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

   There is an old hymn called I'm still here.  In the churches I've been to they sing it with almost total exhaustion and I used to drag my way through the song too.  It was so depressing!!!!  If you have seen the Jerry Lewis film "The Orderly"  you could equate the attitude of the people to be that of the annoying patient who said " I guess I'll live to suffer some more."  The crazy thing is that if you listen to the words the song is actually suppose to be a song of encouragement.  The words say, "I'm still here/I'm still here/ I've made it through/And so have you/I've been through the fire/And I've been through the flood/I'm still here/Kept by his word."  As I was considering my current plight I began to realize that no matter how strange things get in my life, if I am living to complain about it then God has kept me and I am blessed.  If I can complain then what was meant to destroy me failed because I am still he...

      My three year old is a great source of material from God. There are so many days I will be explaining something to him and it will hit me that God was trying to tell me that same thing.  One of the recent events was a discussion of the mirror.  My son gets that when he looks in the mirror he sees himself, but he calls the boy in the mirror a picture.  After brushing our teeth one morning he said "look at the picture."  I responded that pictures stay in one place and show something that happened.  What he was seeing was a reflection that showed what was happening right then.  "It moves at the same time you do," I told him.  I could feel the Lord smiling as he told me "that's right."  Then he reminded me that his people are suppose to be His reflections and not just pictures.   As Christians we aren't just suppose to pose for pictures of who God is , but we exist to move as God moves.  So then I have to as...

       The other day I was outside with my son, and I noticed some dead branches on our tree in the back yard.  I decided like any problem fixer that I was going to pull down the dead branches .   As I reached up to one of the branches that was low enough for me I realized that it was amazingly easy to break off.  Just then the Lord spoke to me in the tree branches.  He told me that just as I felt the necessity to pull of the dead branches on that tree there are dead parts in all of our lives that need to come down if we are to continue to grow and be healthy.           The way that I recognized the dead tree limbs was because they weren't growing anything.  They were bare.   Some of the more dangerous branches were discolored and showed signs of being diseased.  What part of our lives is barren and possibly diseased?  There is a beautiful parable that names those who are saved ...

I bless the Lord because he speaks to me all the time now.  He woke me up with this one today.  He let me know that to speak things into my life is critical to the pulling in of my future.  God has many opportunities for us, but sometimes they are waiting on us to speak the words.  If we are in the will of God and our hearts are right then when we speak God will move on our behalf and all of creation will have to comply. God has shared with me that to speak as though things were is to speak to our futures.  It is to recognize that the will of God for our lives is going to happen and that his promises are true.  When people ask me when I will finish school or when I am getting married I will say soon, and I will believe it because as soon as God says so it will happen.  How do I know that these things will happen?  I know that God loves me and he promised me that if I seek him and his will for my life then he would take care of my wants and needs....

Imagine if your favorite celebrity were to walk up to you and say, "I have a special job for you to do.  Will you follow me?  I'll take care of you." Many of us would jump up and say yes without even considering our circumstances or what we might have to give up.    A lot of people who are considering Christianity get hung up when others talk about living for God.  To some this means following a set of rules and forcing yourself to live a life of denial and boredom, but God is not boring and he certainly isn't interested in forcing people to do anything. (If God wanted to force us into anything then he wouldn't have bothered to give us choice).  God wants us to try him out and find out that he is greater than we ever imagined.  It is about excitement and anticipation. God wants us to live for him like we "live" for our next visit to the mall or our next scoop of ice cream or our next vacation.  When we choose to follow Christ he leads us...

I love having that quiet time with God.  He really does talk with me.  Recently in my searching for a better understanding of him I realized that I was frustrated because God and I had no personal and individual parameters for our relationship.  While the plan for salvation has been the same for everyone and the promises of God are for everyone who is his child, our relationships are individual.  God doesn't talk to everyone the same way, and God doesn't give all of us the same gifts and calling.  The Bible gives us a wonderful foundation for our relationship with God, but we have to press in if we are really to develop and grow.  We have to learn the relationship dynamic that we have with God. I asked God "do you do anything out of covenant?"  He answered me before I could even finish my sentence with a resounding "NO".  He wasn't yelling he was just definite.  God works in covenant and he has shown that from the very beginning until now....

God just blows my mind sometimes with the simple ways he explains things to me when I least expect it.  I was just thinking about the children that I am working with at my church and how important it is for them to learn that they can do things for God and their world when God told me that everyone works for God.  Children, adults, believers, and atheists.  God created us all and we are all here for a purpose which is going to be fulfilled.  The difference between choosing to accept the Lord into our lives and not is the difference between Gepetto having a puppet or a son in the story of Pinocchio.  If we reject God he uses the strings to cause us to move in certain directions to fulfill our purpose, but we get no lasting connection with God.  Even worse, we hand ourselves over to Satan and he plays with us. There is no relationship foundation required for puppetry, but to any of us who believes on Jesus the son of God and his death and resurrection for our...

I thank God that I have learned a lot about myself and how God wants me to live through my family's teaching and my digging into my salvation, but after several years of struggling with understanding my worth I realized this week that I am still struggling.  It actually brought me tears to be given money for school from a family member.  I felt like a burden and a blot on my family.  I wondered through my uncontrollable tears "why is that so terrible for me?"  God's answer to me was staggering.  He said that I didn't feel like I was worth the amount of money that they were giving me, which wasn't an overwhelming amount.  In my curriculum I ask girls to try to place a value on themselves, and unfortunately it hit me like a ton of bricks that I didn't think that I was worth a couple hundred dollars!!!  Lord have mercy!!!  It is one thing to say that I am priceless, but if a price is mentioned that people want to give me I don't even think I am worth...

I watched a movie that portrayed a woman who pretended to be someone else only to die before she could achieve her life's personal and professional goals.  God put it in my heart that no one has time to pretend to be anyone else.  God said "I am that I am," and because he is, we are also.  God gave each of us an identity that may seem ambiguous but has potential to maximize our existence and that of those all around us.  We don't need to conform to a world image to make great things happen.  God's creation of each of us was a miracle and there was no mistake in it.   It amazes me when I think about how many times I attempt to question God about what he is doing with my life.  He simply reminds me that he's got me covered. He is who my faith encourages and who my purpose needs.  That means that God shows himself according to our faith and his purpose.  To those who don't believe in God, God is the judge and the gavel is coming...