LOVE IS THE LAW

Love, for the Day Is Near
Ro 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.
Ro 13:9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Ro 13:10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Ro 13:11 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
Ro 13:12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Ro 13:13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
Ro 13:14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify
the desires of the sinful nature.
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Wow is all I am able to say about the journey that He sends us on! I love knowing the feeling that I am smack dab in the center of my Father's will. I love the many confirmations that He will send to us, to let us know that we are on the right track and hearing Him clearly. You say that you never hear or don't understand how to? The absolute best way to hear from Him, is staying rooted and grounded in His Word, and keeping a CLOSE relationship to Jesus. When you have a best friend, they reveal their deepest secrets to you, they trust you. This is what Jesus will do for you once you decide to become His closest friend.

Anyway, The Lord has laid it on my heart how many people in our world are believing in lies that they have heard about God, or false images of a God that they have conjured up in their heads due to their lack of Belief in the promises of God, or simply because they don't know the promises because they do not read the Bible. These people that I speak of are people that are hurting very deeply inside. They are torn between what they are supposed to be doing to be righteous of their own works, rather than relying on the Grace that Christ gave to them by dying on the Cross. They are so hung up on the repentance part, they forget that God is the one that needs to do the work to transform their hearts. This is typically not an overnight process although it can be in some cases. When we feel as if we need to take action and control of our salvation, we can sometimes rush ahead of the work that only the Lord can do that is needed to uphold the law. We simply cannot uphold to the standards of law, without the love of God in our hearts. It is this love that will set your feet on the straight path. When we switch gears from love rather than obligation, we will fulfill the laws. When we allow His love to become one with us, we will begin to see through the eyes of Christ, and we will be the light of this world that many will follow into the Kingdom of God.

There is a movie that is coming out tomorrow, (it will only be in some areas) but you can buy the DVD in April on the website. It is called Lord Save us from your Followers. It is by Dan Merchant. I bought the book a couple of years ago and as with many of my books, it has been sitting around waiting for that perfect time for me to pick it up. After hearing that the movie was to be released this week, it reminded me that I have the book. There is also a DVD in the back of it. The DVD has clippings from the movie. After watching the DVD, I found myself in tears over the way that Christians are coming across, to people in our world. It only confirmed the words that God has been pressing on my heart. I desire MERCY, not judgement. That the only way to bring someone to Christ, is by loving them with a true Godly love first. When we love someone, we seek to understand them. We cannot understand them if we are busy judging them, or trying to stay away from them until they so call, clean up their act. Good thing God did not do that to us! I know I myself would never see Him that way!

Anyway, here is what this guy, Rick Santorum says in Dan's book:

Christ's message was always love, and we need to approach fallen human beings, which we all are, with that constancy of love instead of judgement. If the woman at the well didn't experience the love at the first part of that story, then the "go and sin no more" at the end of the story wouldn't have had the same meaning. Jesus never backed away from the Truth, but He always put it in the context of "here is someone who loves you."

WOW!! Finally words expressed true to exactly how I feel. Well done Rick! If you have never read the story about the woman at the well, it is John 4:1 and an interesting fact is that while this woman was still a sinner (either sleeping with someone else's husband, or living with a man out of wedlock), her testimony of Christ brought many other Samaritans to Christ. Can you imagine?! Jesus using a sinner to bring many to Christ? There is no doubt in my mind that the woman eventually ended up turning from her sin. It does not say in the Bible but I know that she truly BELIEVED in Christ, and once this happens, you have the seal of the Spirit and your life changes forever forward, which causes you to turn from your sin by His power, not your own and that is what truly saves you.

Father I pray that you will give us the radical Spirit of Christ to do what is right in your eyes, rather than what is typically done or acceptable in they eyes of this world.

AUTHORITY

Ro 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Ro 13:2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
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Wow, this one is a tough one for me! I have a really hard time following rules that make 0 sense to me. Or submitting to someone that I have 0 respect for. But the bottom line is that their position was signed off on by God. Nothing happens without the Father signing off on it. A friend of mine and I have started a new thing of praying every Thursday for leaders of all positions. Leaders have the ability to make the greatest influences. They need to be prayed for instead of bashed. God uses even the bad for the greater good of all of us (ROM 8:28). We need to trust that He put them in their positions for a reason.

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Ro 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

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If you have ever done this, you know that this is so true. When you repay evil with good, it takes away the fuel that evil needs to live on. Typically, a person wants a reaction out of you more than anything. When you take away the element of what they expected, it takes the control away from them in the situation. Sometimes, it can even soften their heart. A lot of times a person that is hard to deal with, is someone that is in a lot of pain. The people that are the hardest to love, are the ones that need it the most....(The Peaceful Warrior).

ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUOTE OF THE DAY

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds...

SNOW ANGEL?

Ps 91:11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

Heb 1:7 In speaking of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire."

