Wonderful Words of Life...

Answering the Call...

My youngest daughter who likes to sew...

 What has God gifted

 you to do?

It's not so much, perhaps,

that we can always

pinpoint the exact

gift of the Spirit,

as listed in Scripture,

and sometimes

those gifts may

change according

to His purposes...

BUT,

I've sure been thinking

alot the past while 

about the gifts

God gives His children

in the Body

for the perfecting

of the saints,

for edifying each other,

and for bringing

Him much glory,

as He works 

supernaturally

through us,

causing us to

do and say things

we would not

naturally in 

our flesh

be doing or saying.

SO...

dear friends,

if you sew, then sew to the glory of God.

If you are a prophetess, then

prophesy to the glory of God.

If you are an encourager of the Body, then encourage!

If you are a minister of grace and help, then by all means, help with joyful abandon!

If you are an evangelist, evangelize.

If you are more gifted to disciple, then please, 

I beg of you, don't waste alot of time pondering 

if you evangelize enough, but spend your time

discipling those converts the evangelists found

and brought to salvation.

Maybe you are gifted with many gifts.

We are told to covet (or seek after)

the best gifts. Not sure what all that means,

but I urge us to give Him our all.

We spend far, far too much time comparing

ourselves to others who have different giftings.

Let's cultivate and embrace the gifts

He gives to us.

Let us be up and doing,

because the time is short, 

Maybe you feel like you have little gifting.

My encouragement  to you

is to love 

God 

with your whole heart,

and let Him use you in 

any way

He wants to.

Let us let go of any 

pride,

fear,

anger,

selfishness,

bitterness,

self-righteousness,

and passivity

that might be

keeping us from

doing His work.

The harvest truly is great, 

but the reapers are few.

 May the Lord depend on you?

Of Homemaking...

Moms, this post is for you.

If you are like most moms, you sometimes

feel like you don't reach around to

meeting needs outside your home

like you wish you could.

May I simply encourage you to

focus on being the best wife and 

mother you can be to the family

God has given you?

Finish that task well,

and if you never get to be

deeply involved in other needs,

you will still have accomplished

(by the powerful aid of God)

a monumental task

that will influence thousands,

if the world stands

and your children choose Jesus.

Don't fall for the lie

that you have to be 

mothering and wifing 

plus something else.

Sure, if there is time,

and God calls you to it,

get your family to help you

feed the hungry,

clothe the naked,

visit the shut in,

help busy moms,

open your home to bless

others,

etc.

However,

do not sacrifice your time

for other causes

if you are neglecting 

the hearth and home

task

God in His wisdom

assigned you.

And please teach your daughters

that homemaking is a

noble calling.

So often I think we forget that

our daughters are in this world,

hearing the lies of satan

thru feminism.

Teach them why homemaking

is important.

(Do you know? More on this in

another post)

Be selective about who their close

friends are.

(Are they feeding them lies on this

or any subject?)

Be joyful in  your place,

an example to daughters

who are looking on.

And above all,

love God with your whole heart.

He will give you the 

strength you need

to love being home

and to be fulfilled in

this often overlooked

and unacknowledged place

we fill.

God sees.

He is well pleased when

we do this as unto Him

and not to mankind.

So go ahead and embrace

being a wife and mother

with full whole-hearted

joyful abandon.

And don't let satan lie to you

by telling you that your worth

and your time is only increased

when you do the home thing

PLUS something else.

The results you will receive

if you buy into this lie

will not be worth it.

Wonderful Words of Life...

Be Anxious For Nothing...

Said the robin to the sparrow,

“I should really like to know,

Why these anxious human beings

Rush about and worry so.”

Said the sparrow to the robin,

“Friend I think that it must be,

That they have no Heavenly Father,

Such as cares for you and me.”

Elizabeth Cheney 

This morning I feel privileged to have taken a break

from cleaning my house to listen to this sermon:

All That Jesus Taught

part 24

by Zac Poonen

If you can, please listen to it.

It's about the sin of anxiety and how

 that really is an insult to God.

I really went on a trip down

memory lane as Bro. Zac spoke,

thinking about the various situations

I've walked through, 

and how through all of them,

as I sought God,

He brought me to a place of

trusting Him with a 

child-like faith.

I know that when

I look at God as my

FATHER,

my Daddy, my Abba

 I am not anxious,

because I know He will keep me.

We go through tough times.

Friends betray us.

Our children get sick.

Close friends contract cancer,

and some of them die before

it seems it was their time.

The bills look higher than

the pay check.

Congregations we are part of

crumble and fail.

Rain keeps falling on fields

that need to be cultivated.

"Do not be anxious.

In everything, by prayer and

supplication, let your requests

be made known to God."

He knows how to take care of us.

Can we rest in that?!

Love and blessings, 

Marcia

Thanksgiving on Thursday...

Last evening, we were encouraged by the singing of a group of youth

 from a church in the western part of our state.

 It is a blessing to have the believers 

(from various congregations of God's people) 

gather together, in a world that  is dark and evil, 

and be refreshed and encouraged to go back

 to face the reality of living as "strangers and foreigners", 

citizens of a Country we've never yet seen, 

"whose builder and maker is God."

Living this way makes us peculiar, 

strange, misfits, and certainly not comfortable 

living in an environment that is not a friend to grace.

 And that's how it should be. 

While we should not all be sitting in a heap, 

with our feet under the Father's table enjoying the blessings of 

freedom, grace, peace, and love 

without going out and rescuing the perishing, 

we SHOULD be encouraging each other 

and speaking to one another as fellow believers 

in 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs'. 

I was ministered to in many ways last evening, 

from the singing, to the devotional message,

 to the fellowship afterwards,

and I came away very inspired

 to keep encouraging and blessing and ministering

to my fellow travelers along the way. 

Will you join me?

One song we all sang together last evening was this one:

When We All Get To Heaven

This part really blessed me:

"Let us then be true and faithful,
Trusting, serving every day;
Just one glimpse of Him in glory
Will the toils of life repay."

Let's keep "running with patience

the race that is set before us,"

in spite of clouds, 

and let's encourage one another

God's way.

And let's thank God for 

encouragement,

however and wherever 

He chooses to give it

to us.

That's important to Him, 

too, just as is anything

else related to His

heart for us.

Did You Know?

Did You Know...

...that the answer to life's struggle is not in 'knowing myself', but in knowing the One who died to bring us total freedom to live life the way we were created to live it?

...that we cannot possibly forgive ourselves, but we can accept by faith the forgiveness we need from the One against whom have sinned?

...that when we are strong, He is weak in us? It is commonly said that struggle makes you stronger, but really, when we are weak, then He is strong in us!

If you have been listening to the commonly used phrases even among us Christians, you may understand what I'm getting at in the statements up there. But for clarification, I'll list the phrases that have a slant of truth to them but are not entirely Scriptural:

"You have to know yourself before you can (love, help others, be strong, have wisdom, etc)."

"You have to forgive yourself as well as others who have wronged you."

"Struggle makes you stronger." or "Trials make you stronger." or "Hard things make you stronger."

Did you know:

that all of these phrases have roots in Buddhism, Hinduism, and New Age teachings?

As for me, I will serve the Lord.

We shrug and say, oh well, truth is truth. Well...not really. Listen to the words spoken around you, and listen to yourself. Is what you are hearing or saying lining up with what GOD says?

A few years ago, my husband and I went through an experience that sobered us and shocked us. To hear teachings coming into the church that were laced with modern psychology and drew attention to humanism and not to God took our breath away and we went searching for God's thoughts in this. What we found was amazing and to me, alarming as I noticed how much of these things had also influenced me. I wondered how I had come to have so many hints of falsehood in my belief system, and then it hit me: I had read many, many modern "Christian" teaching books. They are full of these teachings, mixed with Scripture and some truth of God.

I purged my bookshelf, asked the Lord to cleanse my thinking, and it is amazing to me just how often I will hear these very things spoken in a group and how I cringe...and I pray that God will open our eyes to where we embraced mixed religion.

My plea to us all is to be very selective in our reading, and to be searching the Scriptures, and by the power of the Holy Spirit making sure that what we read and who we're getting our teaching from is really God's truth.

