Having A Heart For God
See what's possible when you put GOD first in your life!
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Crazy Love
We all love something. We love our kids, our homes, our friends, our family, our pets, our jobs, our communities, our gardens, our churches. We love eating out and shopping and going out on the town to a outstanding event. We love a good book, a nice vacation, a riveting movie, or a walk on the beach. And most people can tell what we love by how we spend our time and money and attention.
Our very life exhibits our priorities. That is what Jesus meant when he said "where your treasure is, your heart will be also". So what is your treasure? Is it God? or is it something else?
What does your life say about your priorities?
God wants to be your FIRST priority. He wants you to be CRAZY in LOVE with HIM. We were created to be in relationship with God FIRST and FOREMOST. And if you miss that, you have missed out on the greatest relationship of your entire life. Jesus reminds us in the gospels, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." Are you Crazy In Love with God? Because God is Crazy in Love with you.
"God is love. Crazy, relentless, all-powerful love. Have you ever wondered if we’re missing it? It’s crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe—the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor—loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss. Whether you’ve verbalized it yet or not...we all know somethings wrong. Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself". - Taken from the book CRAZY LOVE.
Fall in love with God - it is guaranteed to Change your Life!!
A Happy Marriage
We all have hopes and dreams for a rewarding and joyful marriage. If you want a sharp reminder of the vows we all took to, love, honor, forgive and cherish each other, just attend a wedding like I did this past weekend. Here is what the minister told the audience at the little village church in Rhode Island just before the vows were taken.
"The union of husband and wife in heart, body and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one and other in prosperity and adversity. The marriage is not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly but reverently, deliberately and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by GOD.
May we have wisdom and devotion in the ordering of our common lives that each may be to one and other - a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow and a companion in joy. Give us grace so that when we hurt each other we can acknowledge each fault and seek each other's forgiveness and yours. Make our life together a sign of Christ's love to this broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt and joy conquer despair."
Now that is what GOD intended!
Finding Forgiveness
Are you furious with someone who has hurt you or your family? Do you have an emotional wound that has never healed? Maybe someone wronged you or a loved one years ago, and the pain remains. Are you stuck with your inability to move on? Freedom from hurt and anger comes only through complete forgiveness. Charles Stanley says this on the process of forgiveness, " Forgiveness is much more than just saying some words in a prayer or putting time between us and the event. It is a process that involves understanding the mercy God has shown and recognizing how that applies to those who have hurt us."
A Woman of Excellence
We live in a very competitive society and being excellent is often at the top of our agendas. In our search for excellence we strive and work to set ourselves apart from the rest of the crowd. We have learned that to be successful and accomplished is a powerful thing. The biblical view of "excellence" is also about being set apart from the rest of the crowd but for a very different reason than making a name for ourselves. When God calls us to be excellent, He is asking us to be superior and distinctive in the things that God cares about and to conform ourselves to His will. This primarily means living a life that brings honor and glory to God.
If we give priority to developing ourselves inwardly, then our responses and actions will follow accordingly. The best place to start in our search for excellence is with the example of Christ and studying the "fruit of the spirit". There are 9 of them but tackling just one can be a step in the right direction.... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. How do we do this?? Scripture tells us.
Prayer That Really Works
First of all...THANK YOU...to all those friends and supporters of this website who keep sending in suggestions for books and videos...please keep them coming. We are all busy women, mom, daughters, sisters, homemakers, volunteers, nurses, wives and girlfriends...and that is just the tip of the iceberg for what is going on in our lives. So HOW EXACTLY are we going to find time to PRAY?? It is a question that concerns all of us. I think if we focus on the benefits instead of the work involved, we will see that prayer is probably the most important thing we can do to start and end our day.
Prayer is simply a conversation with God. He wants to be intimately involved in every aspect of our lives. That in itself is unique. We will never find a friend or husband who is there for us 24/7..but God is!!. Think of it this way...God wants to hear every detail of our lives, has all the time in the world for us, is always available and has every answer to every problem, concern and question. Talk about a reason to pray.
Why are we so afraid?
There is a lot to be afraid of these days. An environment that is increasing polluted - affecting our health or that of our kids. Instability in the Financial Markets threatens our security and home values. The weather seems unpredictable and explosive causing earthquakes, massive flooding and storms beyond our control. Terrorism is now a daily part of our lives, crime is on the rise, suicide is at an all time high, divorce is skyrocketing and the future seems completely unclear to may of us. No wonder we are afraid. But there is GOOD NEWS. God tells us unequivocally that if we put our trust in HIM, all things work for good. And so our job is to pay more attention the GREATNESS OF GOD than FEAR that surrounds us because what you focus on expands in your life.
Max Lucado, in his wonderful book "FEARLESS", describes it this way, "Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversize and rude, fear is unwilling to share the heart with happiness. Happiness complies and leaves. Can one be happy and afraid at the same time? Clear-thinking and afraid? Confident and afraid? Merciful and afraid? For all the noise fear makes and room it takes, fear does little good.
To Forgive is Divine
True Meaning of Easter
Cultivating Gentleness
Cultivating Gentleness is one of the hallmarks of being a follower of Christ but how good a job are we really doing? It was Jesus Himself who said that HE had a "gentle and humble heart". In our own attempts to be "gentle" it is a good idea to model Christ. The world today is a rough place.
