The Book of Remembrance

Posted on January 17, 2018 by

“Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and meditate on His name. ‘They shall be Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’ Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.” Malachi 3:16-18

I love this passage of Scripture. I have always taken it as a commendation of those who love God and talk about Him to each other. I love to talk about Jesus and what He is doing in my life. The things He does are so exciting. Not only is it fun to share with another believer, it is also very exciting to see Him doing things on your behalf, and especially when they are unexpected.

In the context of Malachi, this scripture comes at the end of Chapter 3. God has previously been chastising Israel for their disrespect of Him. Their offerings are polluted, their gifts to Him sick and lame, and He takes no pleasure in them. He disdains their attitude. They divorce the wives of their youth and call what is evil, good. In the following chapter, he tells them of a coming messenger. He begins to speak of Jesus. Then He tells them they have robbed Him of the tithe. The people have complained, saying it is useless to serve God, and that those who are wicked are raised up. They see no good reason to serve God. They are fully deceived.

But in Chapter 3, verse 16, it’s almost as if God says, wait a minute. There are some other types of people still out there. God seems to be remembering something, and  relishing the memory. He even writes it down. He hears those who are speaking well of Him and loving Him. They are His jewels and they will be rewarded. Those who stay faithful and love Him will be rewarded.

I plan to be in that bunch. How about you?

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Posted in Relationship with God, Trusting God, What God Sees | Leave a comment

The Case for Marriage in Christ

Posted on January 13, 2018 by

It all started here…

“And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him…’ Genesis 2:18. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. Genesis 18:22.”

This scripture explains why the pairing of men and women is so strong among  people. A monogamous, committed relationship like marriage provides companionship, as well as the Godly context to express sexual desires. All other ideas the world may have are doomed to failure and unhappiness. Ask people who have been married multiple times. Ask those who live together for years without a marriage commitment. But today, traditional one man/one woman marriage is under assault. It takes lots of work to stay married too. Before becoming a Christian, I believed that divorce was an option. After becoming a Christian, I no longer believe that. It is no longer an option for me. It is not the solutions to my marital problems. My husband and I made an agreement when we married, that divorce was not an option, ever. That is the only way to stay married in today’s society.

Jesus had this to say about divorce: “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so.” Matthew 19:8.

So, hardness of heart brings on divorce.

“For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence,” says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 2:16

Divorce tears up people, children, families, churches, societies.

It’s a proven sociological fact that children have a better life with an intact, healthy father and mother marriage. Both role models are represented and the home has security when both parents are committed to each other and the well-being of their children. Witness the cost, not just financially, to society as fathers leave the family and the mother and children have to go on the public dole because they cannot make enough income. The mother then has less time to devote to the emotional well being of her children and someone else raises them. Then children without their fathers have  their own emotional troubles.

I am sad to say it, but Christian leadership has often not proven to be role models in this arena. The Church has bought into the lies of the world concerning sex and marriage. It cannot credibly practice nor teach biblical principles about marriage and child rearing in that condition. There is too much pornography addiction in the Body of Christ, destroying marriage relationships and the lives of children as well.

If you have such an addiction, I say to you, stop hiding and come out of the shadows, and you can be set free.  There is help for you in Christ. There is complete freedom from this addiction if you want it. You can be whole and free. God has a better life for you!

 

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Happy New Year

Posted on January 2, 2018 by

2017 is gone now, but it was a joyful year. And I am expecting 2018 to be even more joyful! I managed to get two books published this year!

Happy New Year from our house to your house. Jesus is wonderful!

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The devil cannot read your mind

Posted on January 2, 2018 by

It has always grated on me a bit over the years to hear Christians say things like, “Well, satan knew so-and-so was going to do great things for God and that’s why he tried to kill him.” (or did kill him) And they said it without providing any proof or a scripture that they based it on. In the bible, that is called a reasoning. Humans feel the need to be able to explain everything and answer every question, I suppose, especially in the face of tragedy.Now, after 30 plus years of knowing Jesus, I see  the Scripture that backs up my belief about this.

Let’s back up a bit. Growing up as a little Catholic girl, I learned three really big, long words about God. He was omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. These are three words not found as such in the bible. But these same attributes are there, just described in other words. Omnipotent is having all power and authority. Omnipresent is being everywhere at the same time. Omniscient is knowing everything.

