Romans 5…What is This Glory?

Posted on June 1, 2026 by kathy

We are going to examine a portion of Romans Chapter 5 about the glory of God and what believers can expect in their own lives. But what exactly is the glory of God? Glory is a word that is not used in our culture today, which is why I want to examine it closer. So let’s begin.

Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

“Therefore, having been justified by faith,” 

If we are born again, we are now justified by God. I now stand before Him as if I had never, ever, ever, sinned. I have been declared righteous forever, or, for all time, until the end of time, eternally, undyingly, perpetually, in perpetuity. I have been made new. I am a totally new creation because I have a new heart (or spirit) that no longer desires to sin. I have the new heart that God promised in Ezekiel 36:26-27. I want to please the God of love Who deeply and profoundly loves not just me, but all of His creation, and Who proves it consistently.

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I Just Came to Jesus. Now What?

Posted on May 16, 2026 by kathy

People in AA and Al-Anon groups use the 12 Step program to get their lives back on track. These involve surrendering, looking to God for help, making amends to those you have harmed, taking inventory of yourself (and not of others), and continuing to do those things. I think new believers in Christ need a step program too. The Bible is VAST….where to start, right? The twelve steps of those programs helped me begin to think right and take responsibility for my own behavior.

After I was born again, filled with the Holy Spirit and received my prayer language, all I wanted to do was pray and devour the New Testament, so that I could get to know this God I had never known. I was SO hungry to know Him! I had a part time job at the time and I spent all my spare time pursuing my relationship with God and getting to know Him. We see that Paul, after his conversion in the Book of Acts, disappeared for a long time while he was getting to know this Jesus person. He was an expert in the Old Testament law, but he did not know the heart of God.

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How it all Started…His Story of the Planet, Part 4

Posted on March 28, 2026 by kathy

From the first two books of the Bible (Genesis and Exodus), we see God forming a people for Himself, a people that would live and act differently from all of the other pagan peoples of the earth. By following God’s instructions, this group: 1. could live in safety from man’s unseen enemy, the devil, and 2. advance the plan of God in the earth. For Israel, the only way to avoid the devil’s rulership was by submitting to God and following His instructions given through the Law. They had no direct authority over the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4) at that time. That authority would not be restored to mankind until the Messiah Jesus came.

Backstory: See previous parts here, here, and here

The first five books of the Bible give the backstory of this beginning. God gives them His law and His expectations. The law was given to guard them and protect them from the devil who would always seek to destroy them and what God was building in the earth. This conflict was set up in the garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned. When God cursed the devil, he said he would be sending Someone to crush his head. As with most people, the people of God had ebbs and flow of obedience and disobedience. They did not understand His plans.

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Believing is a Decision

Posted on February 24, 2026 by kathy

Imagine if you will, you are a slave in a hot, dry and dusty country.  It’s dirty all the time. You’re dirty all the time. You arise at 5 a.m. to begin a long hot day, making and stacking bricks all day long. You don’t have a choice.  Decisions are made for you. You work long hours making and stacking bricks with few or no breaks until dark. And there is the whip, always present if you do not meet someone else’s expectations. It is painful if you are the object of its wrath. There is bleeding, pain, and possible infection to abide with. This is your life day after day after day with no end in sight. You are captured; you are a slave. There is no possibility of another life, even though you dream of it to get through the heat, the pain, and the misery. Your fellow slaves grumble and complain and are equally as miserable, but their attitudes contribute to the misery and pain of everyone else. This is the life of a slave. His life is not his own. Nothing is his own, not even his children or his wife. They are slaves too and can be treated any way the owner wishes. It is a dreary life, one without hope of any future.

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On Meditation…

Posted on February 24, 2026 by kathy

One of  my favorite bible teachers on faith is Charles Capps, (cappsministries.com). Even though Charles has passed on, his podcasts and teaching materials are still available.  He made a statement on a podcast I heard recently (but probably not for the first time) that caught my attention. The statement was, “If you don’t meditate on the word of God, you won’t do it.” 

The Holy Spirit has a way of getting your attention, and that statement caught my attention. Now I already know that meditating on, and speaking the word of God is important. But the way he said it, connecting doing the word with meditating on it, caused me to want to dig deeper. I did a search and was amazed at what Google’s AI gave me about the word meditation. These were things I already knew for the most part, but to see Google actually say it was a bit of a surprise, and the AI gave a more descriptive definition of the word meditation than I was aware of, especially from the Hebrew language. I am finding that English translations are just not as rich or descriptive as the original languages.

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Dogtags and Pearls #8 is Published

Posted on January 31, 2026 by kathy

Dogtags and Pearls book #8 is now published. A collection of 23 mini bible lessons just like what is published here at the website available in book form with pages for your notes. Can be ordered at Amazon.com.

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How it All Started…His Story of the Planet, Part 3

Posted on January 31, 2026 by kathy

In Genesis Chapter 11, we see all of the descendants of Noah attempting to stay together in one place and build a monument to themselves that would reach into the heavens. After the flood, sin started showing itself again. This plan was in defiance of the instructions that were given to Noah, to fill the earth and subdue it. God knew that their unity would create a condition where they could do anything their hearts’ desired, a one world government, so to speak. This was not what He plan was, so he confused their speech, creating all the different languages so that they could no longer communicate with each other. The unity they attempted to create was not for good as it went against God’s directions to populate the whole earth and subdue it.

Genesis 11:5-8  “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, ‘Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.”

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Our Romantic God, Part 2

Posted on January 24, 2026 by kathy

Picking up where I left off last time in the chapter titled, “Our Romantic God“, the Bride goes on to say to her Beloved in the book of the Song of Solomon 4:16–5:1 in The Passion Translation

“Then may your awakening breath blow upon my life until I am fully yours. Breathe upon me with your Spirit wind. Stir up the sweet spice of your life within me. Spare nothing as you make me your fruitful garden. Hold nothing back until I release your fragrance.” Jesus’s life within us is the sweet spice and we can become His fruitful garden and release His fragrance into the earth.

Is this not the longing heart of those who are His Bride, who want to give themselves fully to Him? In these verses, the Bride pursues her Bridegroom God, desiring to please Him in all things. This does not speak entirely of a natural love…these words are spiritual, spoken by the Bride of Christ to her King Jesus. Then she says to Him,..

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Rescued to Rule – Study on Colossians 1:13

Posted on January 17, 2026 by kathy

The New International bible version interprets Colossians 1:13 in this manner, “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves.”

The word “dominion” in English is from a Latin word meaning “lord” or “master”. That would mean in this verse that darkness rules; it is master or lord over mankind. The scripture in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says the god of this world (note the little “g”) has blinded the minds of men. Darkness has dominion or rule over them. That is not the original purpose of God. He gave dominion to Mankind, but it was not so they could be subservient to a renegade spirit. In the Greek language of the New Testament, the word translated as dominion here is exesti which means “it is lawful, it is permitted, it is possible.”

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How it All Started…His Story of The Planet, Part 2

Posted on January 12, 2026 by kathy

In Genesis 1:5, God began to create, first calling for light, which He divided from the darkness. “So the evening and the morning were the first day.” Then God split the waters, some above the firmament and some below. And God called the firmament Heaven. Then He gathered the waters under the heavens and called for dry land to appear from it and he called it Earth. Then He called for Earth to bring forth grass, herbs and fruit trees, with fruit and seeds in them; this would feed His creation. Everything  had seeds so it could reproduce itself. Then He made the sun and  moon, to rule the day and rule the night. He made stars also. He was getting the Earth ready for His most important creation: man. Then He called for the waters to abound with living creatures, and told the creatures to fill the waters. He created the birds and told them to multiply on the Earth. Then He called for the Earth, the dry land, to bring forth animals and beasts. He did all of this by SPEAKING what he wanted.

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