Category: Christian

There are times when God allows us to walk through ‘sun-scorched’ lands, to go through things we can’t handle, only to show us that He most certainly can!

It is in these times, in these very places, that we are called to a more authentic faith and a greater trust in the very One who formed you in your mother’s womb, a greater faith in the One who knows your coming and going.

It’s in these times, in these very places, that a greater praise and love flows from the heart of the believer who trusts God in the middle of these ‘sun-scorched’ lands.

It’s in these times, in these very places, that we see and experience God’s comfort, joy, and peace that only He can give, and watch Him provide when logic and circumstances say that you should be without.

It’s in these times, in these places, that God moves us from being self-sufficient to becoming God dependent!

He is more than enough for you today! Keep trusting, keep praying, and keep KNOWING that the Lord will guide you always!

“The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58: 11

Have you ever cared for someone and invested a lot of time into them by helping them walk through a difficulty? After being there for this person and investing great efforts into this friendship, have you ever experienced betrayal from this person that you have loved so deeply and to whom you have invested so much of your heart?

The pain of betrayal can leave a wound that takes a long time to heal. It leaves you guarded and feeling as if you can never trust that person again and even reluctant to trust anyone again.

Broken trust and broken agreements are hard to heal and come back from. Most likely you’ve experienced this, and know exactly what I am talking about.

In Jeremiah 31 we see a people who betrayed God in this manner. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

“Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord, when I will make a NEW covenant with the house of Israel … not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, my covenant they broke… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people…. I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more!”

God took His people by the hand and rescued them from a place where they had been slaves for 400 years. God cared for their every need and performed miracle after miracle, and yet, they broke the covenant that God made with them. God even acknowledges that they broke the first covenant as He is promising a second one. Who does that ?! Only God!

As much as you or I have felt the pain of betrayal, it pales in comparison to how our sin betrays God, and even still, He was willing to make another promise to us through Jesus! This truth should leave us in awe of this grace upon grace that we see here in this passage!

God could have stopped making promises to a people whose hearts so often wander, and He would have been justified in doing so – but He didn’t.

This is a love this world had never known.

Last week, I spent several hours, almost every day, pulling up the many invasive weeds that had found their way into all of the flowers beds surrounding our house… and as strange as it sounds, it was absolutely wonderful. It was a job that I had dreaded at first, but surprisingly, come to love once I got started.

The week was filled with beautiful weather, and the sounds of my children playing happily in the backyard provided me with sounds of peace and enjoyment. For hours each day, I pulled weed after weed, and all the while, I found myself in a state of worship. Dirty gloves on my hands and dirt flinging everywhere as I pulled up each invader, seemed like an unlikely place for worship, but yet for me, this is what it provided.

With each pull, I knew I was a little closer to my desired result, and with each continued pull of weed after weed, I also found myself reflecting on the work that God has done in my life. You can go from person to person and ask them about God, who He is, and what they think of Him, and you will most likely get a different answer from each person. In our culture today, relative truth is more acceptable than absolute truth, and sadly it has many standing on a pile of sinking sand. Regardless of what each person says about God, thankfully there is an absolute truth of who He really is, and it rises above all of our varied opinions.

The truth is, God is the God of great deliverance, the God of restoration, and the God who rescues us from sin. As I pulled and removed each weed, these truths began to flood my heart and mind. Through this reflection, I became overcome with gratitude for God’s work in my life and that He doesn’t leave us as we are.

This God who rescues came to me at a time when my life was overrun with highly invasive weeds, but thankfully this God of deliverance and restoration has a presence that is much more invasive, and He graciously began to remove each invader, one by one. As I saw these weed infested flower beds, I saw a picture of my life, and I couldn’t help but find myself in a state of worship.

As I worked diligently to clean out each area, I was surprised at the weakness and strength that some of these weeds had. Big, huge, and tall growing weeds caught my attention first. I had my spade in hand, ready to dig if necessary, but to my surprise, a simple pull was usually all that was required to remove these types. It was the low growing weeds, the ones that didn’t draw as much attention, that were the ones that were so difficult to remove. These were the ones that required the use of the spade.

