Category: Bible

Rescue The Perishing

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Proverbs 24:1 Don’t envy bad people; don’t even want to be around them. 2 All they think about is causing a disturbance; all they talk about is making trouble. 3 It takes wisdom to build a house, and understanding to set it on a firm foundation; 4 It takes knowledge to furnish its rooms with fine furniture and beautiful draperies. 5 It’s better to be wise than strong; intelligence outranks muscle any day. 6 Strategic planning is the key to warfare; to win, you need a lot of good counsel. 7 Wise conversation is way over the head of fools; in a serious discussion they haven’t a clue. 8 The person who’s always cooking up some evil soon gets a reputation as prince of rogues. 9 Fools incubate sin; cynics desecrate beauty. Rescue the Perishing 10 If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place. 11 Rescue the perishing; don’t hesitate to step in and help. 12 If you say, “Hey, that’s none of my business,” will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know – Someone not impressed with weak excuses. 13 Eat honey, dear child – it’s good for you – and delicacies that melt in your mouth. 14 Likewise knowledge, and wisdom for your soul – Get that and your future’s secured, your hope is on solid rock. 15 Don’t interfere with good people’s lives; don’t try to get the best of them. 16 No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don’t stay down long; Soon they’re up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces. 17 Don’t laugh when your enemy falls; don’t crow over his collapse. 18 God might see, and become very provoked, and then take pity on his plight. 19 Don’t bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked. 20 Those people have no future at all; they’re headed down a dead-end street. 21 Fear God, dear child – respect your leaders; don’t be defiant or mutinous. 22 Without warning your life can turn upside-down, and who knows how or when it might happen? 23 It’s wrong, very wrong, to go along with injustice. 24 Whoever whitewashes the wicked gets a black mark in the history books, 25 But whoever exposes the wicked will be thanked and rewarded. 26 An honest answer is like a warm hug. 27 First plant your fields; then build your barn. 28 Don’t talk about your neighbors behind their backs – no slander or gossip, please. 29 Don’t say to anyone, “I’ll get back at you for what you did to me. I’ll make you pay for what you did!” 30 One day I walked by the field of an old lazybones, and then passed the vineyard of a lout; 31 They were overgrown with weeds, thick with thistles, all the fences broken down. 32 I took a long look and pondered what I saw; the fields preached me a sermon and I listened: 33 “A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there, sit back, take it easy – do you know what comes next? 34 Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life, with poverty as your permanent houseguest!”

Prayer For A Friend

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I have a friend in need of prayer. I know that when you see this video it will remind you of one of your friends who needs to hear from God right now. I am in prayer for this person, not without my own frustration and not without my own opinion but deciding to set it aside for a touch from God which is the only thing can change the course of action. Let’s agree in prayer today for those people in our lives who are lost and need a touch from God in this moment!

In The Name Of Love

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We become obsessive

We kill each other

We overeat as in “I love cake”

We try to control another

We allow ourselves to be controlled

We say things we don’t mean

We say things that are mean

We make stupid decisions for our lives

We lose our definition

We are too permissive

We are too authoritarian

We become stalkers

We become overbearing

We become insecure

We become insensitive

We take each other for granted

We cease to work on ourselves

We compromise our future

We compromise our morals

We compromise our desires

We compromise our character

We blind ourselves to the truth

We lose touch with reality

We turn our back on our family

We become foolish in our decisions

We become co-dependent

We overlook sin

We sin

We overlook flaws

We overlook problems

We go into debt

We abuse

We get abused

We manipulate wrongly

We are manipulated

In the name of love we commit atrocities on ourselves and others. Yet,

1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Do we know God? Or do we think we know love? They are inseparable. Do we understand what love is and will we adhere to the principles of love as God has directed or will be continue make a mess of our lives in the name of what we think is love?

Modesty

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Without doubt modesty is nothing less than a holy feeling; and without doubt the person whose rule of modesty has been transgressed feels the same sort of wound that he would feel if something made holy to him by his religion had suffered a desecretation. I say “rule of modesty” because there are about a million rules in the world, and this makes a million standards to be looked out for.  -Mark Twain- Following the Equator

Sometimes women, we are our worst enemies. Instead of fighting for true injustice in the world, abuse, sex-trafficking, child slavery and rape we are assessing each other’s dress code and deeming it inappropriate. We disguise it under the veil of religion, determining that we cause men to lust with our clothing. As if we have the power to dictate the feelings of another.

