Be Thou My Vision

When cancer knocks at your door

    takes over your life by attacking the one you hold dear,

      takes over your plans

 When retirement becomes....pills, appointments.....transfusions and infusions......fatigue.

Be Thou My Vision

Your child wanders......strays

   flirting with the dark and the empty

    until......

 that darkness invades their mind and clouds their vision.

   suffocating them,   reaching into other lives.......

                  distorting

                     lying

                         stealing

Be Thou My Vision

When someone who knows better, someone you have come to love

   willingly walks away.

  leaving behind their best gifts,

      their joy

         their peace

When you want to yank them back and Yell    WHY?

Be Thou My Vision.

When others, small and frail need you

everything you have to give

   your time

     your patience

        your heart

          your very breath

Despite your own tiredness......you give it all.

 Be Thou My Vision

When we focus on ourselves, all the tasks and challenges at hand,

 we can lose hope

     feel despair

         overwhelmed.

  

Cast our eyes upon Christ

Lord of our heart               High King of Heaven

and all things are possible

They are still hard

 still sad

   still tiring.

             Be thou my battle sheild, sword for the fight:

           Be thou my dignity, Thou my delight

          Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower:

      Raise Thou me heavenward, o power of my power.    (verse 3)

This is dedicated to my friend, my step mother, my sister in Christ......Rachel

For all the obstacles in her path that tried to trip her up....

     Her vision was not clouded.

           Her eyes were on Christ. 

               His strength became hers

                  His truth, she trusts in.

                       His peace adorns her.

Praise and honor and glory belong to Him.

Well I am still here! I want everyone to know even though I haven't  updated this blog in a while it is not because it is not on my mind. I appreciate everyone that checks in...and each follower!!  I have much to write about the amazing things God has done in sustaining trust and peace in the midst of turmoil.

I will be back soon!

Trust in the Lord with all your  heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Do you ever wonder.........is my path straight? Am I trusting in him....or me? Or am I wandering on some trail, being sidetracked by everything....shiny....

     everything........easy

everything......self serving

There are...

Those times you know your following, feeling secure.

The times you see others following....wishing you were doing better.

Those times you find yourself standing watching, wondering......what path am I on?

Isn't it amazing that no matter where you are.....He is never lost, never insecure, never wondering or faltering. He makes the paths straight, not us.

Amazing Grace

Are you saved? That question makes me laugh now. Laugh at the fool I was.

I remember around 10 years ago, we were to start home schooling. As it would be, the only home school group I was at all familiar with was a Christian group. (yep, there is a story there too, maybe later) I was not a believer at that time.

The first event we went to was a picnic, I went prepared! I just knew all those pushy Christians were going to ask me "Are you saved?"

To  which I was going to reply- "From what?" or "Just what makes you think I need saving?"

Really....teeth clenched, I was ready.

NO one asked.

    Saved implies lost and I sure didn't think I was lost. My life was fine thank you.

Sure....I believed in "god".  Ya know, like goodness, the things that weren't bad. Some type of power. 

I even believed the "good" in man was god.  uhg!

James 2:19

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that- and shudder.

  The demons were ahead of me, they knew God, THE God. Like me they did not want to be told what they needed or lacked or what God told them to do, so they didn't follow him. They followed their own will, destined for hell.

Yet they shudder- tremble. They know what awaits them.

I was too arrogant to shudder.

I was lost. Lost to sin.

Lost to self. 

Lost to anger, unforgiveness.

                  Amazing Grace   how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

                     I once was lost , but now am found

                    Was blind but now I see.

Grace found me. God's grace. THE God. The very God I shunned, the God I thought I didn't need.

 When Saul, (Paul) was saved on the road to Damascus,(Acts 26) Christ told him he would make him a minister of the good news. God would rescue Paul and send him to non believers to.....

open their eyes

to turn them from darkness to light

from the power of  Satan to God

so that they may receive.....

forgiveness of sins

an inheritance 

Those who are saved by God are kept by God, for eternity. Forgiven, loved, accepted, renewed.

God's grace is rebirth, revelation of his truth.

It is completely from him and him alone. 

It comes to those who do not deserve it

  who do not seek it

  and who can not earn it.

Without God's grace we are destined to serve sin and under the power of Satan.

I was lost and I needed to be saved. It is a good thing God didn't wait for me to get comfortable with who he was before he saved me or wait for me to figure out I needed him. That would never have happened.

God saves those who do not know they are lost.