A New Way of Fasting
As many of you know, I have been hosting and teaching at retreats at the beautiful St. Birgitta Convent in Darien CT. It is a magical and serene place where the peace of God nestles in every corner. Mother Eunice spoke to our group last week and what she said has great significance for all of us. Allow me to share her divine wisdom with all of you. This is what she said, "As we enter into this season of Lent, a time which God as "lent" us to renew our lives, here are some tips that might help as we take a Different Approach to Fasting. 1) Fast From Anger and Hatred. Give your family an extra dose of love each day. (continued under read more)
Sheer Delight
There are many things to delight yourself in. An ice cold beer while watching Canada and the United State vie for the Gold medal. A walk in the park on a spring day with your dog, a call from your mom, snuggling with your kids in front of a roaring fire, a bowl of homemade ice cream.....and the list goes on. However one of the greatest promises in the Bible has do with delighting in God.
God tells us that if we delight in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart. It is God who created the entire universe and everything in it. We were created for the sole purpose of being in relationship with God and delighting in Him. So how do we delight in the Lord and put Him back in first place in our lives? Here are some simple suggestions.
Unlimited Potenial
God created everything in this world with potential including you and me. Potential is the dormant ability, reserved power, untapped strength or hidden talents that we all possess. It is all that you can be... but have not yet become. In his best selling book "Understanding Your Potential" , Dr. Myles Munroe explains that the key to understanding your potential is not to look within yourself or to what others say about you....but to look to the source from which you were created. That would be God.
The Bible is very clear that in the beginning there was only God and out of Him came everything else. From the invisible came the visible and because you and I were created from God and were made in His image we also possess unlimited potential. However, we must be connected to God to fully understand why we were created and what we were designed to do. We each possess the ability to achieve, develop, accomplish, produce, create and perform anything our minds can conceive. If you want to unleash your full potential and truly maximize your purpose in life, get to know God through prayer, meditating on Scripture, going to church or listening to the wisdom of Jesus Christ and watch as a wonderful, unexpected, greater than you could have imagined, plan unfolds right before you!
True Love
True Love can be found in many places but none so great as Calvery where Jesus willingly went to the cross for his love of mankind. The cross of Christ points to the fact that Jesus died for the sins of the world so that man could be back in right relationship with God. For Christians, it is the greatest illustration of sacrificial love the world has ever known and a testament to how much God cares for the entire world. The extraordinary importance followers put on the death of its founder, Jesus Christ, will strike anyone who follows Christianity. All other spiritual leaders are marked by their life not their death. Christians even chose the symbol of the cross to remember their leader and to remember his death.
Pray It Works
We are all in search of answers for our life. In today's world we have never been more plugged in and yet increasingly out of touch with what will bring significance and meaning into our lives. In our search for answers, we turn on the television, we Google, we Twitter, we text, we phone, and we email. We listen to Dr. Phil, Oprah, the therapist, talk radio, girlfriends, magazine advice columns, palm readers, astrology and psychics.
However, the Bible says something completely different about the best answers for our life. It says we need to go to the SOURCE.... directly to GOD... and one way we can do that is through prayer.
Prayer is primarily communion with God. It is the interaction of the human mind, heart, and soul with God, not only in contemplation or meditation, but also in direct address to Him. Some of us do it orally, others silently. We might pray throughout the day and or only at Church on Sunday. Often we are not completely sure what to say or even if God is really listening.
Fundamental devotion to prayer is found in essentially all faith groups. The one thing all of us seem to agree on is that the fundamental difference between various kinds of prayer is often the different images of God that lies behind them. We usually ask of God what we believe he is capable of providing.
The Bible tells us that with God all things are possible. When we make our requests known to HIM and leave our concerns in His capable hands, we can trust with complete confidence that the answers we need will always be provided. We need to remember that the final and often forgotten piece of prayer is in the listening and waiting for God’s response. For the power of prayer is not necessarily in our praying but in the release God gives with his perfect answer. The perfect answer is not always what we expect but often, upon reflection, a much more prudent outcome.
Remember, Pray, It Works!
Hope
The reason most of us love the New Year is that it offers us a fresh start. All things are new and anything is possible. We make our resolutions and we believe that our attempt to make permanent change will stick. We have nothing but good intentions. However we often find after several months that transforming ourselves can be a futile attempt.
That is why it is such a wise choice to invest in the hope that Christ offers. He promises us that if we put our faith in Him, He will send his indwelling Holy Spirit to live in our hearts and then "all things are possible through Christ who strengthens us".
Faith
As 2009 comes to an end and we review the year, we can see how quickly situations and circumstances can change. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But a very wise friend once told me, "There is no plan B for the Christian".
In other words, regardless of the events of our life, we can have complete faith that we are exactly where we are meant to be and that God is ultimately in charge. Therefore there is absolutely no reason to be afraid because we can have FAITH. Faith in a God that created the entire universe and yet still loved us enough to send His son to be a savior to the entire world.
Giving Thanks
Thanksgiving is an exceptional holiday. It is filled with so many great American traditions. Among them are fresh roast turkey with all the trimmings, homemade pudding, pies, cakes and cobblers, hot apple cider, dining tables spilling over with guests, children diving into huge leaf piles with cousins they rarely see, The Macy's Parade, and our favorite pastime, football.
However, no matter how we spend Thanksgiving Day, the one thing we all have in common is that we get to take the occasion to deeply and profoundly acknowledge all the blessings we are grateful for and the one we should be thanking is GOD.
Patriotism & God
With Election Day on November 3rd and Veteran's Day on November 11th, it is a good time to remember that America was built with an emphasis on moral, religious, and constitutional foundations - foundations which, in recent years, have been seriously attacked and undermined. As David Barton, the founders of Wall Builders, reminds us it was George Washington who said "the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation which disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained."