Chosen

Long Before I was born!
Long before my heritage was ever recorded.

You knew me - You loved me - and you chose me!
And with but a hope that I would choose you back - You said I was worth dying for.

Thank you Jesus!    No Really - Thanks!

That's a Bad Egg

At some point in my growing up I came across a hard boiled egg that was hard to peel. I was told to make sure and get the membrane that would make it easier. When I questioned why this happened I was told the egg was a little old, and when they got old they were harder to peel. So for many years every time I had an egg that was hard to peel it was a challenge to be able to peel it without taking 1/2 the egg with it, but I also had this twinge about serving a "little bit old" egg. Was it safe, or was I poisoning my family?
Fast forward several years and I have recently been told that a hard to peel egg is actually a very fresh egg. So now I am not only confused but conflicted about all those thoughts of poisoning my family. And how immediately I was able to switch my alliances to liking a hard to peel egg and being concerned about the easy peeler. See what I heard, what I learned, what I lived by was a truth to me but was not the truth.

Several times in my life I have looked at people that are prejudice, and wonder why, how? I think of people that are so dedicated to a religion with out a living god, or believe in God but not Jesus and I wonder why, how?

What God showed me the other morning as I was peeling a hard to peel egg for my husbands lunch was that I used to cringe when I got a fresh egg, now I welcome it. My perspective changed because of my knowledge. What I was taught influenced my reactions. And if that's not bad enough, I in turn probably shared the bad egg theory with others. God challenged me to take a look at other things and or people in my life and see if I had labeled them as bad eggs. God wanted me to see that even if in my mind I had determined something to be a bad egg, my moods and attitude about it would be evident enough to have a ripple effect on the people around me.

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly." 2 Timothy 2:15-16

If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with on another and the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:6

"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:31b-32

What God has shown me is that what ever I believe to be true is true to me. So if I want the real truth, I need to make sure that I line my thought and beliefs up with His word. I also need to check for bad eggs in my thoughts and heart.

I'm happy and blessed that God loves me and teaches me, even if he uses an egg to do it.

Have a blessed day everyone.
Lynn

John 8:32 says "Delight yourself in the ways of the Lord and

A Confident Heart

Today is the official Start to the Study "A Confident Heart" by Renee Swope is an Author and Speaker of Proverbs 31 Ministries. I do not have my book yet, however was able to read the introduction and 1st chapter on Amazon.

Renee talked about preparing for a speaking engagement that she was doing one weekend and all the sudden as she was putting on her makeup, fear and doubt started creeping in. As she turned to put her makeup in her suitcase she notice her shadow on the wall and how large and distorted it was to her actual size. God shared with her in that moment, that when we turn away from the light (HIM) things get distorted. That is so good...

It reminded me a something my Dad told me many years ago when I first started driving. He said always keep your eyes on the road cause you will steer where your eyes are focused. I don't know if my Dad knew how often I think of that in life or how profound of a statement that really is. But I'm glad he shared it with me.

What we focus on in life is what will becomes big in our life.

Father God I pray that I stay focused on you and your truth. Help me to not steer right or left but only on the road you have made for me.
In Jesus Name, Amen.
Blessings to all, Lynn

Welcome 2012

I don’t know as I am so into “New Years Resolutions” probably because I am honest enough with myself to know a year is a really long time to commit to something you haven’t been able to get yourself to do over the last year already. :) However this year I do want to try to make some changes in my life – “Life Style Changes” so to speak.

Being a Plan-a-lot-a-mus, as my daughter calls me I can overfill my day and year with all the wonderful things I want to do and accomplish 20 times over, so to limit my ideas and plans to just a few is hard, hence why the resolutions are probably broken. So even though there are several things I want to do this upcoming year they are really just a few overall goals I have. But foremost God and Family first.

For Starters: This year I want more of God in my life. He’s always in the for front of my mind, but I want to dive back into His word more than I did in 2011. I know that putting Him first will allow me to do things I never dreamed I could. It’s like He wonderfully allows you to do more with the little time you have left. One of the ways I want to spend more time with God is I want to blog more. I love the time I would spend researching things and looking up scripture to write my blogs. I also love the idea that it might the words that someone else needed to hear that day. Over the last year I have allowed myself to get a writers block. But it was a different type of writers block. This one had to do with PP – PC. What is PP –PC? People Pleasing – Political Correctness. See every time I would think of something I wanted to write about a thought would come (or the devil would plant a seed) what if so and so reads this it may offend them. Well as our enemy does, he uses part truths to deceive us into believing him. Yes it may offend some people but I have a voice and God will use me as a vessel if I let Him. And His word states they were offended for the words sake. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I can’t help anyone either by being silent. So with that being said I am signed up to do Renee Swope’s Online Bible study “A confident Heart”. I will be spending time with God and learning to be more confident in stating God’s word. Walking in love does not mean that I have to bow down to everyone else’s opinion. I think a lot of us Christians have been deceived into believing we couldn’t be humble and speak up at the same time. I will be using my Growing in His Love Blog to record some of my learning and growing from that study. Funny this is the Second time that I have had the opportunity to do this study… Coincidence, I don’t think so.

Now one of the next things I want to accomplish this year is make a permanent change to my eating and fitness regiment. I want to get off the yo yo diet ride and learn to eat what my body needs and exercise not to just loose weight but to increase my longevity. God promises us a long life, but don’t I have a responsibility in this. With that being said I have had the opportunity more than once to do the “Made to Crave” (satisfying your deepest desire with God not food) Bible study with Lysa Terkeurst. Both Rene and Lysa are from Proverbs 31 Ministries. Again I don’t think it is a coincidence that this study has come to me more than once. This Study I will blog about on my blog “Living for the Master” .

More of God is my priority of resolutions, along with being healthy. But some of the other goals that I want to work on is finishing some of the many quilt projects that I have started. I have various reasons on each project why it is partial done, however they are still undone. I just mailed off a quilt yesterday to “American Hero Quilts” It was such a nice feeling to know that something was finished up and that a wounded soldier that put his or her life on the line for me would be comforted by something I made. This has given me a renewed drive to finish these quilts. Before I would finish the baby quilts because I had a shower to go to. But now I have this desire to finish the quilts to give to soldiers, and womens shelters, the homeless. Mom would be proud, she use to feed the homeless every week – maybe I can keep a few of them warm.

Last year we started a new tradition of monthly breakfasts with the kids and grandkids. This year we are continuing however we are going to do Birthday related lunches. I will still host and cook, however who ever has a Birthday that month gets to pick the menu. If we have multiple Birthday’s that month they may each get to pick a menu Item. I will repost this on each of my blogs. One Bible study will be on each of my Christian Blogs, and the quilting will be on my Quilt Blog, so this post is relevant for all three. The family fun will just randomly be posted on one or the other of the blogs.

Seeing that I have very few blog posts last year, it will be interesting to see if my resolution to do more this year will continue or fade away. Guess we won’t know for a year. :)
Blessing to all in the coming year.
Lynn

Boomerang Finger

My Finger has grown crooked over the years and resembles a boomerang, for every time I try to point at someone else it points back to me.

Matthew 7
1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

May I be accepting of others shortcomings.

May I not use their faults to elevate myself

May I never rely solely on my performance to determine my worth.

May I always give God the glory for the talents and abilities I have been given.
Psalm 96:4 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! He is to be feared above all gods.

May I remember my past only for the purpose of having mercy on others. For if my Father in heaven forgave me of my sins, who am I to not forgive others.

May my past never hinder my future - Romans 8:1 1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

May I always submit to what God asks me to do.
1 Kings 3:14 And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”

Blessings,
Lynn

Want to Know a Secret - Part 3

Hello,

Today I want to focus on sharing knowledge, and the thin line between a special secret and gossip. Some thing are black and white, or yes and no, some are not. I want us to find the balance between sharing a special tidbit of knowledge with a Sister or friend and passing on information that is hurtful, harmful and or deadly. I know that sounds harsh but let me explain. Often times in God's word, He references death as a consequence for an action. Now in some cases it can mean physical death, but more importantly it is referencing our spiritual deaths. Our spiritual life and health is the most important thing we have. It is what governs our physical health, prosperity, well being and life.

Deuteronomy 30:15 “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. 16 For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy. 17 “But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy. (NLT)

In a nut shell, if we stay within God's boundaries, we are safe and protected. I have this visual of when you put a baby in a playpen to keep them from getting into things they shouldn't get into. That's what God is trying to do for us with His word.

Webster defined Gossip as: 1. a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others. 2. a rumor or report of intimate nature.

What does God say about Gossip:

Exodus 23:1 You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.

Psalm 15:1-3 A psalm of David - Lord, who may dwell in your holy hill? 2 He who walks uprightly in his heart, 3 He who does not back bite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach to his friend.

So what do we do? Meditate on God's word. Confess it over ourselves daily. Here are some scriptures I came up with, spend some time digging into God's word and find some for yourself also.

Psalm 141:3 Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips.

Remember the part about not letting our ears be trash cans, guarding what we hear? Faith comes from what we hear, good or bad. Want faith in good things?

Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Romans 6:15-23 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. 22 But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (NLT)

Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Remember - Seed (God's Word) Time (you reading and confessing it over your life) and then comes the Harvest.

I hope this has helped you to realize, having to know everything that is going on around you, is not really as important as you thought it was. Sometimes it is better to be left out of that loop. With everything there is balance and I pray that everyone that reads this will ask God to show them the balance for their life.

Blessings,
Lynn

Want to know a Secet - Part 2

How did you do with the questions from last time?

I have had situations where I just had to know what I was missing. And then I was very disappointed. I had built up the mystery in my mind only to say - oh was that all it was about. God tells us to be anxious for nothing; Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. The fact that this curiosity is so intense should be a clue that we are teetering out of God's protection. See whatever we think we are missing takes on a whole new level of responsibility. Yes with knowledge comes responsibility. Once we know something, we must act on it.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, their eyes were open and they KNEW they were naked, and then felt responsible to cover up. Genesis 3: 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. They were ashamed! So going back to the questions from last post; What Emotions did this "knowing" bring to surface in you? Happiness, joy, satisfaction, guilt, disgust, fear? For them it brought in fear - something they didn't have before. God did not design us to have fear, look at 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. However, when we don't operate in obedience to God and His word, we step out of His protection zone.

Someone once told me "Don' t let your ears be trash cans!" This is such a powerful statement and can pertain to so many circumstances that we encounter daily. Some of these are obvious, some are not so much. Sometimes we actively participate in filling our ear up with junk and sometimes we don't. If faith comes by hearing, good or bad, then what we hear becomes an integral part of who we become and how we act. Therefore who we want to become is what we should allow our ears hear.Here are some more questions to ponder that will help point out areas your ears are being trash cans. Remember, once we "know" something it takes on a responsibility in our lives to act or react.

1.) Have you ever had a time where someone tells you something personal about someone else?

2.) Did it change how you felt about that person?

3.) Has someone "vented" to you about a fight they had with someone else?

4.) Did that cause you to have an opinion about the other person?

5.) How did you feel once they made up and weren't fighting anymore?

6.) Do you struggle to be nice to someone after you have heard "trash" about them?

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

Next post I want to go over some of the ways we can be pro-active instead of re-active. There are things we need to know in life, and wisdom we should seek. God was well pleased with Solomon for asking for wisdom. But there is a difference between knowing and wisdom. As I continue these next couple of posts, I want to point out some ways we can be more balanced between good knowing and bad knowing, and how to use Gods wisdom and self control.Be

Blessed,Lynn
Posted by Lynn