I'm thankful for that painful experience which still touches parts of my life with sadness and heart breaking reality even today. God used it powerfully in my life, and I am so very blessed to know that He would not let me go down the road of false teaching without showing me the right Way and giving me a choice which way to take. I'm thankful for a husband whose heart is also careful and desires to know and live that Way as well, and who gives me wise direction for how we are going to go. Truly, if we are His, He guides our every footstep, corrects a faltering or slipping footstep, and teaches us the Truth we can embrace without question.

Blessings to all.
Marcia

Wonderful Words of Life...

In Psalms and Hymns...

Who Is On The Lord's Side

by Ben Everson

I am crushed over and over again

 by many who name the name of Christ

but defame Him on a regular basis...

and I am heart broken by the many who

have fallen away from the simplicity

that is in Christ. 

I am often disappointed

by the choice many make

to try to have Jesus plus themselves

on the throne of their hearts,

falling for the popular teaching

infiltrating christendom

that we need to 'be real' and

be ourselves.

Oh Lord, may I be faithful to the end.

This great falling away is

part of satan's tactics, I know,

to distract me from going on and

making you the Center of all

my days.

Dear friends,

let us be faithful unto the end of all days.

When He says it is finished for us,

then we will be so glad that we overcame

by the blood of the Lamb.

He overcame all so that we can,

and when it is over here in this

dark and sinful world,

then we will know eternal rest.

God bless you and keep you all.

I want to stroll heaven with you 

some, glad day,

when all our troubles and heartaches

are vanished away...

I want to kneel at Jesus' feet with you

basking in His glorious presence,

and thank Him for saving someone like me.

Like Children...

Today, as I was watching my niece enjoy a pinwheel in the wind, I thought of these words of Jesus:

"...Verily I say unto you, 

Except ye be converted, and become as little children,

 ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, 

the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Mt. 18:3, 4

Children of this age do not hold grudges,

they generally trust their caregivers without question,

and they cry and come to their parents/caregivers

when hurt, and allow themselves to be comforted.

Good words of Jesus

even for today.

The more we surrender and walk by faith

and not by sight (human reason),

the more peaceful are our hearts,

and the more mature we become in Him.

'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus...

Just to take Him at His word!

Just to rest upon His promise,

Just to know:

"Thus saith the Lord".

Of Honesty...

"You should always be honest"

said a woman in my hearing recently.

My heart wanted to agree,

but it didn't because I
know this woman and the
danger in the words she
spoke.
You see, she adopts the
worldly notion that in
order to be totally
honest and right in
this world,
one needs to speak
their mind and
share freely
with others,
regardless of
feelings of others,
and regardless of
Sermon on the Mount
teaching on forgiveness 1 Cor. 13 kind of love, and
the need to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh, if we name the name of Christ.

Friends, be careful. It is far better to be silent, than to share with others from a fleshly standpoint.
It is far better to bear the marks of the wounds from evil done against us quietly with Christ
than it is to gossip with many about what others have done to us.
It is far better, dear readers, to let the Lord claim vengeance and to let the Lord
exalt us in due season than for us to lift ourselves up in many words  about
what "I" want and how "I" feel and what "I" think needs to be done
about (whatever situation I am talking of).

It is far better to be like Jesus and walk in His footsteps,
than it is to lie while trying to be honest.
How can we lie while trying to 'be honest'?
We can lie by living in the flesh and 'being honest'
(flinging about our feelings and words that are unsanctified)
all the while we say we are Christ's.
These things should never be!!!!
There is not any record of Jesus speaking of his
deep hurt at being rejected or neglected,
or his anger at being misunderstood or sinned against.
He was about His Father's business,
caring for and about what God's will was for Him.
How can we not do the same if we are calling Christ
our Lord and Redeemer?!

The term 'being honest' comes in line with this thing
of not being a hypocrite and 'being real'. I submit to you
that if we are in Christ, then we will be real in the
sense that we will be walking in the Spirit,
displaying Christlikness and not self on a
regular basis. In that way, by all means, be real.

It is far better to be real in the Spirit and quietly
endure the annoyances and the hurts,
than it is to fling our fleshly words and actions
all over the place, breaking hearts and stirring up
the waters even more in our wake.
It may be helpful at times to admit that satan is
tempting us to sin in a certain area of attitude
or action, but to actually cast about crass remarks
and rude words/actions in order to 'be honest'
is certainly not Sermon-on-the-Mount living,
nor is it following Jesus.

Think on it...
And let's be real in HIM!.