The realization that the scriptures really do confirm that only God knows everything came to me one day when I was speaking 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 out loud. “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” 1 Cor. 2:11. Verse 12 goes on to say “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

The point I want to make is that the spirit of man alone (and God, because, remember, he is omniscient or all-knowing) knows his thoughts. The devil is not omniscient. And because we have the Spirit of God living in us now, we can know God’s thoughts. Unless we speak our thoughts out loud, the enemy cannot know our thoughts. And let’s face it, we do speak our thoughts out loud a lot!

In the garden of Eden, after the fall of man, God promised the serpent there was One coming who was going to bruise his head, so you know the enemy was looking for him. There were attempts on Jesus’ life, but think about all the supernatural things that attended His birth and afterwards. There were words and angels and things Mary pondered in her heart. Cousin Elizabeth prophesied to Mary. When Mary and Joseph went to the temple, there was Anna and Ananias prophesying. Prophetic people who saw the baby said things. If the evil one was even paying a half amount of attention, all of this supernatural stuff would have caught his eye, and so he paid attention to this One who would “bruise his heel.” That’s why there were attempts on His life. That’s why there were temptations to make Him sin. But the whole plan of God was not understood by the devil at all, I maintain. He could see bits and pieces of it in the scriptures, like a puzzle coming together, but he had no clue exactly how God was going to rescue His mankind creation. I can see him studying the blood sacrifice that was first used to declare a man righteous and free from sin for the moment, and perhaps starting to get the picture. I’m not sure how smart he is. Sometimes he does really dumb things.

So because the devil is NOT omniscient, he is unable to read our minds. He does put thoughts there and most likely, watches us to see if we go for it. But he can only know things that come out of our mouths. There are things we should never say out loud and thereby give him ammunition. But he is absolutely unable to know what thoughts we think towards God, or what questions we ask Him.

Remember, “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?”

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My “Other” Job

Posted on December 19, 2017 by

In addition to my recent publication of blog posts called “Dogtags and Pearls: Lessons from Heaven,” I also write children’s books.  I have not been a prolific writer of children’s books. I published one in 2013 called, ” A Tale of Two Lambs.” It is the story of the Resurrection told using farm animals and a farmer. My talented friend, Jamie Brannon Haney illustrated it for me.

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More recently, I have completed another children’s book. It is “The ABCs of Created Things.” This book came about because I took a class in Adobe Illustrator and a book came out of it! That’s the way I roll!

ABCs Cover

The ABCs book was entirely illustrated by me. It teaches your child the ABCs paired with things in creation, using rhyme. It has been a joy writing and illustrating it. I send it out to the world expecting it to teach and bless the coming generations of little babies. I love little babies. I love children!

In January, I will begin work on a third children’s book, “A Tale of Two Prophets.” Jamie Brannon Haney will again be working with me as the illustrator. The farm animals will be learning a different lesson from God’s word. Stay tuned. We will keep you posted.

If you are interested in any of my books, you can contact me personally through this blog or go to Amazon.com and look them up. They are all there!

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New Book By Me

Posted on July 10, 2017 by

I’ve been a bit busy lately and haven’t been posting. I have been compiling a lot of these blog posts into a book called “Dogtags and Pearls, Lessons from Heaven.” I’m pretty proud of it. I even designed the cover myself because the company had no standard cover that I felt was a fit for it.

Soooooo…here it is! Available on Amazon.com or through me. I’m baring my soul to the world.

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Things I’ve wondered about…

Posted on May 16, 2017 by

The new testament calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness.” Who did he get saved? Ever heard a sermon on Noah as an evangelist? Why is that?

Noah lived at a time of great darkness on the earth. There were plenty of mission fields. We don’t see him really getting anyone saved while he spends 100 years building a huge boat… Hollywood’s version of the story depicts people laughing at him while he is building it, which I’m sure is what really happened, because people in darkness always mock the righteous, especially when they speak of impending doom, which is what the ark represented.

So only 8 people got on the ark, when it became time. Wow.

Out of all the population of the earth at the time, only 8 people got on the ark. Only 8 people believed God and were saved from the destruction that came. This might be a picture of how few will respond in the coming end of days when there is deep darkness again on the earth. When the church is gone, the violence and wars that we see now will be intensified because there will be nothing to restrain them. No church, no light.

I am thankful that Noah saved the human race. Even though he might not be a very good evangelist, he still saved the human race. He listened to God and he built the boat. He also gave people a way out. It’s not his fault they didn’t take it.

Dear Jesus, Through Noah’s life, we can see how important it is to listen to You, even when it might not make sense. You don’t live in our time, you live in eternity. So do we in the big scheme of things. Open our eyes and ears to see and hear Heaven’s plans for the future, so that we can cooperate with You.

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