Journal of Faith: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Philippians 2:12

I remembered last night going to a Bahi temple once when I was a freshman in college.  It was a beautiful place full of people who seemed very pleasant. Our tourist told us about how he married a woman who believed in Cabala.  He said that he had been a christian but changed to a cabalist after running out of excuses with his wife.  I was saddened by this because as he described what cabala was I realized that he could not have been a Bible reader.  He talked about how the same spirit was in Jesus that was in Muhammad and Moses and a bunch of other people, and that we could pray to whoever we wanted. He talked about our good deeds taking us to levels of light, and I was just shocked at how a man who said he was a Christian could be so deceived.  Here is what I wish I had said to this man.  We are rooted by what we believe, and if our roots are deep enough we can not be removed . I believe that a christian who truly believes in their heart that Jesus is th...

I love my mother! She has been there for me all of my life, but never more than when I found out I was pregnant.  She went against her teaching and held me close even when it hurt her to do so.  She embraced my son and opened her heart completely to him.  If it weren't for the Christ in her that loved me flaws and all then I may have never recovered from my loss of self.  I know that I would have been a terrible mother if it weren't for her.  I would have been like a woman broken and bitter.  I would not have clung to my faith and stood my ground.  I would have crumbled and laid in my own filth too exhausted to even bother licking my wounds.  My mother knew that I was in danger of becoming obsolete.  She knew that my shame was overwhelming and she prayed for me and loved me until she knew that I was willing to place myself in the hands of the Lord for restoration.  I am confident now in the love that God has for me, and I am confident t...

The Lord gave me a wonderful picture a few months ago.  It was the picture of what we are suppose to do with a seed once it is planted.  You water it!  I was reminded of the parable of the seed sower, and I asked the Lord what seeds do you want me to sow?  He showed me that the seeds were witnesses of God's goodness.  They were the accounts of the wonderful work of Jesus Christ, and the showing of God's glory in the life of the believer.  When our lives are totally given over to God he gives us things to tell other people about.  He works miracles in our lives and makes things possible that to everyone in the world would seem impossible.  This is not a coincidence.  God does amazing things in our lives because he loves us and he wants us to tell people about it.  When we see the hand of the Lord working on the behalf of his people what we witness is a seed.  When we water that seed with praise and thanksgiving that seed begins to gr...

It seems like all people go through a period when things are going really well followed by a period when everything seems to be falling apart.  I have gone through several of these stages and most recently I was in a stage when it seemed like my life was falling apart level by level.  It felt like a systematic destruction of my life.  Of course my life is not my own so I had to wonder why God was allowing so much destruction, you may have seen this in an earlier post,  and he gave me this answer. Sometimes he breaks down the temple to build a greater one.  We are clay in the hand of the potter and God molds us for particular purposes and when that purpose is done he breaks us down and rebuilds us for our next purpose.  It is when we get so comfortable where we are that we begin to resent the breaking down.  It is hard to do something new when you like what you were doing before. Sometimes we can get so good at being successful that we forget that our l...

"I wasn't always good at hide and seek, but I was better than a lot of the other kids around me.  Now I use the skill to help me find lost shoes, missing toy parts or my keys after my son has been digging in my purse.  Oddly enough when I hide things from myself, like money, I might not find it for three  months, and that's with me actively searching.  I put things away places trying to be conservative or clever, and I can barely find them again. What is that?!  I can find just about anything that anyone else is hiding, although many times it is by accident.  I think my worst ever case of lost and not quite found is my passion.  I know it sounds weird, but the Bible says that where your treasure is there your heart is also.  I guess what I am really unsure of is what I treasure most.  We have been talking about this as a family this week in my home, and I think it is time I weighed everything out.  I know that my treasure isn't money bec...

It amazes me how much the Lord is able to provide for me.  Today I had a serious issue that I had no ability to solve and even before I could pray I got a knock on my door with my solution.  God even sees my intentions to pray and sometimes answers me before I can ask for what I need.  God is just that concerned about my circumstances.  I think God is showing me again and again that he is worthy of my trust.  If I weren't taking time to analyze how things are working in my life I don't think that I would recognize just how much God is doing for me.  Luck has nothing to do with it. When things work out in our lives it isn't because we are lucky it is because God allowed it and even willed it to happen for us. Oddly enough this goes along with consecration.  I was studying consecration and the actual definition of consecration is filling our hand to the Lord. It's an offering of our hands to receive what the Lord gives us.  It's a posture of humilit...

I just got an email today that some of our Christian friends in Nigeria are in need of Bibles.  They are expensive there and they asked me if I could send a couple.  I am definitely going to send some and if anyone else would like to send some Bible to our brothers and sister in Nigeria please let me know.  I believe that God's word is all powerful and if more people could read it then whole societies would be turned around.  If you have your own Bible that you can read then you are blessed.  If you can talk about the goodness of the Lord and share his word with your friends and family then you are blessed, and we are blessed to be a blessing.  If you can anyone who is reading this blog as a believer, help our neighbors.  Times have been hard and money is tight, but I believe that God will honor what we have when we sacrifice for his people.  I believe that when we bless people God blesses us, and the cycle of blessing continues.  Be a blessi...

I constantly wrestle with the concept that I am in a covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  It is difficult enough to think about all of the things that God offers to me as his family.  In all of the blessing that God does concerning my life, I can't help but ask what God wants from me.  God is answering me that he wants my heart.  God wants me to love him and to spend time with him.  He wants me to think about him when I am making my decisions.  He wants me to put him first in my life.  He wants me to honor what he tells me as wise and for my good.  He wants me to open my heart to the things that are close to his heart.  He wants me to get passionate about him.  God wants me to trust him completely.  God wants me to know him and accept him for who he is.  God wants me to pull in so close to him that people don't even see me anymore, but they see him in me.  Lord let your light be shown through me.  Thi...

You wouldn't believe what God gave me for a birthday present!  It's my birthday today, and he gave me a phone call that changed my life a little bit.  The Lord took away my fear and he replaced it with hope.  In one phone call he showed me that he loved me so much that he was sending a representative to mirror that.  God sent me hope that he does have someone for me, and that I won't have to wait forever for the things that he has for me.  He has things for me right now that are coming and they are almost here.  One phone call reminded me again of how much God loves me.  Keep trusting God everyone.  He has everything that we need in the palm of his hand. 

It amazes me how when God blesses me it is usually in bundles of blessings.  I don't normally get just one.  I recently had a couple of things work in ways that I didn't expect.  I am so excited I don't know what to do with myself.  It is just another reminder that God is faithful.  He knows what I need and want, and it matters to him.  God cares about what I want.  That baffles me.   How could a God who created everything, knows everything, and see in and out of time care about what I want?  I feel really loved right now.  It makes all of the things that I have been going through feel like it was bearable.  God knows what he is doing with our lives and truly our present suffering can't even be compared to the glory to come.  If you are going through terror right now just hold on.  I was about two seconds from giving up when God blessed me, and he is still continuing to bless me.  Every time I am about to really ...