Only who determines modesty? Muslims can feel we Christians are immodest. Certain denominations of Christians determine that other denominations are immodest and the list goes on and on. I find it interesting though that men aren’t held to this standard. A woman’s lust for a man isn’t predicated on his attire or so it seems.

I just want it to stop. The women in the church clucking and running around talking about the attire of others are nothing more than bullies who have determined it is their right to speak out, behind your back of course, about their opinion of the way another dresses. The problem is you can make all the religious rules you want to about dress code. Unless the heart convicts you, you follow the rules in front of the rule authorities but you won’t follow it on your own because it isn’t your conviction.

1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Col 2:16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19 He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. 20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Expectation

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Psalm 5:1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing. 2 Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. 3 In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.

Expectation: noun the act or state of expect.
Expect Verb: to look forward to; regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or the coming of

In Psalm 5 the psalmist says with confidence in Verse 3- …O LORD, you hear my voice

He doesn’t say he hopes the Lord hears his voice, he doesn’t plead, “oh please hear my voice”. He says, O LORD, you hear my voice. There is a level of expectancy that has to be there for a believer to move forward in the things of God. What is the level of your expectation?

The psalmist goes on to say, in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.

Again, he is saying I lay it all bare before you Lord and then I wait for it to manifest according to your will. When was the last time you prayed with that level of confidence and patience? When was the last time you didn’t touch a situation and merely waited in expectation?

I want to ask a very important question to you all today. What are you expecting? I believe for most of us we need to raise our level of expectation. If you say you haven’t met the Holy Spirit in a while, it’s because you haven’t expected to not because he isn’t at work.

A few weeks ago, on prayer night, only a handful of us showed up. So we went old school in our music. There was tongue talking, crying out, Holy Ghost movement here in the house. Why? Because when those songs are played, we go back to our memories and we remember a sweet time with the Lord so we EXPECT some movement. The Holy Spirit isn’t moved because of the songs, the Holy Spirit is moved because of our expectant hearts.

Our religious nature tells us that the Holy Spirit is present when all is perfect, when we are dressed in an expected dress code, when we play a certain style of music, when we stand at the reading of the word. I don’t believe any of that because I see no reference in scripture to it. I see God searching for hearts who wait expectantly for a touch from their Master.

What is your level of expectation? Have you lacked the Holy Spirit in your life? You’ve been tracing back steps to where you last felt him thinking that it was that spot, that song, that circumstance that caused it? Then I ask you how big is your God? Why is your God limited to time and space?

The God I serve, the God you serve, meets you at your expectation. He gave you dominion. He enters when you allow him to. He is not, nor has he ever been, nor will he ever be limited to a song, circumstance, or place. He is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, all consuming and nothing or no one can put him in a box. He meets the prostitute, the sinner, the drug addicted, the saint, he meets all of us when we earnestly cry out to him.

I wonder if you will put down your religion long enough to meet the God of freedom? Raise your level of expectation and usher in the presence of the Lord your God.

Frances Gets Baptized

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Saturday I drove to Santa Monica with Ana Valencia, Anthony’s second mom and a blessing to me. We went to see my son’s girlfriend, Frances get baptized. A beautiful sunset service as three women committed their lives to Christ and the great commission was fulfilled.

L2R Me, Ana, Kim, Anthony, Frances, Jennifer, Mike, Craig

The first one to go into the water was a woman named Katie. Her family came in from Vancouver Canada. A beautiful spirit she beamed ear to ear. I love to see how God radiates in the smile of a believer.

Katie gets baptized first.

Frances went second. My picture came out blurry but my mind will never forget this moment.

Next went a beautiful woman named Molly. Molly may never know the impact she had on my life. I wonder if she realized that she quoted Jesus in the midst of her tears? Do you know the feeling when you witness a true God moment that is so extraordinary that it is imprinted on your heart forever? This was this kind of moment.

