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

I am sure that everyone can think of at least one time when someone tried to stop you in your tracks.  If you don't have an acceptable answer to their questions things can get pretty uncomfortable.  I have been the girl that had the answers as well as the girl who didn't.  So what do you do when God told you to do something, and no one else heard it?  What do you do when God says "go" and everyone else says "no"?  This is the moment when you have to know your Bible.  I believe that if someone is doing something that is in tuned with the Word of God, than they need to be left to their devices.  I am reminded of a story in the Bible where Jesus' disciples were being critical of men that were rebuking demons and healing people in the name of Jesus. Scripture puts it like this: Mark 9:38-39 King James Version (KJV) 38  And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, be...

       I used to ask my students this question when they started to act carelessly, "what if everything that you said, did, and thought were on display for everyone to see, and you had to make an account for every one of those things?"  It is disheartening when I realize that I've just failed a life test, but to me, the only thing worse than failing is failing in front of someone else, and seeing the confusion on their face.  I don't know if you have ever had this happen to you, but I remember the sting that I felt when someone at my elementary school looked at me after I had done something that I knew was wrong and said, "I thought you said you were a Christian."  Even at a tender age I knew that I had just lost my witness.  I felt so ashamed and regretful.   It was one thing for me to gain a bad reputation because of a choice I had made, but the idea that I was marring someone else's view of God was almost too much to bear...

It is my daily struggle to believe the most basic of all Christian principles; it is hard to believe that God loves me.  Some days are better than others, but every day is a struggle.  It is easy to deductively analyze my life and say, "Yeah, it doesn't add up.  It can't possibly be right."  It may be easy for other people to look at me and say, "you're a wonderful woman of God. He's proud of you."  They don't see everything.  They don't know what God and I know about me.  They don't know every time I thought something mean or hateful.  They don't know every deceptive things I've done.  They don't know every time I didn't speak up for what was right for my own personal gain.  They don't know my tendencies or my secret sins.  When I look at the pile up from the past twenty something years, it is devastating to me.  It's easy to chalk it all up and conclude that I am unlovable.  I am guessing that I am not the only...

I've written before about my instinctive desire to try to figure out want God wants from my life and do it myself, but something hit me as I was asking God what he had in mind today.  He said my will.  Here is where perspective really matters because I got the feeling that this "will" was not referring to his desires type of "will" but to his declarations of what he "will do".  In case you are unsure of what God is willing to do for those of us who have been adopted into his family as his children through Jesus Christ, I have done a quick research on some of the major "I Will's" of God. Thank God for his "Will." Genesis 26:3 Sojourn in this land, and  I   will  be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed,  I   will  give all these countries, and  I   will  perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father;   Romans 9: 15   For he saith to Moses,  I   will  have mercy on ...

I am no different than everyone else in this world in that I want to be loved.  I want to be on someone's mind all the time.  I want to matter to someone's heart in such a way that they will want to spend the rest of their life with me, flaws and all.  I was reflecting this week and God revealed to me that he declared to all the world his love for me when Jesus died on the cross, and when I accepted his sacrifice I accepted his proposal.  The Lord himself has declared his intention to make me his bride, and he has sealed his intent with a holy ring that is his holy spirit.  He has given me his ring and gone to prepare a place for me.  Any person who has accepted Jesus Christ as the son of God and the Holy sacrifice for our sins on the cross who rose from the dead after paying for our souls' salvation with his life has been sealed as the bride of Christ with his Holy Spirit. Jesus didn't get on one knee, but instead he stretched out his palms on a cross an...

 I read one of my previous posts from last year about my desire to see the promises of God working in my life, and I have a report to go along with that previous post.  To see the part 1 of this post go to  growing my little faith seed . In the past month or two I have been really tired and simply holding on to the hope that I would see the results if I didn't faint. Galatians 6:9 says "and let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." (KJV) In the past week I have been sent flowers and a spa kit, given a new stove and refrigerator, and had my summer classes paid for.  Thank you Jesus!  I am a witness that his word is true and his love is strong.  I am moving from faith to faith and from glory to glory.  With God I always win.   The part of the story that it pains me to tell you is that right before all of this happened I almost let go.  I was standing in my room and had a vision of what my life woul...

I have always struggled with making decisions.  I have a fear of bad decisions.  I don't like being wrong, and I dislike disappointing my teachers, trainers, my son, and parents.  As I was painfully analyzing my employment possibilities, and some other areas in my life that are in transition,  I started to stress out to the point of just going to sleep for days.  It was a cop out, but it was better to me than making a choice that was another failure.  Then one day as I was again contemplating my next bad decision, I felt an urgency come over to me to just make a decision. An inner exclamation followed that said, "God can handle your worst decisions, so if your going to fail do it quickly and move on to the lesson." This is a painful and yet freeing  revelation.  I get so caught up in my power of choice that I forget that I've already made the one choice that has guaranteed my success already.  I have chosen to be a Christian.  I have cho...