A New Direction

Our youth pastor tells the youth "You are never more like Jesus than when you are serving".  I love that.  In this day and age, its all about ME.  What can Jesus do to make my life better?  What can I ASK for when I pray so I can have what I want?   The last few years I've really felt God calling me to pray not for ME and my wants, but to pray "Lord, what can I do for YOU today?"  Use me.   Telling God you are willing to be used for His kingdom purpose is scary.  Why?  Because you have NO IDEA what he may ask you to do!!  God will never ask you to do something that He won't equip you to do.   God says "I want you tell your best friend at school today about Me".  God, really?  It could ruin my friendship...he or she may think I'm a Jesus freak and run away and not be my friend anymore.   God says "I want you to feed the hungry today".  You say "But God, I don't have time to go today...

I think that sometimes Christians get scared when we talk about the Holy Spirit and being spirit filled.  We may not have been told much about the Holy Spirit so we are uneducated, or maybe its because being Spirit Filled means we will now be convicted for our sins, therefore moving us to stop doing what it is we love to do.  What do you think?  Do you know if you are spirit filled or just self-empowered on your journey with the Lord? In Acts 1:8 Jesus says to the apostles "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth". Notice Jesus said we will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes.  How do we know we are filled with the Holy Spirit?  When we try to follow Jesus without being filled daily with the Spirit we find ourselves frustrated by our failures and exhausted by our efforts.   We think it would be better to have God W...

  Obedience to God comes from the Inside.  Many of us grew up in Christian households, being taught what being a Christian LOOKS like, but we were never taught what living IN Christ is about.  We learned how to wear the right masks so everything looked good to those around us, but never learned who we were or are in Christ underneath the mask. Jesus doesn't expect followers to be perfect but he does call them to be authentic.  When asked to share our testimonies there are some of us who know what stories to tell and what stories to leave out.  We know what to say and how to say it - we wear a mask.  Then there are new Christians who are willing to share it all!  They lay all the crap out there for everyone to see so that God's redemptive grace is shown in their life.  They don't know any better and it can't get any more authentic than that.  Christ wants a follower - someone who isn't pretending on the outside to have it all together...

Do you KNOW God?  or do you know about God?  There is a difference and I'm afraid too many of us don't know what that difference is.   We tend to think if we know a lot about God - we could totally win a game of  Bible Trivia - then we know God.  But that couldn't be further from the truth. Knowing God is an intimacy that many Christians today lack.  They can find scriptures, quote verses, tell you lists of miracles that Jesus performed. They can quote the stats of Jesus like they can quote the stats of their favorite Actor or Athlete.  All of these things are good - Jesus studied the scriptures and had a knowledge of them - but knowledge without knowing isn't necessarily intimacy. What does intimacy mean?  - a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group.  Did you catch that?  PERSONAL relationship.  How do we obtain a personal relationship?...

This isn't going to be a fluffy, love filled post today.  I have something on my heart and I need to share it and I won't apologize for what I'm about to say.  Its a fire, a passion burning inside.  My son called me last night and his heart is feeling the same as mine and as we talked about God's word and God's will, it really did something to me. I started reading Romans today.  The first chapter is all I concentrated on.  I'm humbled, and I'm floored, because I've never sat down and truly READ what Paul is saying.  We as a church tend to pick out the verses from the Bible that give us hope and strength, that make us feel better about ourselves, yet we gloss over the verses that command us to do something for God.  We want him to do for us and hope he doesn't call us to do for him. We have become a depraved and wicked generation.  Knowing who God is and what He has done - his infinite power and divine nature - and yet we still JUSTIFY our...

This weekend I was given the opportunity to spend quality time with a woman I hold in high esteem.  A role model.  A woman of faith.  I had my mind challenged and my creative side was explored.  I learned that inside of me is a story - a very unique story.  My story.  Only I can tell it.  Only I can describe it.  Only I have lived it. At one point in the day I was told to take my camera and walk through her house.  I was given cart blanche to her home and was instructed to take 3 pictures of anything in her home that spoke to me.  I roamed around and tried to really focus on what I was looking at.  I saw a photo on her wall of her two grandsons, so I snapped a picture of them.  I saw an inviting porch swing and a comforting warm fireplace and hearth.  I was then asked to write about one of the three pictures.  How it fit into my life, how it spoke to me.  I chose the two boys.  Below I will share what...

We've heard the bible verse.  We've heard sermons preached on it.  Seen pictures like the one above and recognized it.  But have you ever really  thought about what is really happening? Jeremiah 18: 5-6  "O Stacie, can I not do with you what a potter does?, declares the Lord.  Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand." I inserted my name in place of O Israel.  You do the same.  He wants your name there.  He wants to be personal. O Stacie, can I not do with you what a potter does?  God is speaking to me.  Asking me a very important question.  Am I willing to let him mold me?  Work out those lumps in my life that are keeping me from being balanced in him?  Those are tough questions.  We live in a world that justifies everything.  People make excuses for their behavior instead of trying to change it.   That lump there Lord.  That's from years of legalism in the churc...

2 Cor 11:2-3  "I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy.  I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.   But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ." God is jealous for us.   Jealousy is usually seen in a negative light.  We are jealous OF someone else.  We are jealous OF their looks, their car, their house, their popularity, etc.  The list can go on and on.  When we are jealous OF someone, its not usually in a positive manner.  So, when we read God is jealous, we need to realize he is jealous FOR us.  He wants our hearts.  He wants our devotion.  He wants the best for us.   In Exodus 20:4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below."  Why?  Bec...

Have you heard the story of Hannah??  Its a wonderful story in the bible of the mother of Samuel.  I read it recently and it has stuck with me. Questions formed in my mind.  Would I do what she did?  Would I make promises I may not be able to keep? Hannah was brave. She was obedient.  As a mother I'm not sure I could do what she ultimately did. Hannah was married to Elkanah. She was one of two wives.  Penninah was his other wife and she had children.  Hannah did not. Penninah and her children would provoke Hannah in order to irritate her.  You've had people like that in your life, haven't you?  They find that sore spot in your heart and keep at it day in and day out, never letting it heal because they keep poking that spot till it bleeds more and more. Hannah was so distraught she would cry and Elkanah would say "Why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?"  Men - s...