The strongholds in our lives vary from person to person, and we all have them. Our greatest struggles often feel the most painful as God works to remove them from our lives, and yet it’s in these places I have seen God’s greatest acts of grace and love in my life. I’m thankful that God doesn’t stop at the weeds in our lives that are easiest to remove, but instead He digs deep to remove the ones with the strongest roots and then fills those gaping holes up with more of Him.

As I continue to recognize the weeds in my life that God is continuing to show me and remove from me, I will kneel in worship to the One who has not left me as I am but is continuously making me new!

Living under the great heaviness of guilt over past sins or even current sins is a great stumbling block in the life of the believer. A couple of years ago, I was really struggling with guilt.

I began asking the Lord “How do I balance recognizing sin in my life without being overtaken by discouraging levels of guilt?” And of course, God faithfully answers prayer and began helping me see that there is a clear distinction between guilt and conviction.

✨Guilt-liability (you are responsible) or culpability (you are guilty) to punishment for wrongdoing.

✨Conviction- to expose, convict, reprove the way the Spirit of God tugs at the heart of someone and urges confession, repentance and rightful redirection.

Both of these deal with wrongdoing, but the result of each are vastly different. Guilt serves only as a heavy burden and has no grace associated with it. Guilt does not teach us or bring about change in our lives. Conviction, however, still deals with sin, but it leads us and teaches to live a life of righteousness that God desires. Conviction is redemptive! It allows us to move forward and covers us in grace.

John 3:17-18 tells us, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world (usher out guilt), but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is NOT condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

So what’s the key to living free from the heavy burden of guilt? It’s Jesus! Only Jesus can set us free!

If you are heavily burned by guilt today, I encourage you to learn about who Jesus is and what He has done to set you free!

If you are a believer struggling with guilt, I encourage you to seek God’s truth about what He has done for you through His Son Jesus! Bind these truths around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart! Live free in Him today!

I remember the good ole days in elementary school, those days on the playground or in P.E. class, when team captains would be selected for a game we were going to play. These team captains would then take turns picking their teammates. If you found yourself huddled up in the crowd of kids waiting anxiously to be picked, then there is a good chance you had a few butterflies floating around in your stomach. There was something about standing there wondering if your name was going to be called next that really got your nerves going. Typically, I was amongst the ones still standing till the bitter end…. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I wasn’t a shining star athlete.

I think back on those times now and smile, but in those moments, my heart always sunk a little. Who wants to be picked last or maybe not even picked at all? Situations like these like to try and seep into our minds, take hold of our hearts, and ultimately strive to have an effect on shaping our identities. We tend to find a certain satisfaction with being picked because associated with being picked is the idea that you have obtained a sense of value and worth. In all honesty, I think more than being picked, the true longing of our hearts is to be chosen.

Truth be told, we will find ourselves in situations like this all throughout life. Sometimes we label these times as “opened or closed doors” or “we just aren’t someone’s cup of tea.” Bottom line though, sometimes we just aren’t picked, and sometimes not being picked is a part of God’s will. (Proverbs 19:21) Nevertheless, not being picked does not equal not being chosen.

To be picked means that you choose someone or something from a number of alternatives. To be choose on the other hand, means to decide that a particular person or thing is the one that you want.

In Ephesians 1:3-6, Paul is emphasizing to those believers that they were lovingly chosen by God. His affections had been fully set on them before time began, with full intentions of making them His own and calling them His sons and daughters. This proclamation that Paul was making was not only for those in Ephesus, but to believers everywhere and believers to come. (1 Thessalonians 2:13) Therefore, we can trust the plans God has for our lives because of the perfect, transcending work that Jesus accomplished on our behalf!  God’s plan from the very beginning was to choose us!

As we think on this truth, we can experience true peace, rest, complete fulfillment and joy as we faithfully serve the One who has faithfully chosen us, and chooses us every moment of every day! We are wanted by God! Whether we are picked or not for things of this world, for those of us who are in Christ, it is paramount that we know that we have been chosen before the foundation of the world! God’s choosing is permanent (John 10:28), and His choosing can provide us with all the worth we could ever need!