Not perfect just Forgiven

         This morning I read a blog, what it was about wasn't as important as the comment afterward. The blog objected to the use of scripture in a particular publication, the comment that followed is one every Christian should read. 
She referenced a person that was just  mean, and a gossip, yet had a bumper sticker on her car that said                    "Not Perfect, Just Forgiven."
  Well, that doesn't surprise me. Anyone could unfortunately say something similar about me. It proves that those of us who profess Christ are always being watched. First to see if we really are different and second to see if we really are not. What we as Christians do, effects our testimony, and by the world's standards, our Christ. He does not need us to show his glory, but he has chosen us to do so and we should be overwhelmed by that!
  It is the next part of the woman's statement that is so very important. She said "When did being a Christian become and excuse instead of a motivation?"
  She is right! Just because we are sinners forgiven is no excuse to continue to sin. Now.....we will. We will never be perfect in this life, in this world, that comes with Christ's return.

Now- the world is full of sin, dying from it.
We, trapped in tents of flesh are serving ourselves. Sin.
Ephesians 4:17-32 talks of how a sinner, saved by grace must put off the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires because we have been made new, created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. No longer to be like those who are lost, darkened in their understanding because of ignorance and hardness of heart.

 The unbeliever does not have this battle. The old self rules, there is no new creation to battle with. Believers must daily  put down the old ways, the anger, gossip, lust and sinful desires. It is battle! The flesh is strong, the will of man is strong, evil is strong.
          Christ is stronger.

There is the story, perhaps you have heard it in one form or another.

An old Indian man, as a new believer in Christ speaks of the raging battle inside of him. He says, it is like two dogs fighting within me, both trying to win. One is good, it is those things like prayer and Bible reading, kindness to others, forgiveness. The other, it is my old life, spirituality, drugs, lust and anger. They fight all day, all day, all day. Someone asks the old man, "Which one wins?" He replyed, "The one that I feed."

Believers in Christ sin. Believers are forgiven. Believers do not have license to sin freely.
We have the gift of God's grace, his mercy, his guidance and power of his Holy Spirit, his restraint.
We have repentance granted by him.
Repentance in the Greek means to think differently to reconsider.
Maybe it means to feed the right dog.

"I love to sin"

   A friend has a child, who at 3 yrs old was being rather naughty, as 3 yr olds have been known to be. After trying several times to correct her, mom said, "Emma, that is sin." To which this precious blue eyed, blond curly haired, cute as a button child responded, "I love to sin!"

  There you have it, honesty.
Sometimes we love to sin.
Oh, not big sins, not the bad ones. Oh NO, just the little ones, the ones everyone else does. The ones no one knows about or aren't so "serious".

Ps 19:13

Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.NIV
CEV says Don't let me do wrong on purpose or let sin have control over my life.



The word is zade it means presumptuous,  arrogant, proud.
Would we ever sin arrogantly?
I recently watched Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. It was the edited tv version, so I am not sure if the following quote is exactly how he wrote it in the book.
He (Frank) as a young man was involved in a little twrist on the couch with a local girl, who was dying from consumption. Caught up in passion his thoughts swimming;

fear of catching the consumption, as God's punishment
fear of God and his upcoming confession to his priest
and....his pleasure.
Guess what won?
          He said, "If this is sin, I don't give a fiddler's fart."
Why did fear of death, fear of God weight so little? Because... desire for the will of self wins every time.
                                     The heart of sin is self.
What then is sin?
Charles Spurgeon  said
Sin is the  mother and nurse of all evil, the egg of all mischief, the fountain of all bitterness, the root of misery.

John Bunyan
Sin is the dare of God's justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power and the contempt of His love.

Wayne Grudem
Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude or nature........attitude, that gets me for sure.
The Greek word hamartia is missing the mark, falling short of any goal,standard or purpose.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

 we all miss God's mark

James 4:17 Anyone who knows the good he ought to do and does not do it sins.

You see, it isn't what you or I say sin is. We the sinner want to measure the sin. It is a little like asking the death row prisoner to write the law or the infected to create the antidote. It is tainted.
We will say.... it is not that bad, no one got hurt, no one will ever know or......well, at least it isn't as bad as what they did!
Sin is what God says sin is, and everyone is accountable to his judgment.

Impossible you say? Yep. It is impossible for sinners to hit the mark of holiness set before us.
That is why Christ came to earth. Fully God and fully man to bear the temptation, yet uphold the law, to fulfill the requirements for those who are his.
Then the Holy Spirit guides his chosen people to strive to live in a way that glorifies him.
Sinners- forgiven, repentant and grieved by the effects of sin.

In 1747 Charles Wesley wrote "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"
in the second verse it says......Take away the love of sinning  Alpha and Omega be, end of faith as it's beginning, set our hearts at liberty.

Little Emma was right.

Glory

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him. Psalm 8:3-4

  1) God created everything from nothing to glorify himself.
  2) God is transcendent- "above" and greater than all of creation and completely independent of it. In no way does God need any part of creation.
  3) God is immanent- involved continually with his creation, for creation is dependent upon him.

