Unfruitful

"The multiplying is in the dividing" -Priscilla Shirer

It is by sharing the gospel, by shifting the focus from us to Christ, that people are drawn to God. Jesus said "And I, if I be lifted up, I will draw ALL men unto me". It's so not about you and I.

It is admirable to look up to other leaders. The world has correctly interpreted and applied the concept of power in comminity. The more the merrier. It takes a village to raise a child. United we stand, divided we fall. However, when we only look to other people, mentors, parents or coaches as our sole source of confirmation, comfort or acknowledgement,  we diminish the potential of God's power in our lives.

Where there is no counsel, the people perish; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.  - Proverbs 11:14

People will fail you. The bible is clear when it tells us to commit the gospel into the hands of faithful people who can commit it to other faithful people. It is free to all but only those who embrace & apply it are worth following. Hence the term disciple. This is more than a mere "come to the altar" experience. It is a long term relationship that focuses less and less on the discipler and more and more on Jesus who, in term will send the disciple out to disciple others. When the Lord finds that your growth is now sufficient for multiplication, he sends you to the field to be a seed that is broken but will yield more seed in that sacrifice.

Many have the right idea of small group growth but get uncomfortable with the idea of division but this, you see, is the goal. God never meant for us to be a small cluster of trees in unity. He envisions a forest that is thick and deep encompassing the earth. This is the Kingdom mindset versus ministry growth. God's plan is incomprehensible to the human mind that is why I have to use an analogy to even describe it.

The Lord is waiting to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we can ask or think. He saves us, plants us, grows us, and then sends us to save, plant, grow and send out others. When we stay in one phase we are stagnant and not productive to the Kingdom.

I don't want to be unfruitful. - Tru-Image

Tru-Image Wifestyle Coaching

The Lord has placed so many broken women before me. Some are hopeful for their marriages, others are hoping that divorce comes sooner than later. I have cried with women over the years and have had stern mothering moments with others. Over six years, my husband and I have been talking to people about marriage. My goal as a Tru-Image Wifestyle coach is to empower you to do what you said when you made your vows!

"....to have and to hold from this day forward for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live." 

For Better or for Worse
For example, there is Candy (fictional name of course) - This wife has a well-kept secret. Her husband drinks and although he is not physically abusive, she is worried that he could be. It's been too emotionally taxing on her and she wants out of the relationship. There is no rebuttal from him about that at all, even when he's sober. My advice is not to divorce him but to pray to the Lord to reveal to her his source of hurt and that he is willing to get the assistance he needs to overcome this addiction. Prayer still works! If we truly believe that God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, we must pray like it! Life is not easy, especially if you are a wife. Your marriage is not to make all your dreams come true but to mold you into the image of Christ. This mold will press and force you to conform to God's mold for your life....if you are willing to be that is.

For Richer or Poorer
Victoria represents another wife that I have coached. She has abuse in her past and married Mr. Wrong in her opinion. The marriage started one way but is sadly veering in the other. Her hubby is literally "not who she married". He proclaims his love and faithfulness regularly, but is growing ever distant due to his pornography addiction that is draining the family funds dry. How can a wife be a "helper" in a situation like this? Tough love - that's how. Sometimes a man needs to hit rock bottom to bounce back. His mind needs to be renewed by the Great Physician. Sex is a powerful force in marriage and cannot be ignored. By taking the Word of God and applying it daily, it becomes a scalpel to sever soul ties and to repair the heart. A wife can help her husband by giving him time, space and leading him to the greatest Doctor of all time - Jesus!

In Sickness and In Health
Two couples come to my mind. The first is of a wife who could not bear her husband's illness. She left him. Sick. Alone. The marriage ended. In another relationship, Mary (alias) was sick herself and so was her husband. Instead of abandoning the relationship, she saw to it that he was cared for. In response, her husband did the same for her. It is hard to consider others before yourself especially if you dont think they are deserving. That is what a wife does who is walking in her calling. She looks like Jesus who layed down His life for all sinners.

************************************************

I will be doing a series of Tru-Image Wifestyle Vlogs in the near future via TruTube4U on Youtube. Please leave me any questions or topics that you would like me to address from a biblical point of view. For details and pricing on individual coaching sessions in person or via phone or hangouts on google, please email me at truimagelsm@gmail.com.