• A Moment for Hope-filled reflection: How does knowing that God didn’t just pick you, but instead He chose you satisfy the longing of your heart?

• More Moments of Hope:

As believers, those lovingly chosen by God, we have been gifted with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places because of the perfect, complete, and undefeated work of Jesus! That work is our covering and from this work springs forth eternal treasures in heaven that will remain for all of eternity. Life here on Earth is uncertain and temporal, but a life in Christ gives us a perfect position before our perfect God! The things of this world may fade away but it is the mighty word of God that endures forever, and His word says we are tremendously blessed in our eternal home with Him!

            Ephesians 1:3-6

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”

When my son was little, my husband had certain things that he loved picking on him about. It would be getting close to a meal time and my son would say something like, “I’m so hungry! What are we eating for supper?”

My husband would quickly jump on the opportunity to answer his question with, “Grant, you are going to love supper tonight! I’m going to go outside and pick a bunch of grass and mix it with some dirt and maybe add in some rocks for a crunch.”

It was always so funny to hear my husband’s “purposed dinner menu” because it was absolutely and obviously absurd – even to a little boy and it provided us with a good laugh!

Our son knew his father’s crazy answer to his question was not what he was going to be fed for supper because he knows his father and he knows his father’s goodness to him- despite the fact that he still didn’t know the real answer to his question. His relationship with his father and his father’s constant provision for him proved otherwise.

Matthew 7:9-11 says, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

I think if we are honest, we could say that we have experienced moments of doubt towards God. Life has a way of throwing curve balls and hardships our way, causing us to become vulnerable to doubting God’s goodness and plan. But yet, it’s through difficulty that I have personally seen and experienced God’s gracious hand and provision in my life. My circumstances may have been ones that I despised, but I have been able to see God rise above them and, in turn, know the God I serve in a deeper way!

Difficult seasons have served as a reminder to me that our circumstances do not change the nature of God. His very own people that He rescued from captivity out of Egypt were not immediately led into the land flowing with milk and honey, but rather they first had to endure a long, difficult, and trying journey through the desert. Did this harsh climate change the nature and goodness of God? Absolutely not! Instead, we see Him miraculously provide Manna from heaven and water flowing from a rock!

God began to challenge me many months ago to ask myself, “What is your Manna from heaven?” My focus can so easily become fixed upon my difficulties that I stop seeking God and miss seeing how He is present and active in my life currently- despite the hardship.

So, I extend to you the same question the Lord impressed on me, “What is the Manna from heaven that God is providing in your life right now?”

Maybe you find yourself in a wilderness place, but as a child of God, rest assured, although the climate of life may be relentlessly tough, know that God is providing you with His Manna from heaven. Pray that He would allow you to see beyond your circumstances, that so easily blind us, so that you may see His glorious love and goodness that is being displayed in your life in spite of difficulty.

Because God is our good father, we have His unwavering promises and His undeniable truths! He is surely faithful to give good things to those who ask Him in faith!

Isaiah 54:10
“…. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord.

One of my all-time favorite movies is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner. In one part of the movie, Robin Hood attempts to cross this river, but in doing so, he invades the territory of a group of outlaws. Midway into crossing the river, he engages in a fight with “Little John”, who is really not so little, while still standing in the river. At the end of their scuffle, Little John gets knocked off his feet, falling to his back in the water. He immediately begins to panic, shouting over and over again, “I can’t swim! I can’t swim!” His apparent awareness of not being able to swim ransacked his mind, and fear took over. Robin Hood then comes over to him, grabbing his arm to help him up, telling him to stand to his feet. It’s a pretty comical moment in the movie when you see this big, burly, tough man screaming for help in knee deep water, and all he had to do was stand, with no swimming necessary.

As I think about this scene in the movie, I couldn’t help but wonder how often do I look like Little John, flailing around unnecessarily? How often does the thought of what I know I can’t do paralyze me, and all I really need to do is just stand upon the strength of the Lord?