This next picture is of Kim, Frances’ bestie from Tennessee. I have to tell you that I love Kim. She is just one of those people that you meet and you’ve known forever. She makes me smile and her heart is so expansive. I am blessed to know her!

Kim and Frances

This is a picture of Marie, one of the small group leaders who helped lead Frances to this moment. She opens her home and heart for study.

This is June, she leads the small group in Marie’s home and made sure these women were ready to embark on this new journey with Christ.

I was honored to part of this special occasion. I love that three women submitted their lives to Christ last night. I love that in the water walked the old man and out emerged the new nature. Three women received keys to Kingdom last night. The angels rejoiced, God smiled great big and a new adventure unfolded.

In the Narnia Chronicles, Susan asks if Aslan is safe. No, is the response. He is not safe but he is good. Mighty women of God, your adventure begins and it doesn’t guarantee safety in the way we look at safety. It doesn’t guarantee that each day will be filled with happiness and heartache will never come. It does promise that God is good and that he will see you through it all, that your safety is secure in the end.

May your adventure be one of fulfillment, contentment, risk and the secure knowledge that in the end it all works out for your good and the good of those who you will impact for Jesus!

Detached Emotions

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I had a long drive yesterday to pick up tile to finish the fellowship hall. Flipping through radio stations, I stopped at the Oprah Channel and listened to a show with Dr. Laura Berman. The topic interested me because she was going to interview 20 something women on issues of sexuality.

It wasn’t long into the show before I was very saddened by what I was hearing. In modern-day sexuality of friends with benefits and one night stands, where does that leave a young women? I heard these young women make comments like, “All my other sexual partners…”, “How do I tell him that I find (fill in the blank) strange?”. It wasn’t that I was thinking they’d had so many partners, it was that I saw the discomfort. On the one hand, they are having sex, the most intimate thing you can do with a man, and they can’t talk about their feelings. One woman said she was able to have multiple partners because she was able to emotionally detach.

Yet, the thing the that blew me away was that sex wasn’t about pleasure for them. In the group only one woman had achieved an orgasm. Dr. Berman said this is typical and meets the studies. Although it wasn’t spoken, it sounded to me that it was more about expectation than it was about anything else.

While there are some who read this site that will think this isn’t a topic for Christian site, I disagree. I don’t think the women in the church do much better in this area, but if we keep quiet it will never get better. Teaching why something is the way it is makes it understandable. If we keep pointing to scripture without explanation it will never get better. I believe we have to explain why.

Sex sells, no doubt about it, from perfume to hamburgers we are inundated with sexual images in the media. When sex becomes casual and not profound then you begin to detach. When you unlock doors prematurely, with images brought on too early, desires awakening before they are understood, pressures from society that tell you sex is no big deal and love that awakens before it so desires, Song 2:7, 3:5, 8:4, through consent or through pain, then you begin to shut off emotionally. This is how we are able to emotionally detach. I don’t think these women were bad, I think these women are asking questions and trying to figure out where they fit in. I don’t think they understand the why of things any better than most.

God put sex in the confines of marriage because it is emotional. Sex is intimate, pleasurable, or should be, sacred and profound. It is not just for having babies, it’s for relationship with your spouse. I know that sounds old-fashioned but the purpose is to save us heartache. God didn’t put sex in marriage to punish us but to protect us. He made woman the last thing he put on earth because she was to be the crown of creation. She was the one who brought peace to man who had discovered there was no mate suitable for him. She was brought on the scene to be the finishing touch, the answer to his longing. Had she been brought on earlier she would have been abused by a man who didn’t understand her purpose, not because men are abusive but because he would not have known better. God brought woman to a man who understood her worth. I can’t imagine not being able to look at my husband in the eye and tell him my desires because we have intimacy and a bond that makes comfort possible.

Sex is a big deal. It’s leaving a part of you with someone else. God isn’t being punitive, he protecting his children from the misunderstandings of a great gift opened too early.

What’s For Dinner 2

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Oasis making meals for others

In the previous post we ask what you are serving. The disciples begin to pass out the inadequate amount of food to the groups of 50. My perfectionist mind would have been in freak-out mode. Think for a second that it wouldn’t have even fed one group of 50 in the natural realm, but remember as well that it was blessed food. So as they are serving the multitude, the principle of multiplication comes forth and the food stretches to feed everyone, so much so. that the scripture said everyone was satisfied and then the disciples went to pick up the crumbs.

