Walking Together Towards God

Aliens. They are making a comeback. It used to be funny that people believed that they existed. Now, even scientists are entertaining the possibility for real. There is more and more expanding research on alien life, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) and life on other planets. Aliens are defined as another people who claim home as another place - other than earth. They are strange. Strangers. The bible even talks about them! Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges [those dishonorable desires] that wage war against the soul. (1 Peter 2:11, Amplified) Well, there definitely are odd people among us. Peculiar people just don't fit in with everyone else. They stick out. They do not assimilate or acculturate and they do not mind. It may not be popular, but that is not the point. If you are a Jesus follower, this may be you, an alien to this world. When you are born again, Heaven becomes your home. You do not conform to this ...

Your daddy loves you. He always has. No, not your earthly father, your heavenly Father. He may not hear from you much, but He is always around. Let me tell you about my dad. I was his first born daughter and he was disappointed. He wanted a son, his namesake. He never really told me but it was noticed, especially when he had two more daughters after me. No worries though...I am over it. How could he resist my chubby little face and eyes that had me mistaken for an asian baby? No way. I was his like it or not. No so with God. He not only wanted you, but He chose you from the foundation of the world to be His chosen possession. He designed you and fashioned you in your mother's womb... to be His own special treasure. You may not feel wanted or deserving, but let me tell you that God thinks that you are both. He wants a relationship with you and you deserve that. We all can have forgiveness and love and acceptance in Christ. Do not let the enemy tell you otherwise! God is jealou...

Jesus will never stop pursuing you. He is after your heart with a relentless, passionate love. He won't let go and He won't give in. He will not stop. He will not let your other Idols distract Him. He is on a mission for a relationship with you, for your eternal love. It is the greatest love story of all time. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). He was born, lived and died for you: and because death could not hold Him, He rose again for you and now sits at the right hand of God, making intercession for you. All of it...for the love of His life. You are the reason and He wants all of you in return. The Lord not only wants you to love Him with all of your heart, mind, soul and body, but He wants you to tell others around you that He is in real pursuit of them as well. He pursues you with passion on purpose. You see, it is not ...

Life is not fair. At least it seems that way. It seems that at times God may not care what happens to us. We may feel overlooked, rejected or even hated because things are unfair in this life. How is it that those who deserve justice for their sin and wrong gets set free? Then there are those who are innocent who are greatly punished for even up to half their lives in prison. There are unjust politicians, shady car salesmen, unfair pricing and wrong grades. It happens every day. Where is justice? Where is God? I have heard people say that God is just but he is not fair. Well I disagree. I think God is more than fair. He not only does not give us what we truly deserve, but he gives us more than we do deserve. His grace is greater than our sense of what is fair. We cannot even begin to fathom the mind of an all-knowing, all-seeing God. Who are we to question His judgment, His wisdom, His verdict, rewards and punishments. In a sense, we place ourselves on equal footing with God w...

When we think about power we think about so many different things. We think about powerful people. We think about strength versus weakness. We may even think about God. When someone has power they often have influence. They may also have popularity. In any case, they have control. Power is the ability to control something or someone. If you are not the one who is in power then you may be being controlled by someone else. In my American culture, that is a bad thing. We are often taught to be in full control over everything and not to allow others to control us. However, in Christian thought, the opposite is true. As we submit to God who is the one who is all-powerful, our control is limited. We completely relinquish control to the one who has all the power.  But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the world. (Acts 1:8, KJV) When ...

I had not recognized until recently how often Jesus was in secret prayer with his Father. Majority of the prayers done in the New Testament are those in secret, not corporately. They is certainly power in corporate prayer and it is something that we should do, but there is great potential in private prayer as well. The Bible instructs us to go into a secret place a secret closet to pray (Matthew 6:6). It says that the Lord who sees us in secret will reward us openly (Matthew 6:18). The movie "War Room" has encouraged many many people to spend personal in prayer to petition the Lord on the behalf of themselves and others. Many people who have not taken their prayer life seriously now had a better idea of what it could look like for them. But why pray secretly? There's a story in the Bible that talks about one person who wanted to be seen as they prayed and had a prideful spirit versus another person in the shadows who cried out for mercy (Luke 18:11-13). There is ...

Sometimes it is hard to pray. Sometimes we may not be in the mood to pray or we are not sure what to pray, but prayer is a BIG thing. How many things do we do before we "get to prayer". Sometimes we may even feel unworthy to pray for whatever reason. When we neglect prayer, however, we neglect asking for God's intervention and guidance. We need to major on the majors and stop making excuses. Zacchaeus was not like some of us. He pressed his way to Jesus. He made the time to seek Him. He was not ashamed about what people thought of him and was rewarded by a visit from Jesus. Prayer is like that. When we move in faith believing God to take notice of us, He does. He sees us and will visit us. He will come into our house as well. We waits for your invitation to intervene in your life. Prayer is two-way communication. We speak to the Lord and He speaks back to us. Sometimes we only share our hearts with God and do not wait to see what He has to say to us. We do not want ou...

Think of the idea of holiness as wholiness. Something that is whole is complete. It is a whole deal, not half or a quarter. If we are not completely holy, then we are not holy at all! Light does not dwell with darkness. God cannot abide in an unholy vessel. It really is THAT serious! If you don't believe me, believe the Word of God. "...God is light and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5, KJV). No darkness. At all. God also goes on to tell us to be holy as I am holy (1 Peter 1:16). That is a tall order. It is impossible really....without a holy God. Nothing intrinsic (internal) about us will measure up to the holiness that our God requires. I have learned that the key to holiness is wholiness. The whole of your life must be pure which means that we must be in a constant state of repentance and striving to live a sinless life (sinning less and less and less). The truth of the matter is, that not even being sinless is up to us but repentance is! If you say tha...

