Are You Thirsty?

Are you thirsty? Does your spirit feel as dry as your throat after a long dusty walk? Are you dragging one foot in front of the other through a desert of one sort or another? It’s been a long stretch for me. I’m desperately in need of a deep, cold drink of spiritual water.

Life hits us all like that at times. Sometimes it’s a quick hot trip, other times we feel a bit like the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years. But God knew that life would be dry and difficult some days, that’s why he sent the water of life, His Spirit, to soothe our souls along with our throats as we wait to be rescued.

Even if your journey through this desert is not at an end, there can be times when you seek the shade and sip from his cool, soothing word to quench your thirst. Join me won't you? #MemorizeGodsWord Click To Tweet

What ever you are walking through this week, may you find an oasis of refreshing water. Even if your journey through this desert is not at an end, there can be times when you seek the shade and sip from his cool, soothing word to quench your thirst. Join me won’t you?

Praying that whatever you face this week will be washed away in moments in the word where God holds you close and you know for sure you are loved.

Link to the full sized image.

Sharing at Lylidunbar.com Check out the other great bloggers there!

How Do We Learn?

There are many ways to learn, one of the best ways we learn is by example. Another, is by investing our time.

I don’t think my mother liked to cook. I never asked her, but I don’t remember her happily spending time in the kitchen. I did not learn to enjoy cooking from her, nor did I learn to cook.  My grandmother, she enjoyed cooking! We reminisce with the cousins about the good things she cooked and the things she taught us. I recall pulling up a chair to stand or kneel on as I watched her work. The few things I learned to cook, I learned from my grandmother.

We show our children what we value by where we spend our time, Continue reading “How Do We Learn?”

Go Do It !

This news is just too good to keep to ourselves. Time for action!

Jesus is letting us know this news is good for everyone. There is no one who is not eligible to receive this news if they want to. No need to travel off to a foreign mission field. The nations are all around you. Just look around!

 

 

It’s All About the Good News!

We hold our breath waiting on good news. In my family, we’ve been waiting months on a piece of news to come. We yearn for the news, we lean into every sign, searching for the news we want to hear. Our news is physical, we long for my husband to regain his heath and return to the active and vibrant life he once lead. We live daily on the edge of anticipation. I know John has got to be tired of me asking, “any change yet?”

As Jesus marched into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and the crowds celebrated, they were sure their good news, freedom from captivity, had come. But that good news turned ugly when they missed the point. Jesus did not come to free them from the Romans, he came instead to free them from the power of sin and death.

And today, we celebrate His triumph! The good news, well, that would be Jesus! I want to give you some verses this month that can serve as tools to use as you share the good news! My goal was to choose five verses, one for each week in April, that once learned would give you the gist of what Christ did for us. Verses you can have at the ready to share your faith, just as Jesus asked us to do. Continue reading “It’s All About the Good News!”

Who God Made Me

March 2018 Scripture Memory Challenge

My father loves me. He created me to be just the woman He wanted me to be. So, why do I have trouble believing this truth some days? I feel like I don’t measure up. That I’m not smart enough, funny enough, pretty enough or good enough.

Why do I keep falling for the lie that I am not smart enough, funny enough, pretty enough or good enough? Click To Tweet

Every year, He sends me flowers for my birthday! I’m born in March you see and here in Tennessee the buttercups have been blooming for a week. My pear tree is white and frothy, the forsythia is stunning and my neighbor’s tulip tree is in full bloom. That’s a lot of flowers. I enjoy them in the yard, and I cut them to bring indoors. I let myself be delighted in my Father’s love. Even if you aren’t born in March, He loves you just as much you know. We are all His favorites! Continue reading “Who God Made Me”

Love – February 2018 Scripture Memory Challenge

I know! How cliche to choose love as our topic for February, right? But nothing is cliche about God’s love. It destroys all our perceptions of love, drawing us instead to a love that cuts deeper, rushes over us suddenly, wraps us in a protective cocoon and is never failing!

We often hear the phrase to fall in love or we hear that love grew between people, but that’s not the nature of God’s love. Loving is not something God does. Love is who God is. And God cannot help but to be who he is. So, he loves us, period!  We never have to worry about loosing God’s love.