 One God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is not "in" everything and everything is not a part of God. This false belief is called Pantheism. God is holy, sin and evil are not a part of God, for there is no evil in him. Man is created in the image of God, we are not a part of God. We do not become God or a part of God, and we do not become "a god."
  God is not uninvolved, he did not set things into motion and step back to watch and wait, only to intervene if necessary. He is not powerless, he is not uninterested, and he did not abandon creation and man. This false belief is called Diesm.
  God does not exist on an equal level with anything. He is completely in control of all things. There is no force, including evil, that is not subject to God and his will. He did not create from existing matter, for matter did not exist before him.
  The belief that there are two ultimate forces in the universe, good and evil, or that God and the material universe have always existed side by side is called Dualism. If he did not create it, he cannot sustain it. If there is an equal evil force battling against God, he is not God at all, for his sovereignty would end there.
  God created all things good, very good. Man, not God chose to sin, to disobey, to seek the will of self over the will of his father.
God the Father, before he created man, had covenanted with God the Son, Jesus Christ,by the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, to save fallen man.

Shall we question God's motives or dare to blame him for what seems unfair to us?
Romans 9:19-23 Paul writes; One of you will say to me:"Then why does God blame us? For who can resist his will?" But who are you, o man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of wrath- prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects or his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory.
James 1:13-15 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me."for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.

God is not the author of sin, but he is sovereign over it.
If you have more questions ... read Job.
 Bad things happen because sin brings death. Death of the soul, the body and creation.
All sin must be atoned for, think about it, if someone has wronged you, you want justice. We have all wronged God, shall we call out for justice?
Justice will come, and it will come swift. The wrath of God is mighty. Those who have wronged God must be subject to his justice and God has said they will pay for it eternally.
Those who place their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved from God's wrath. For Christ's life was lived in full obedience to God's law, he was sinless. He took upon himself that wrath. He sacrificed himself so God would look upon believers with favor and mercy. This is called Propitiation.

God created and sustains all things.
All things are for his glory.

 Some things are very hard to understand, perhaps impossible. Why does a child die? Why so many killed in earthquakes and hurricanes? Why would God allow such things? There is  no answer that will make you feel better. God is holy, perfect, beyond our comprehension. We are sinful, selfish and live in a world saturated by sin. What is sin? any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.
  No doubt this opens more questions than it answers. We can focus on the unknown, the why, the unfair, anger, resentment, or we can focus on a God that is powerful and in control. A God that will set all things right. We can stay steeped in sin or cry out for mercy. We can ask God for faith and trust in him or we can continue to trust in ourselves. One choice brings mercy, one brings justice. Both choices bring glory to God.


             Definitions taken from Wayne Grudem- Systematic Theology    Bible verses NIV

Conversation with Death and a Witch

   On the social network Facebook, there is a game called Yoville. You make an avatar of yourself (a character that looks like you), you go to work and earn coins, buy a house, furniture, clothes to wear etc. During the month of October you can buy Halloween costumes and decor.
   One morning my avatar "Shannon" was standing out in front of the Yoville apartment complex along with many others, thought bubbles bursting with conversations above our heads.  "Death" appears, dressed in a long black cape and hood carrying a sickle. Next to him is Miss Witch, wearing a black tattered dress and hat. Out of the blue a conversation begins;
     Death- "Would you date someone, even if they weren't religious?"
     Witch- "Yes I would."
     Shannon- "no"
     Death- "Even if they were a good person?"
     Witch- "It's not that important."
     Death- "Shannon, No? why not?"
     Witch- "We are all equal."
      Shannon- "Because I believe in the God of the bible, and he says it is important. Yes we are all equal"
Just as quick as it began, it was over, death disappeared.

Even if they were a good person?
      By who's standards?   mine? yours? witches? or Gods?
Romans 3:10-12
 As it is written, "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."





Yes, we are all equal. We are all sinners. Born in sin, dead in sin.
That is what is so amazing about grace, both common and saving grace.
Without grace, sin is unrestrained. We will do what we want, when we want and how we want and good will be measured by a sinner's standards.
We are by nature......self serving and not sacrificial.
It is by common grace that a sinner can do any good, your life, love, acts of kindness- they are all gifts of God, even to those who do not believe in him.
It is his saving grace that makes his chosen people righteous. He takes the self serving heart and replaces it with the love of Christ and the fear of a holy God.

Ezekiel 36:26-27

  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

God's saving grace comes, not because we deserve it, not because we are better. We are all equal! Sinners bound to sin and destined to an eternity separated from God , paying the penalty for that sin.
It is by the grace and will of God that some sinners are saved, bound by love, destined for glory.
 So does religion matter?
  yes
What religion?
The worship of the one true God
Who defines God?
God himself
Where?
in his word, the bible
Why should I believe the bible?
It is historical, it is ageless, it is indestructible, it is life changing.
Why should I believe you?
 Don't. Ask God.
How?
 talk to him, ask him to remove your unbelief.

Death left the conversation. but death will return........Are you ready?