World War Z: Not WHAT but WHO

On our anniversary we saw World War Z. If you have not seen it, this is your SPOILER ALERT! You may not want to read on.

Wow! First of all, this was a very well made film. I think they used a whopping four or five productiion companies, so it should be! As I was watching I kept waiting for the part that I would hate or a ridiculously absurd plot....but it never came! For a 116 minute movie, it kept me engrossed. I really like a good action flick. So, towards the end of the movie the most wonderful thing happened. I saw some amazing biblical comparisions! I have had these moments in other films as well, especially Superman (the original one).

Mr Brad Pitt is an investigator that used to work for the UN. He gets drafted pretty much to assist them in identifying the reason for a massive zombie takeover in every part of the world. His job is to find out where it started and WHAT can stop it. There are so many questions! World War Z is fast-paced, violent and shocking (especially in 3D)! The only issue is that he has a wife and two daughters to protect. He'd prefer not to get involved at all, but it's the only way to assure their safety.

He leaves his family to "save the world" from zombies, the undead. The zombies themselves are mindless of course and are under the infuence of....who knows what, but it's pure evil. Their only goal is to make more zombies with a deadly bite. Sounds like the goal of the devil to me - allow sin to spread simply to create mindless beings with no goals, dead to everything with real meaning. Enter the savior in this film who finds, not the cure, but a way to "camouflage" himself to sin. Sure he has been made prone to it himself when he left his family but by contaminating himself with a deadly vaccine, he is no longer vulnerable to the enemy's attack. Hmmm....see where I'm going here?

We are all undead without Christ. Jesus took the greatest sacrifice, Himself, to give us the greatest gift - life eternal! He walked right among the zombies to bring us life and they could not touch him. When we accept His sacrifice, we are camouflaged from the enemy by His blood. We become new creatures (Romans 12: 1,2) and gain influence over the realms of darkness in our world. We are also able to help others that are prone to the bite of sin.

As Pitt is trying to figure what happens to normal people once bitten, he makes two discoveries that I want to share. In one scene a woman is bitten on the hand and there is little time to decide whether or not to kill her before her transformation is complete. Pitt quickly cuts off her hand (this is implied but not shown really). We wait to see what happens....it's been a few seconds, 5 minutes, 10 minutes and she is NOT a zombie. What happened here? Well, sometimes we have to simply see the sin and CUT IT OFF! That awful habit, that secret addiction or those relationships need to be severed now! There is no time to waste. Sin will kill you whether you believe it or not. 

Secondly, towards the end of the movie, Pitt's last hope for answers lies in contacting the World Heath Organization (WHO) for the deadly vaccines he needs to make himself "invisible" to the zombies and save everyone. It is only here that there is hope. All who went before him proved to be cowards and not up to the task. He is put in a position to handle it all alone (as most heroes are in the movies). He alone finds the deadly vaccine, injects himself and brings what is needed to the others. You see, the question in this movie is not "What is the Cure" but "W.H.O. is the cure". It is in Jesus Christ alone who put on flesh, who takes on the sins of the world and can save us all if we believe Him.

The movie ends by saying that it's not over of course. We must share the solution with others, quickly. Our world is dying. Who is willing to go through the pain of "death to self" in order to join the Great Commission to save the lost?

If you are a zombie, this message is for you as well. The undead can be changed in a moment. Surrender your futile goals to Christ. He will give you a new mind, a new heart and one day, a new body. This is war people. The answer to every question is not WHAT but WHO!

Inspiration

The Word of God describes itself as many things in the Bible. Jesus is the Word (John 1), the Word is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It is also forever.

In my quiet time the other morning, I was reading this:

II Timothy 3:16
16 xAll scripture is given by inspiration of God, and yisprofitable for ydoctrine, for zreproof, for acorrection, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That bthe man of God may be perfect, * throughly furnished cunto all dgood works.