Loving is not something God does. Love is who God is. Click To Tweet

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8

God loved us first. He knows exactly who we are, what we’ve done, what we are going to do, what we think and how often we think it. That doesn’t stop him. He loves us anyway. He didn’t wait for us to know him or repent of our sin, he took the first step, pouring out the love we needed, before we even knew we needed it. I can’t imagine asking someone I love to die for me or for someone else that I love, but God did not hesitate. He sent his son to die for us giving us salvation.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Romans 8:38

We may say we love unconditionally, but let’s face it, sometimes, at least in the moment, we have to remind ourselves we love and force our actions into line. We live in a world of changing priorities and shifting allegiance. Nothing stays the same for long. But God’s love stays the course. This verse points out three truths about God’s love:

Though we may disappoint him or even reject him, he won’t take his love away. Nor can we walk away from God’s love.

  1. We may have to experience the consequences  of our actions and we may feel that the discipline we receive through the consequences is a sign that God has withdrawn his love, but that’s just a lie the ruler of this dark world wants us to swallow. God loves those he disciplines (Take a look at Hebrews 12:7.)
  2. The third important truth about God’s love is that absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love.

I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6

What does God ask in return? Well, first and foremost, he wants us to love him in return. In the Old Testament God required sacrifices from his people so that they could be forgiven. Although God took care of that need for a sacrifice once and for all when he sent his Son to be that sacrifice, many of us still have it in our heads that God is asking us to sacrifice in order to earn his love. We think we must give offerings, or do things or make ourselves over in order to purchase his love. God says, that’s not true! What I want is for you to get to know me. And how do we get to know God? It’s just like we get to know each other. We spend time with them. As we spend time with God in prayer, studying his word and praising him, as we do, we get to know him. Those actions, the time spent together, is what God wants.

This is a familiar concept. I really wanted my husband to know me before we married and I wanted to get to know him. So, we spent time together, we talked, we listened and we talked about each other to others. The more time we have spent together, the more we know each other. We’ve been married 15 years, and still we learn things about one another all the time. God’s love is infinitely more complex than either my husband or me, so there are always new things to learn about him as we spend time together.

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13: 34-35

And then, God asks us to show that we are changed by his love and that we are full of his spirit, by pouring out our love on others. God says we are to love those who are fellow Christ followers so much that the rest of the world will be able to see that we are his followers without even being told, because they will see our love for each other.

God asks us to show that we are changed by his love and that we are full of his spirit, by pouring out our love on others. Click To Tweet

However, God wants us to be so changed by his love that we don’t just love Christ followers, but that we love even our enemies. Luke 6:27 tells us that he doesn’t just want us to love our enemies from a safe distance, he wants us to love those who hate us by doing good to them. You see, God desires that his love will be so life changing for us that we will become like him. Remember, he didn’t wait on us to love him, he loved us first!

If you have signed up for the challenge check your email to download your printable memory cards for the month of February. If you aren’t signed up for the scripture memory challenge you are missing out on the memory cards and a weekly email with the verse for the week. Why not sign up now?

All verses are quoted from the New Living Bible

linking up at Lyli Dunbar’s Faith on Fire

January Scripture Memory Challenge

 

Hope

Let’s face it, we all start the year with hopes and dreams. Some make resolutions, others spend time setting goals and planning to accomplish them. Others just dream and do nothing to move forward. It’s my prayer, that one of your goals will be to give your best to God all year, and memorizing his word is one way to do it.

So, whether your year begins on a high or a low, it’s a new year. And as we move through the year life will happen. Sometimes, what happens will be hard. But for the Christ-follower, no matter our circumstances, we have hope! We all need hope and our hope is built on the Lord Jesus Christ.

We will begin January with an easy verse, one many of you may already know, and memorize 5 verses that affirm the Lord is our Hope and Salvation! Continue reading “January Scripture Memory Challenge”

Three Benefits of Memorizing Scripture and 2018 Scripture Memory Challenge

The attacker moves toward me; I banish the attack with my sword! Because I have a scripture ready in my memory, I feel like a valiant knight prepared to whip out my sword and slay the forces of darkness with the Word of God!  I believe that committing scripture to memory is a worthwhile discipline for every Christ-follower. Introducing: The 2018 Scripture Memory Challenge!

Now, don’t be groaning! It doesn’t have to be hard; there are tools we can use to make things more memorable if you will accept the challenge to memorize just one verse a week throughout 2018. I will provide tools and hints to help you.

I think there are three valuable reasons to memorize scripture: Continue reading “Three Benefits of Memorizing Scripture and 2018 Scripture Memory Challenge”

Really? That’s Where You’re Sending Me?