Although it was apparent to another that all Little John had to do was stand, he needed to be made aware of just how close the firm foundation was beneath his feet. As life moves on, we might find ourselves in the position either of standing or flapping around frantically in shallow water. In either position that we may find ourselves, it is important that we always have a hand that is extended; a hand that is continuously extended to either to be a caring pull to lift up another, or one that is extended in humility in order to be pulled back up again.

When struggles arise, when our circumstances become overwhelming, or our hearts are filled with discouragement, it is so easy become aware of our limitations and forget about the character of God and what He CAN do!

It’s important that we always have a hand that is extended to either provided a caring pull or one that is extended in humility in order to be pulled back up again.

What a great encouragement today to know that God has given us a firm foundation that is sure, and all we have to do is stand upon Him and the truth of His word! As we seek to set our minds on Him, may His word serve as the gentle reminder of the firm foundation that we have readily available, helping us to stand once again!

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”                                                2 Peter 1:3

Before making a purchase, especially a large one, you probably do some research about the company and/or product. You are hoping to find raving reviews about the company’s faithfulness to high standards or that the product is all you hoped it to be. Basically, we want to know can we count on these things to be faithful before we invest?

In the event that we have ever been ‘burned’ we are sure to make it known, warning other potential buyers to just steer clear. Unfaithfulness to high standards can be quite catastrophic.

I know how much I cherish the faithfulness of my God! Psalm 111:9 says, “He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name!”

Not only has God made a covenant with His people, He has commanded a covenant that will last forever! He made a covenant that He faithfully upholds to a people whose hearts constantly wander, who are constantly unfaithful. Wow!

God knew He couldn’t count on His people to be faithful before He invested and yet He did anyway! What a beautiful picture of grace!

I’m more than grateful that God didn’t use my faithfulness rating as a determining factor for His redemption! Holy and awesome is His name!

For a period of time in America, I would say our cultural norms and standards of morality aligned, in many ways, to the Christian church. But as time would have it, morality would soon prove that it is not what saves us and when left to the human heart, standards of morality have and will continue to change- and not for the betterment.

I prayed with a heavy heart this morning for our nation, and the continuing decline that surrounds us all. It should grieve the heart of the Christian. My simple prayer this morning was and will be, “Help me to shine Your light, Oh God, correctly.”

There are many “flashy” things seeking to capture our attention but the light of the Christian is and should be different- a light on a hill, not easily hidden. We should be holy, set apart. Heaven forbid us ever act superior. Holy does not equate perfect for the believer- only Jesus can be that for us, and may we remember that God’s grace is what saved us and changed us and continues to change us.

While we were still sinners Christ died for us- He loved us while not approving of our sin! Such a humbling reminder for me this morning as I seek to shine the light of Jesus to a world who so desperately needs Him!

My daughter drew this heart one day while she was waiting in my classroom for the morning bell to ring. Since it’s been on my desk, I have looked at it with enjoyment since my daughter made it but it has also caused me to sit and ponder.

Love, anger, jealousy, sadness… all emotions that can reside within the heart and are all emotions that, I can say with certainty, we have all experienced at some point, probably more times than any of us would care to admit.

I don’t know about you, but I have never been proud of myself when I realized jealousy, anger, or bitterness were pulsing through my heart. On the contrary, it is always accompanied with shame, disappointment and even sadness that any of those emotions would reside in my heart.

Moments like these produce a great humility in me, while also stirring up a great praise for my Perfect Savior, Jesus! He saw the darkness of our hearts and chose us anyway! He chose to die for me and for you even though deep within our hearts a darkness resides.

What has me pondering the most about this picture, however, is the outside layer of the heart is love! God, being rich in mercy and grace, has covered our ugliness with the greatest act of love by sending His Son for us!

I hope this truth leaves you awestruck, humbled and yet full of praise to God our Father, that He would cover us in His love!

If you feel unloved, unnoticed, lonely, empty- Jesus can fill your empty heart today with His perfect love! I know that to be true because He did that for me 19 years ago and has continued to fill me, strengthen me, forgive me and continues to cover me with His love day by day!

“The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying:“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”
Jeremiah 31:3