The part that I was meditating on was that "All scripture is given by inspiration of God". ALL scripture is given by INSPIRATION of God. So even the "boring" parts, geneologies and the like are what the greek word defines as "God-Breathed". The actual word is theopneustos. Usually when I use the word inspired, I am referring to something influencing something else. Like...she inspires me to lose weight, or that poem is an inspiration to me. However, in this case, the nurse in me causes me to explore the word inspire in a medical sense.

When one inspires, they take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. It is this gas exchange that we can breathing. No breathing, no life. Somebody should start CPR because soon following, the heart stops beating and the person is truly dead. Likewise, the Word of God came about through the people who got to know God. One must come to God to get His Word. If you are not in Christ it is no wonder the Word of His Father is not understood by you! In the beginning when man was created, He breathed into Adam the breath of life. That is what draws us back to him - how we know that there is someone greater than we are. When we come to Him we will find His Word. It is how He has spoken to us. The Word is revealed by Christ Jesus Himself.

People would speculate that the Bible is too old to be relevant. I strongly disagree. If the Word of God proceeds from His inspiration and so we must come to Him to receive it, one thing that the Word says about itself is that it does not return void. God's inspiration has NO EXPIRATION! It will never be too old, irrelevant, outdated or relinquished. With all the versions of the Bible, some fear that the Word of God is being watered down. Really? I don't think so. The Bible says that whoever adds to it or takes from it will have punishment but it will NEVER be diluted and made ineffective. God is eternal. His Word is eternal. When we use God's Word, we speak the words of eternal life. That is why there is power in the tongues of those who pray it, speak it and claim it. Even the devil knows this. Many unbelievers have used the principles of the Bible and it works! Why? It is the sword of the Spirit. You have no greater offense against the things of this world. When you operate in the realm of biblical spirituality you get results. Every time. 

God did not mean for the Bible to be used as a gimmick for personal gain but as a way to communicate His will to all of us. He has something to say to each of us every day. God still speaks. Are we listening?

Warfare is Real

In the book of Ephesians tells us to put on our spiritual armor. It consists of the sword of the Spirit, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation the girdle of truth and our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Why do we need all of these things? What purposes do they serve? Doesn't God fight our battles so we don't have to?

I am finding that the more purposeful I am in discipling and mentoring and bringing people to Christ that the devil does not like me very much. Someone just told me that all of the armor of God is the Word of God. This actually makes a lot of sense. We apply certain parts of the Word of God to our situation as needed but the Word of God clearly applicable in many ways. The Bible is an offensive sword, our protective cover and what we stand on. It holds all pieces of our armor together like a buckler or belt. Without it, we have nothing!

The devil is intimidated by true followers of God. If you are not a threat to his kingdom you are just where he wants you to be. Quiet, passive, relaxed and unassuming. The devil does not mind those kinds of believers. Heck, HE'S A BELIEVER! The enemy trembles however if we mention Jesus. If we start fervently praying for God's kingdom to come, for the church to grow, for salvation and God's glory to be revealed, then confrontation is inevitable! This is War!

Mentoring

It's amazing how God is beginning to open up doors for me to share my grace story with others. I thank God for an amazing opportunity to mentor two women who are younger than I am. I feel that God is giving me an opportunity to be a Titus woman.

In Titus, Paul tells the older women of the church to teach the younger. I hadn't considered myself an older woman until I realize that women younger than me were looking up to me. It's flattering, but it leaves me with an awesome sense of responsibility to assist these younger women to overcome the obstacles that I have overcome in my life and encouraging them to go even further than I have. Like Paul, I consider them like spiritual daughters. I have never had a daughter and so,  I feel that this fills an incredible void in my life.

You never know who is watching your life: your successess, failures, triumphal moments and biggest flops! But someone is. Someone ALWAYS is. I am at the age where I can see where I used to be and guide others, but I also am in need of my older sisters to guide me into older adulthood.

Amazing how I stumbled on Pinky Promise. Check it out here: www.pinkypromisemovement.com. I have met so many beautiful and enthusiastic women who are hungry for God's Word and for fellowship. The Lord has miraculously blessed me with some very special relationships. Also, my church is allowing me to work in my gift of teaching and the Lord is expanding my territory even more. Glory to God!

Discipleship takes many forms and I believe that the Lord has plans for me in various directions. I am excited for the ride!