I didn’t get it. The scripture had resonated. I had written it on a note card and tucked it up on the mirror I used each morning. I read it over and over. My heart answered: “Here I am Lord send me, I will answer the call, I will go, just show me where!’’ Then, I spent years asking God to show me what he wanted, where I should go. The answer stared me in the face every morning as I got up to go to work but I didn’t get it! God was sending me out into the workplace to be his witness, to be his hands and feet.

Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” I said, “Here I am. Send me.” Isaiah 6:9 NLT

I’m retired now, I don’t get up every morning and go out into the world. I don’t have the same encounters with people who can see my integrity, or lack of, every day. I no longer encounter classes or auditoriums full of students on a nearly weekly basis. The sheer numbers of people I had the opportunity to serve as the hands and feet of Jesus are in my past.

Don’t get me wrong, a great deal of prayer went into my decision to retire. And, although much of my time is spent alone in this life of a writer, I still go out into the world in intentional ways but I’ve changed! Now, I do get it! I know I’m the hands and feet of Jesus as I visit a local grade school each week to help a young teacher friend with fourth graders. And, I know that I’m the one called to encourage my Tuesday ladies as they struggle in a sometimes difficult workplace. I listen and love the members of my exercise classes and we speak of things of real importance rather than superficial pleasantries.

Our workplaces are our mission fields. It's where we “go into the world”. #womenatwork http://wp.me/p7tIj1-5w Click To Tweet

I also know that God has asked me to tell you that I was wrong! Our workplaces are our mission fields. It’s where we “go into the world”. We need to drive or walk or fly to work fully aware that we have been called to go and walk side-by-side with our coworkers, our customers, our clients, our students and our patients. To be the hands and feet of Jesus.

I hope, unlike me, you get it! Where ever you work, whoever you see daily, those are the ones you are called to serve and the place God sends you out to work is precisely the place you are called to.

The beauty is that we don’t have to get it to be where God wants us. God is perfectly capable of placing you in the right spot whether you get it or not. Unfortunately, even though you may not recognize your mission, the enemy does. The more effective you are the harder he will work to undermine the mission. Our commute should be fueled with preparation to go into the world and fight the battles that dilute our witness, that undermine our integrity and fail to offer the light that we are called to carry into the world.

God is perfectly capable of placing you in the right spot whether you get it or not. #womenatwork http://wp.me/p7tIj1-5w Click To Tweet

So here’s my question for you today. What do you need to help you as you face your daily mission field? Do you need a prayer warrior? Just ask and I’ll pray for you by name. Put it in the comments below or send me a private note. Do you need a daily encouragement as you drive to work? Or, is there something else you need. I’d really like to know!

 

Sharing at:

Holly Girth’s website

#FaithOnFire

Stolen Identity

It all started with a phone call. As the conversation began to unfold I realized that something was not right. I quickly hung up and did a bit of research, my identity had been stolen! It was not my financial identity, but my medical identity. Someone had impersonated me, using my medical history to obtain drugs. I went through a series of emotions, shock, violation, anger, determination. The feelings I experienced are normal when someone steals from us.

We hear of someone who has had their financial identity stollen fairly often. When I filed the police report, they told me that even in my small community there are several reports a day. But, that evening as I was processing the events of the day, it hit me, our spiritual identity is stolen too.

Spiritual identity, you ask? Well, yes! It happens every day to someone. We listen to the voice that says you are worthless, you are not worthy, you are guilty. But the truth is that once we belong to Christ we have a new identity, we are new creations.

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Cor 5:17 NLT

We have been purchased by Christ’s blood and we have a new identity, but we have a hard time shifting gears in our head. We keep thinking we are that same old person, the one we were before Christ. Intellectually we say, I’m saved, but our hearts do not seem convinced. Our actions do not reflect our salvation. Our thought patterns cling to the patterns of that old person before salvation. Simply speaking, we let our identity as daughters of God be stolen!

Simply speaking, we let our identity as daughters of God be stolen! Click To Tweet

So here’s my challenge, if you choose to accept…let this truth shock you! Then get angry about it and replace that anger with a new determination to think and live and act like the redeemed woman of God that you are. Fight for your identity in Christ!

 

I would invite you to share this post if it’s beneficial. Please consider signing up to receive notification in your inbox when a post is published so you don’t miss one! Just use the subscribe to the blog box to your right.

Sharing this week at:

Http://www.HollyGerth.com

LilyDunbar.com