Love and blessings,
Marcia

Wonderful Words of Life...

Work, For the Night Is Coming...

Today, I went on a trip down to Nostalgia.

The little cousin, newly graduated with flying colors

from first grade, was reading to the big cousin, 

my oldest daughter.

The past flashed before my eyes, as I pondered how,

not so long ago, that 'big cousin' was my first

first grader and now, she is about to graduate

from  high school and is entering the world 

of adulthood more each day.

I am loving this stage of my life, with teenagers,

and one 'almost' teenager, and I look forward

to the days when my children are moved on to

their work outside my home,

but I sure did get bitten by nostalgia a little as

I took this picture today.

The 18 years since this child of mine was born

have literally passed by as swiftly as a weaver's shuttle.

What work I have done, I trust to the Lord, and know I have

done it with a heart of sincerity and earnestness.

However, I call out to us all to be purposeful in the work we

are called to do, whatever it is.

It's over before we know it.

Today, while opportunity knocks, let us

be up and doing...

We Have This Moment

Seeds...

I grew up in a home with parents whose vision was that I would be well versed

in and understand the Scriptures. That vision, lived out on so many levels from

reading the Bible at home, to being encouraged to read it personally, to

going to many church functions where the Word was read and taught,

to having our home library shelves filled with books carefully selected

to encourage my understanding of Scriptural living,

to being enrolled in a Christian Day School all 10 grades of my schooling

where the curriculum was filled with Scripture,

to attending youth Bible School,

and weddings where Scripture was read and taught,

to reading Sunday School papers filled with stories that

were based on Scripture...

I have certainly had a goodly  heritage.

It wasn't until I was 25 years old that I yielded my life

wholly to Jesus Christ, and became a radical disciple and 

follower of His, but oh, what richness was mine then,

because all those seeds that had been sown in the soil of

my heart all through my childhood and youth

sprang to life under the Sonshine and Living Water.

I have never been the same since and I am deeply grateful

that all those seeds were planted in my heart.

It helped to shape who I am today,

and it has helped me to have a vision of seed planting

in my own children's lives.

"The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. 

And both will be rewarded for their own hard work."

1 Cor. 3:8

He Lets Me Walk Down Roads of Disappointment...

Roads of disappointment. We all know them. The dreams we had as starry eyed youth, (or older), that come crashing down at our feet one day...the health that leaves us for a time...the parent whose death leaves us reeling and crushed...the friends who disappoint or betray us...the state we want to live in but are called to move away from...the work we think we are fitted for but is given to someone else while we are given work we don't understand or like...the spouse whose unfaithulness leaves you deeply hurt and wondering why...the house that burns to the ground...the job that doesn't turn out to be all that we wanted for our lives...the church that fails...the churchES that fail in your life...

Those are not all scenarios from my life (some of them are), and I've pondered long and hard the meaning of disappointments. Here is what I have learned so far in my short 39 year life span:

1. Disappointments are really God's way of telling us He's got this. He knows what's best for us.
2. Disappointments teach us to rely on God, and not on ourselves.
3. Disappointments don't mean the end of the road, they simply mean a bend in the road we could not see coming, but God knew.
4. Disappointments give us opportunities to hear from God what exactly He would like us to do/speak/hear/see in the situation.
5. Disappointments can give us opportunities to go to the backside of the desert to an oasis we may otherwise not have ever known was there. That oasis is closer communion with Jesus with less distraction and less demands upon our time. That oasis is Living Water, Jesus Christ, the Righteous.

So when we are facing disappointment, we should remember:

*That nothing or no one can pluck us from His hand
*That we are given opportunity to walk by faith and not by sight
*That simple, child-like faith is the way to simply rest in Him and to follow His leading
*That if we are His, and following Him faithfully, then we are exactly where He chose for us to be presently
*That as His children, we can tell Him anything
*That He has promised to perfect that which concerns us; we don't need to push open doors or force our way into the situation to muscle through what we think needs to happen.

Love and blessings to each of you. Life is hard and troubling at times, but He knows the way we take. When He has tried us, (if we yield and follow) we will come forth as gold that shows His reflection beautifully and more clearly with each passing polishing.

~Marcia

Here is a song I knew from my childhood.

It has a great message about 

disappointment.

That's Just His Way