When we put this process in today terms, do you consume everything that is blessed by God or do you take advantage of the multiplicity principle? If we are hoarding the things in our hands then although it’s blessed, it isn’t multiplying is it? If our portion has already been determined then what is the purpose of not serving up a good meal to the millions of people who need what we have in our hands? Why not allow the blessing to flow past us to others? Either we believe our God is one of more than enough or we cling to what we’ve been given.

The other thing I want you to notice is that they went and picked up all of the leftovers. This makes me think that the leftovers were of value as well. So take a look at your life, what do you do with the leftovers? How much money is actually going out that you aren’t even aware of, because to you, they are leftovers and of no value. Ask yourself could someone benefit, even you, from them?

What about your food leftovers? Could you warm them up and take it to the train tracks (for us, that’s where our homeless, drug addicted people gather)? Could you invite a lonely widow to your house to come and share a meal? What about the leftovers in your closet? What outfit would bless someone?

In other words, what is in your hand that you can serve? That was the point Jesus was making in his illustrated sermon. Don’t think your little bit can’t help someone. God has provided what you need, not just for you and your house, but for others as well.

I love, love, love the fact that Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.” I love that he handed the food back, broken and blessed but exactly what was given to him to be served by the ones who had given it him in the first place.

As followers of Christ who profess His name and profess to be sold out to him, I ask what are you serving? Have you consumed all that you’ve been blessed with or have you applied the principle of multiplication to your possessions? Have you had the faith of the impossibility of the moment or have you waffled in fear? It shows me that there is a big difference between success and excess. Just because I have the money for something doesn’t mean I am supposed to spend it there. No, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have nice things, we do, and we can, but what about excess? God provided the food that day for the disciples and there was more than enough but they didn’t throw the leftovers away. They gathered them.

My prayer is that He satisfies you too and that if you aren’t already doing it you will take a step out in faith to serve someone else.

What’s For Dinner?

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Luke 9:12 Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.” He replied, “You give them something to eat.” They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish–unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” (About five thousand men were there.) But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. 16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. 17 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

Church had been going on all day and the people were getting tired and hungry. The disciples went to Jesus and asked him to dismiss service. Only Jesus had an illustrated sermon still planned so he told the disciples, “You give them something to eat.”

So today’s question is what are you serving those people around you? The disciples were freaked out at the proposition. I would be too! Talk about not having enough food. So the disciples let Jesus know that they only have 5 loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus doesn’t seem perturbed by this because with God there is no lack, but the disciples aren’t there yet mentally, and honestly are we? Jesus answers for them to group the people in 50’s. That doesn’t even seem like any sort of answer to the problem at hand.

At this point if I were one of the disciples I would have been expecting Jesus to just multiply the loaves and fishes. I mean he could have. Like an abracadrabra sort of things 5 loaves becomes thousands and 2 fish become many and the people are served. Only Jesus doesn’t do that. He takes the food, looks to heaven, gives thanks and breaks them. Okay, now if you are a disciple you now have 10 half loaves and 4 half fishes. Can you imagine? Then he hands the food back to them!

Jesus believes we can use what we have in our hands.

Two things here have to stick out at you. One, he says, YOU give them something to eat. YOU not ME. YOU! Then Jesus returns to the disciples what seems like exactly what they gave him. Only it wasn’t exactly as they gave it to them, it’s now blessed.

See if we are truly sold out to Christ, then we hand him everything in our lives. If we hand him everything in our lives, he takes it, looks up to heaven, give thanks and breaks it and gives it back to us. What do we do with those things then? How do we serve God with them? His commandment says we love God with all of our heart, mind and soul and we love each other. We serve others.

One of two things could have happened. I mean, let’s face it, the disciples were in church all day too and just as tired and hungry. They could have just said forget it, there’s no way we are going to be able to feed these people, so let’s just eat it ourselves or they could have served the people. One act, is just selfish like the wicked, evil servant in the talents story and the other is about faith in the midst of the impossibility.

Which would you have done?