Our children are not our priority. Our marriage is. *GASP* Some people may not agree with me on this, but our marriage is the foundation of our family. We love our boys something fierce, but we have to put our lives in right order. It goes without saying that God is central to our lives, but He is not on my list of priorities. He is EVERYTHING! He is not after, He is intertwined into all other facets of life. Marriage is the first and most important relationship, then that our our children. Marriage We did things "the right way" and waited until we were married to have children. We actually waited five years! That was a blessing. We had met online and we needed that time to really get to know each other and do the marriage thing. Honestly, we had only had three real face-to-face dates before we were living with each other as a married couple, so it was time well-spent. In our 15 years, we have learned the importance of communication, forgiveness and loving each other in...

What things do you remember that make you happy? Thankful? We are thankful for our marriage, our family and so many other blessings. You have probably heard of how powerful a thankful heart can be. Here are just a few ways that the habit of thankfulness has been a blessing: Being thankful make you a better spouse. Maurice and I have definitely avoided some arguments because we chose to see what we could be grateful for instead of emphasizing what was negative. No one wants to argue. It is time-consuming and counter-productive really. We both feel better and are able to resolve our differences without hating each other. When the spouse is happy so am I. Being thankful decreases depression. That makes sense. It is merely a change of perspective that tells your brain to concentrate on one thing versus another. We can choose our attitudes and our responses. The brain is powerful enough to convince itself to be happy or sad. Did you know that the bible tells us what to think about (...

What does the bible say about children? Plenty. They are important to God and should be important to us as well. Children should matter to you whether or not you have your own. Children may enter your life in a way that is planned or quite unexpectedly, through blood or not. In any case, they are our future. Whatever we leave for them is all they have to work with. They are the next church, the next disciples! Children are wonderful (Isaiah 44:3; 8:13). They are easy to believe and have faith in God. They need to be trained, taught and reared in holiness. They are impressionable, so impressing righteousness into their lives is our responsibility! We must be intentional with raising them naturally as well as spiritually (Ephesians 6:1-3, KJV). The next generation is being formed by our diligence in spiritual nurturing or lack thereof. Whether the children you influence are yours or not, you can make a difference. Many children are looking for love in all the wrong places. They are...

As a nurse I know that it is true! There is power in the blood. It is good for cleansing, washing away heebee geebees like bacteria and viruses, for carrying oxygen (which could be useful if you want to breath) and giving our bodies volume so we are not dehydrated. It's good stuff for humans. Now the blood of Jesus is a different story altogether! He was human AND divine. He had holy blood batman! Let's just think about this. He was born without being naturally conceived, lived, died and rose again. Sounds supernatural to me. So what does His blood have to do with us? Since we are speaking of spiritual things, you need to think spiritually. In Bible days, the priests and Levites of Israel would offer regular animal sacrifices to God for their sins. Blood was required to cleanse them spiritually, but it was a messy business as you can imagine! The poor innocent animal was slaughtered before the people and the blood spilled out. Every time the people did wrong (imagine how of...

We are guilty and that's a fact! Maurice likes coffee and I like tea and we both drink too much. We know this, but we don't want you to tell us that...lol! Most people know when they are wrong, they just don't want to be caught or accused. It's the shame that we run from, even in marriage! Well...a judge is one who sits in authority in order to tell the difference between what is right and wrong, what is lawful and what is not. There must be a law to be judged by in order to be accused of doing wrong. God gave His people rules, laws and commandments. He knew that they could not always keep them. So they were, like we are...guilty! When our boys get upset and feel our rules are unfair or should not apply to them, they break them. They are then punished because they did what was wrong (even if they felt or understood it to be right). Some people get offended because they feel as though they are being accused by others with no basis. That could be true. However, whatev...

All we have is NOW. If today were your last day on earth, how would you spend it? What are the top, most important things and people on your list of things to do and see? Our moments stretch out to days, weeks, months and years. Mundane tasks can be so....daily! But I wonder if you are making the most of yours? My neighbor's mother died. I did not hear about it for a while, but when I did, I felt led to reach out to her. It is in moments like these when people tend to shut others out but what you really need is presence. I wanted to give that to her as my gift. Understand that the abundant life that God promises is not just so that we can enjoy ourselves, but so that we can "do life" with others. Death seems to bring us back to reality most quickly. When a loved one passes away, we suddenly realize how short life is and how little of it that we have left. Some people will rehearse their regrets and shortcomings, but it will spur others on to redeem the time and make t...

You are beautiful because God made you and He don't make no junk. We know beauty to be a very subjective, human thing. What does the bible say about beauty? God's views are different from ours. You may be surprised. Psalm 149:4 days that "the Lord beautifies the meek with salvation". Look at that scripture. There is no reference to anything physical whatsoever. Imagine that! Being beautiful in the eyes of God is all about what He does in and through you, not what you do to yourself to be beautiful. How many beauty products do you have to enhance, hide, color, darken, lighten or perfect yourself? You are God's canvas and He is finished! People usually attempt to beautify themselves for others. Who are you getting pretty for? There is no person we should be seeking to impress more than our Jesus. I wear what my husband likes because I am his. Wear what God likes if you belong to Him! So let's talk about meekness since that is the element that lends it...