Monday, February 21, 2011

The Good and the Bad...Little Habits

Just some random thoughgts going through my head today.... :)

We all got those little habits in our life. In fact they are so little that sometimes we don't even recognize them or think they are a big deal. But like most things in life...the little things become a big thing.

If they are good habits, then we have nothing to worry about. But if they are bad habits we need to be on our guard and continually fight them, or else these seemingly harmless things become a big problem and will take over our lives and consume us.

When we form these habits we often don't realize what they will become...it may start out as a harmless lie, or a careless decision....but it leads us deeper and deeper into it's trap, unnoticed by our blinded eyes. Before we know it, they consume us and even define us.

The bad habits don't take work, our carnal flesh leads us into them easily. It's the good habits that take work to form. So how do we overcome the bad habits? By developing and working on good habits. It may start out small, and seem pointless. In the end though the good habits grow and they eventually consume us, pushing out the bad ones. You fight and destroy those bad little things in your life, by nourishing and developing the good little things!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

God's Love - Kenny Anderson

The four dimensions of God's love:
  • Breadth: John 3:16 "For God so loved the world..." It's a love wide enough to cover the whole earth!
  • Length: 1 Cor. 13:8 "Love never ends..." It's a love long enough that it never ends!
  • Height: Heb 12:22-23 "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God..." A love which is high enough to reach us from earth and bring us into the heavens.
  • Depth: Phil. 2:8 "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. " A love which is deep enough to take Christ form His throne, to the very depths, to reach the lowest of the lowest sinners.
These four dimensions describe an infinite and incomprehensible love!

A.W. Tozer- "Because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning; because He is eternal, His love can have no end; because He is infinite, it has no limit; because He is holy, it is the quintessence of all spotless purity; because He is immense, His love is an incomprehensibly vast, bottomless, shoreless sea..."

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Being Strong in Him

Growing up, I have learned many lessons, had hard times, been through struggles, and fallen into sin. There have been many times when I have fallen into temptations and sin, and I find myself stuck. So I would get myself out of trouble, only to fall and do it all over again. I can’t even count how many times I went through this cycle in my life. I always wondered what was wrong with me, why can’t I just stop whatever I was doing. I always tried so hard, I was a strong Christian girl and yet I kept doing the same thing over and over again.

The problem was that I would try and get out on my own. I was being very independent and self-assured. I thought I could be the strong one and stop. I would do it on my own. I would try and stop the cycle because I was strong enough. But I would go about it all wrong.

One time, awhile ago, when I had really screwed up, and I was lying in my bed, trying to figure out how I could make it right, it hit me! I was trying to fix things by myself, instead of going to Christ. I had never cried out to God, asking for His strength to help me, I had always relied on my own power.

This is all too often a belief in our culture as well, and it has deeply taken root in the Church. We have so many self-help programs, books, and motivational speakers. So many leaders in our culture continually push us to believe in the strength of ourselves. They teach stuff about becoming a better you. They try to build our self-esteem, so that we can find our own power to help us. Instead of going to the Higher power, we look within our fallen, depraved self’s. On occasion one does quit their ugly cycle of alcoholism, drugs, or whatever it is they are enslaved to. But they still have the tendency to fall right back into it, because they are only relying on their own strength to help them. Then they may get back out of it because someone, some preacher, or TV talk show host, told them they can do it if they only find the power within themselves. Instead of everything being Christ-centered, it has become a man-centered gospel of help and forgiveness.

Instead of seeking our own strength to help us, we need to cry out to the Lord, ask Him for His strength and guidance to get us through the tough times. Acting like we can do it ourselves only digs us deeper into sin. “The Lord is the strength of His people...” (Ps. 28:8) “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart.” (Ps. 73:26) “I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (IS. 41:10)

When we come to God, with a humble and contrite heart, He promises to be our strength, to send His Helper and fill us. “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Ps. 51:17) “This is the one to whom I (God) will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit.” (Is. 66:2) Recognizing our sin and incapability to turn from it on our own is the first step to turning around. Depending on God’s strength and the presence of the Holy Spirit is what will turn us around fully and put us on the path of sanctification.

Even after I realized all this, I still had a hard time turning around. As fallen man, we will still continually fall, all the way up to judgment day. We all still make mistakes, and wrong choices. But we know that when we do fall, there is One who forgives and picks us back up again. Our own strength isn’t enough, knowing this is important. He gives us the strength and help that we need, knowing this is even more important!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Life and Lessons

It's been awhile since I've written here. A lot has been happening, and there have been many lessons that I've learned as of late, that I wish I would have written down when they were fresh on my mind. Lessons in love, life, priorities, managing time wisely etc... Recently I've been thinking a lot about priorities. Realizing that we all need to figure out what matters most in life, and what our criteria should be for the important decisions that we have to make.

