers, "The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so...Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ."

Thank You, for new life. Thank You, for saving me, before I was ready to change. Thank You, for your patient ways. Thank You, for surrounding me with the right people so that I could finally feel your love through them. Thank You....

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/11/19/devotion.aspx?year=2009

Child of the Most High God

As I was walking into the banquet, everything in me wanted to turn and run the other direction. Have you ever felt like a fish out of water, or that you had just arrived for a stoning to find out it was yours? This is how I felt. I don't know if you know much about Mennonites, but they are what I would call very conservative. The banquet was for Open Door Pregnancy Center, and over half of the 600 attending were either Mennonites, Nazarenes, or Amish. And here I was "dressed for a banquet", wearing a nice dress, high-heal boots, make-up on, hair done. The feeling of being a stripper just about over took me. I have not been one for many years, but in that room, I sure felt like one.

God knew I needed this night. You see God asked me, through The Open Door, to be their speaker (not at the banquet, but in the future) , to bring the message of how wonderful waiting until you are married before having sex can be. A center put together by the conservative of conservatives, and they have asked me to deliver their message to teens. This could truly only be God. There is no other explanation. I know this, but the feeling of condemnation just about got the best of me that night. My focus had turned to myself, instead of keeping my eyes on Christ. This never works, for if I look at myself, I see a pathetic woman who made all of the wrong choices in my life. I see a woman who was the worst of the worst, a sinner by a heathens standards. But if I keep my eyes upon my Lord, then I see His goodness and not my sin. For in reality we are all fallen, I needed Christ's forgiveness no more than anyone in that room. Without Christ, we are all fallen and live in sin. Oh, but how Satan tries to defeat us, before we have even begun. He tries to condemn us, before we even walk in the door. He has a way of trying to turn our focus away from Christ and back to ourselves.

Romans 3, 8, "But now God has shown us a way to be made right with Him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins....Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law... So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death... And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them. For God knew His people in advance, and He chose them to become like His Son, so that His Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, He called them to come to Him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with Himself. And having given them right standing, He gave them His glory. What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since He did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won’t He also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for His own? No one—for God Himself has given us right standing with Himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and He is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us."

Wherever I go, whoever I am around, it does not matter and I should hold my head high. It is Christ who has saved me, and by knowing that, He has given me the power to walk into any crowd. He called me to go, so I must go. As long as I look to Him and keep my focus on Him, I will be fine. Whatever I do, it is for Him. I am only the one passing on His message, it really is not about me at all. It is not about how bad I was or how good I may think I am now, for all have sinned and no one can keep the law. All that matters is Christ. He has come to save us all, no matter where we have traveled. It is about His mighty saving power. It is about His grace. It is about His redeeming love. It is about the Cross. Romans 10:8-11, “'The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.' And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, 'Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.'” There is no condemnation in Christ. When that feeling tries to overcome you, hold your head high, for you are a child of the Most High God.

Oswald Chambers, "Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ . . . 2 Corinthians 2:14 We are to God the fragrance of Christ . . ." ( 2 Corinthians 2:15). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God."

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/10/24/devotion.aspx?year=2009