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| James 1:2 (The Message) Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. As many know, there is a corporate fast at New Testament Church in January... I have felt to focus in on the book of James mainly because it is my favorite as it doesn't require allot of skill to understand... James is pretty straight forward. (I could learn a lot from James) As a handy dandy confirmation, this morning I cracked open my study Bible to start, I noticed the book of James starts on page 1978 which is the year I was born. So, how about that! And boy, does this first chapter ever sum it up? Just last night during the prayer and worship service the Holy Spirit was just encouraging me by saying, "It is in times like these when you thrive, you really rise to the challenge, trials refine you and this is your time to shine!" Leading me to the question, How do we ever doubt that God is in control with constant little reminders that He is in every detail of our lives? | | |
| Devotion - Newsbooys All my world
All I've lost
The wrecks I've made here
The lives it cost
Your hand restores
Your words make whole
With all my soul
I thank You
I owe You
All my
Devotion
All that I have to give
Here's my devotion
You're all that it means to live
All my past
My tainted name
You stole its legacy
Of pride and shame
You're all I love
You're all I fear
I'm drawing near
To face You
To know You
To show You
Devotion
All that I have to give
Here's my devotion
You're all that it means to live
You found me
In a shallow grave
You dragged me out from beneath it all
You healed me
Saved me
In the nick of time
Your perfect time
You found me (found me)
In a shallow grave (in a shallow grave)
You called me out from beneath it all
You touched me (touched me)
Saved me (saved me)
In the nick of time
In Your perfect time
I devote all I have to You
I devote all that You've made new
All You restored that day You bled
All that You brought back from the dead
Devotion (You're all...)
You're all that I have to give
You're all that it means to live
Here's my devotion, my devotion
All that it means to live (You're all that it means to live)
My Lord
My devotion
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| Ever since I became a teen mom, I was driven by this need. To have a normal, happy life like "everybody else." Maybe because I was ashamed of my mistake, or maybe because I never really fit in. Whatever the case, I worked and strived and toiled to attain what I thought happiness should look like--a happy marriage, and happy children, living in a happy little home with a storybook ending. Unfortunately, the harder I have tried to make that dream a reality, the worse things seemed to get. Life has unraveled at the seems and I am beginning to realize that my goals in their present form will never be realized. Forcing a square peg through a round opening, I have hurt myself the people I was trying to protect. It is a startling realization--finding out your efforts and sacrifices are the very enemies of your life and loved ones. It causes you to question everything you believe. Struggle exposes our faulty belief systems... It has taken 15 solid years of struggle for me to figure this out. I give up on my way. I was wrong, and I am sorry. So now it is back to the drawing board. God, what do You want me to do? | | |
| Trust - Kristene Meuller It's the sweetest thing
To trust you
Just to know
You got everything under control
It's the sweetest thing
To trust you
Just to know
You got everything
And You are making me a mountain
Making me a mountain
That cannot be shaken
Well You are making me a mountain
Making me a mountain
That cannot be moved
High up on a rock
Looking out at the horizon
Watching as the storm rolls in
Wondering if my heart will survive it
As the waves crash all around me
And can't remember what it feels like to be free
I know You're making me a mountain
Making me a mountain
That cannot be shaken
Oh You are making me a mountain
Making me a mountain
That cannot be moved
You say, I've got you my baby
I've got you
It's quite the mess you're in
But it's nothing Love can't fix
So sit here upon my shoulders
And watch as it all unwinds
You are making me a mountain
Making me a mountain
That cannot be shaken
I know You're making me a mountain
Making me a mountain
That cannot be moved setup | | |
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"Destiny" By Marion Bradish I finally am understanding... who I am. I like me. It only took 31 years. Hope is on the horizon... .. ... ~ | | |
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Romans 5
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1-2By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. 3-5There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! 6-8Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. 9-11Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah! 12-14You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in— first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it. 15-17Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides? 18-19Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. 20-21All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. (Romans 5, The Message)
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