We all face different phases of our lives and we have to decided what is the most important thing for us to accomplish in the different stages of life. As a child, we may have to decide whether it is more important that we play or do our school. As teenagers we need to decide whether our independence or honoring our parents is more important . Once we graduate we have to decide what we want to do, what is most important to accomplish. And all of the answers to these questions depends upon where our priorities are and what they are based upon. Are our priorities based upon what God has called us to do through His Word, or are they selfish ambitions? Do we want to follow the Biblical plan that God has given us, or just have a good time? Have we set before us a high standard that we want to follow through life? Are the priorities that we do have, too shallow? Do they follow a Biblical principle? These are just some questions that have been swirling around in my head, that I thought I would share with you so that you could ask yourself.

Some life examples that we can apply these questions to are: what are my priorities when trying to find a spouse? Or what are my priorities in the relationship that I am in? What are my priorities in my education or the education of my children? These are crucial questions of life, and we need to know what is most important...what is Biblical.

Recently I've been thinking about this a lot. Trying to figure out what God wants me to do to further grow and glorify His kingdom. What are my priorities, and standards about the different stages of life. Constantly I need to be looking at these and decide whether they are biblical or selfish desires. Evaluating them according to scripture. I would just challenge you to do the same. :)

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Treasure Them

As the year draws to an end, I start thinking about all that has happened and what I have learned. There have been many events, times to grow and learn. There has been times for rejoicing, times for weeping, a time to make peace and times for war, and time of death and time for life. But through it all I have learned a very big lesson- life is short, precious and very unexpected. As I reflect over the past I realize a very good lesson that has hung over me and which I have tried to contemplate over more and more. When life is so short and unexpected, we don't have time for meaningless quarrels and complications. We don't have time to take advantage of one another, or take each other for granted. We need to treasure every little thing, for we know not what is around the bend.

It's hard to write down the mistakes I have made, but one huge one is that I never try hard enough to get along with other people, I continually take them for granted and take advantage of them. Many times we have conflicts with those in the family or close friends and it's hard to forgive.Many times we just don't get along because of personality conflict or we just can't stand the way they do something. And so we go through life not treasuring the person God has created and put in your life. I know I have done this. If I don't get along with someone, I'll distant myself from them and never get too close to them.

But know, because of the past years events, I have learned that life is short so treasure them. One never knows when you may lose them, permanently or just temporarily. I have learned to stop wasting precious moments over meaningless conflicts and treasure every moment. Learn to love what you didn't like about them. It's the conflicts that you have but overcome that make life interesting.

Treasure the conflicts, treasure the hard times and the good times. Treasure the people in your life for you know not how long they will be with you. God has sovereignly placed you with the people you are with because He knows you need them, even when it's hard to get along.We should go out of our way to be with those people for then we will learn to love them or see that personality which we couldn't understand before as just a part of who they are and we still can get along with them.

Every moment spent together, every moment lived is a precious memory that we need to hold onto. Treasure them all!

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas

May you have a Merry Christmas, and may the next year bring Him more glory!
Love ya all!!!





This is one of my favorite Christmas songs- "I Celebrate The Day" by Reliant K

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

A tragic story without an ending...

This morning, on my mad rush to get to work on time, I past a cat who met it's last days on earth. As usual I grieved a little, but then I noticed something...it moved! Immediately I pulled over to check on it...maybe it was still alive and only injured...maybe I would be able to help it, but I did not expect what I saw.

As I drew near to the poor cat I realized that it was not the dead cat that moved, but a poor helpless little kitten that was snuggled up to it. The poor dear was trying to nurse it's mother. I tried to pick it up...but it scrambled away. For the next 10 minutes if you happened to be in a car passing by, you would have seen me dashing across the street countless times, fumbling my way through bushes and falling into the ditch...but at last I caught it.

I looked at my surroundings and noticed a near by house. So I walked over there...the lady at the door informed me that the mother had been a stray cat in the area for a while and that she wanted nothing to do with the kitten. What could I do? I held the adorable little girl kitten in my arms and brought her home.

She is a small, helpless, orphan. She is so cute..she's black with a white nose and paws..and she is still very little. What is to be her fate I know not yet...can you give her a home?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

It's a Grand Night


Bring the whole family for-

It's A Grand Night for Singing!!!

A musical review the whole family will enjoy!

Where:
Grants Pass, 111 Evelyn Theater (New Song Church) between 6th and 7th street, across from Barnstormers

When: October-
9th: 7pm,
10th: 2pm and 7pm,
16th: 7pm,
17th: 2pm and 7pm.
Admission: Adults- $6, Children 4-12 $4, Children 3 and under are Free