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

I love the Olympic Games because it is a great opportunity to see the glory of God in how he created his greatest accomplishment, humanity.  As I reminisce on labor and delivery of my firstborn son, I think about how I stayed up all night with contractions while watching the Olympics. I was enthralled with how many sports there were to watch.  I especially chuckled a little at the speed walking competition as grown men swayed their way to victory.  It is amazing the things that people will do for glory; to make their mark in history.  I am not surprised or even upset at man's desire to seek out glory.  It's a part of our being because we were created to bring glory to God.  In order to bring glory, you have to first take hold of it.  With every Olympic record and show of skill, God is glorified as the most masterful artist and architect of mankind.  We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works preordained by God that we shou...

It hurts when I read or hear stories of how people are dying around the world, and I realize how desperately this world needs to embrace God's love for them and everyone else.  In the US everyone is being polarized by what I not so affectionately call Black vs Blue Lives.  There have been so many publicized cases of unjust killing involving the police and black/African American people that it seems like the civil rights movement all over again.  People of color are fed up with the abuse they continue to experience from law enforcement in spite of this so called era of post racism in America, and they are declaring that "Black Lives Matter".  Some are rising up in response to defend police because they believe "Blue Lives Matter."  All of this unrest is simply leaving my nation black and blue with individuals full of hate in their hearts taking advantage of this dismal moment in our history to spur on hatred from one man to another like a plague.  This is a ...

So, I am so excited to promote The 2017 Business and Ministry Expo by Daughter of Promise Women's Club.  It is a wonderful event where ministries all over the North East Ohio come together to celebrate their faith and share their gifts and talents with the rest of the family of God.  To support this event DPW is doing a T-shirt fundraiser!  I love this shirt and you will too.  I intend to run at least 4 marathons this year and I will be wearing this shirt at one of them. Check it out, and if you are interested in participating in this event contact me and I'll get you to the organizer.  I will be there and so should you! Check out the link to see the shirt. https://www.booster.com/organized-by-dpw-daughter-of-promise-womens-club ps. I am seriously thinking about starting my own journey of faith marathon. What do you think?

     Sometimes in my journey of faith I get really tired and a little bit disoriented. I try to wear this world loosely, but every now and then life gets heavy on me.  In those times I tell myself "If this is what God wants then he must be training me, but if this isn't God's will I am not going to take this."  This may sound a bit confrontational, and that's because it is.      What I have come to know is that this journey of faith is right through a war zone, and everyone who takes this journey needs to be vigilant and in full armor ready to fight for their spiritual life.  You see God is not the only one that has a plan for my life.  Just as light can not exist without dark, good can not exist without evil.  When we fail to recognize that we have opposition, we make ourselves easy victims, and set ourselves up for a fall. There is a real enemy of our souls and we need to be ready for him. ...

    One of the amazing things that I heard this past month while serving on the teaching ministry at my church was the idea that we have to come into agreement with Holy Spirit in order to operate in the power of God.  I knew this intellectually, but for some reason there was a freshness on it when I remembered what a fellow member of the ministry had said. This statement about agreement with God coupled with a good look at the Lord's Prayer and I was brought back from the brink this past weekend.      Recently I was feeling overwhelmed with a sense of both urgency and indignation.  I was desperate to accomplish some of the things that I had been talking about for months and even years.  I was angry at how I had been sidetracked, and yesterday I realized that I have gotten so backed up that I didn't know what to do first, second, or third.  As tears welled up in my eyes and my husband tried his best to put out the proverbial...

The church talks a lot about trusting God "in the midnight hour." By this they mean when it is darkest in your life. There are going to be midnight hours in all of our journey's of faith. There will be times when it seems like nothing is going right, and there will be times when you feel like there is nothing right with you.  There will be times when you wonder if you have taken a wrong turn, and there will be times when you will be unsure about which way to go.  In those times pray and trust God, but there is another way of seeing "the midnight hour" The midnight hour means the first hour of a new day.  12 AM is when it is officially a new day.  In my desire to be a better manager of my time and realizing that I wasn't giving God enough priority in  my life, I used to get up, or stay up, at midnight to pray and quietly spend time with God.  I told God that I would literally give God the first of my day.  For the years that I did that I asked God to ...

I love how God made people so different. If you believe the Bible, it clearly states that we were created in the image (likeness) of God. That means that every nation was created in his image. God is diverse, and I love that about him. He placed his image on every nation, every culture, every person from the youngest to the oldest. To deny any nation's value is to deny the image of God. We are all his creations created in his image. All of us have gotten far away from who God made us to be, but he has not denied any of us his love.  This is why there is no room for racism, classicism, or any other type of ...isms in the Kingdom of God.   One of the things that I love to do is see how different cultures worship God. Worship is a very personal thing even when groups gather.  Some people are loud and some are quiet, some stand, sit, kneel, or lay. There are many ways to worship God, and the only stipulation that the Bible gives concerning worship to my knowledge is that tho...