Heb 1:14 Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

On the same night last week that I was playing in the snow, I must have taken over 100 pictures of the snowflakes falling. If you want to see something really cool, take picture of the snow falling in the dark. When your flash goes off, it reflects off all the snowflakes and makes a mini strobe light, and it even makes a cool crackling noise when the flash fires off. It is like you can see the flash hit off of every one of them. For the last month or so, the Lord has been letting me know that He has surrounded me with angels. When I pulled my pictures up on the computer, there was this one. I don't recall seeing anything like this when I took any of these pictures. It seems there is a face in this image, and I can almost see wings and long hair. It could be a number of things that caused the image. I thought maybe even fog on the lens. I was firing the photos off so quickly one after the other, and the others do not have it. It takes a while for fog to get off of a lens once it is on there, and it would have been on at least a couple of the shots after this if it were. It is a neat thought that maybe it was something of the supernatural. I have seen angels in visions before. The picture reminds me of the verse above in how He makes His angels winds. The little white specks you see are snowflakes. Even if it is not an angel, it is still a really peaceful and neat shot to me.

I want to make it clear that I do not worship nor call on angels. It is up to the Lord to do that. I do however know that He has made it clear to me, that they are around me very strong at this time in my life. My eyes are on Christ and not His supernatural or signs, but I know they exist and He will show them to you if you slow down and pay attention to them. Small miracles every day.

SNOWFLAKES!

Ro 12:4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,
Ro 12:5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Ro 12:6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.
Ro 12:7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach;
Ro 12:8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully
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I love snowflakes! They are so beautiful! Last week, I danced around out in the snow, and caught snowflakes in my mouth. I had forgotten how much fun that was. The harder they would come down, the more they were making me laugh because they were pelting me in the eyes, and some of them were so erratic you could not catch them if you tried. Earlier That day, I made the comment to a co-worker, whatever happended to all of the awesome shaped snowflakes we used to get? He mentioned that he had not seen them either. Well, they were falling that night and he mentioned it the next day as well. It makes me wonder, are they always there and we are just not slowing down long enough to see them? They say that there are not two snowflakes that are alike. This reminds me of all of us. We have different talents,gifts,body shapes, etc. In all reality there are not one of us that are the same as another, but everyone is just as beautiful.

If you click on this picture and look to the left of my hat, you will notice a perfect shaped snowflake from that night.

MY GUITAR HERO!

I wanted to take time today to share a story with you, as well offer many thanks to someone that answered my prayer (an angel).

I had been having feelings that God may have been speaking to my heart, about playing the guitar and singing songs for the Lord. I decided to post a request on the electronic corkboard of my church, to see if someone had a guitar they wanted to get rid of. I had informed a friend of mine that I had these thoughts on my heart about playing. A couple of weeks later he asked what I had decided about it all. I told him that because I tend to have a fickle personality at times, and guitars are not cheap, I was going to wait for a bigger message from God that this is from Him and not me. I had made a couple of bad decisions lately by rushing ahead on what I thought was from Him. Being recently burned in this area, I told him that God was going to have to drop a guitar in my lap if it is from Him. I hung up the phone and checked my e-mail filter, that I had not checked in awhile. I was not doing it to look for anything in particular, I just remembered at that time that I had not checked it. One of the e-mails in the filter said guitar. I opened it and this lady had a brand new guitar that was given to her as a gift. She wanted to give it to me for free! My mouth just dropped. I could not believe the timing of finding that e-mail. It had been in my filter for 3 days and of all times, I would see it right after I stated that He needed to drop it into my lap. We met at our church so that she could give it to me. When I opened up the case and looked at the guitar, it was as if the style of the guitar had been custom made for me! Now that night I knew that I would be getting this guitar,but I had no idea what else God had in store for me. There is a singles group that is meeting right now on Thursdays at my church, that a couple of my friends are in. I was talking to them before she arrived at the church. As we were speaking friends of theirs,and other people from that group sat down with us to talk while they were all waiting for the session to start. In the meantime, she came with my guitar. I brought it back over to our group, and one of the ladies asked me some questions about what I knew about guitars, etc. I let her know that I know nothing and need to take lessons. It turns out that the reason she asked, was because the man that is leading the singles group is putting together a guitar bootcamp type of program that he had not started yet. WOW! I could not believe that, what are the odds?!! I was able to give my information to him so that I can join the group! I was so overwhelmed and happy that I cried most of the way home, happy tears of joy. Everything just fell into line! I had always heard when you are in God's will, things just fall into place. While I experienced some of that in the past, it was never as it was this time. I could not be more sure that God is calling me to do this. I am really beginning to see the fruit of relationship and obedience. By this I do not mean free guitars but just an inner peace of knowing that you are on the right path of your purpose. When I went into work the following day, my co-worker had stated WOW, everything just kind of fell into your lap hauh? I smiled and said that is EXACTLY what happened!

Thank you so much Father for Your Grace,Spirit and your discipline, that allowed me to see my need to be obedient to Your Word, which enabled me to hear your voice more clearly. I look forward to all you have in store for me in this new chapter of my life!