You Are Forgiven

He's not mad at you

He's not disappointed

His grace is greater still,

than all of your wrong choices

He is full of mercy and he is ever kind

Hear his invitation, His arms are open wide

You can come as you are,

with all your broken pieces

And all your shameful scars

The pain you hold in your heart,

bring it all to Jesus

You can come as you are

Louder than the voice that whispers your unworthy

Hear the sound of love,

that tells a different story

Shattering your darkness and pushing through the lies

How tenderly he calls you,

His arms are open wide

You can come as you are,

with all your broken pieces

And all your shameful scars

The pain you hold in your heart,

bring it all to Jesus

You can come as you are

You can come as you are

You can come as you are with all your broken pieces

And all your shameful scars

The pain you hold in your heart,

bring it all to Jesus

You can come as you are

When we make mistakes sometimes we think that God is mad at us. We are harder on ourselves than he is with us. We hold onto the bad choices we have made and won’t let it go and forgive ourselves. He is asking us to let it go and come to him. He LOVES us with more PASSION than we could ever realize or possibly comprehend. When we make mistakes we don’t need to run FROM Him…we need to run TO Him!!

Every time we mess up the devil is right there whispering lies into our ears….

“He doesn’t love you anymore”
“He is going to leave you now”
“He is angry with you”
“He is going to make you pay”

Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

We are saved through the blood of Jesus Christ. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. The payment has already been made by the blood.

Ephesians 1:7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”

If you have made a bad choice in your life and you are still holding onto it…let it go. You are forgiven! Stop holding onto those bad choices and put them down. Let them go and run into the arms of the Lord. He is waiting with open arms.

I love this line in the song above “Come As You Are” by Pocket Full Of Rocks - His grace is greater than all your wrong choices.

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

We are not perfect and we will fail. He is the one that will NEVER fail us!!

God's Unfailing Love

The bible mentions God’s unfailing love in many scriptures. Most of the scriptures come from the book of Psalm written by David. He desperately cried out to God to rescue him in his time of trouble. In those scriptures he spoke of God’s unfailing love like he was encouraging himself. Because of his circumstances, I think he was feeling like God has turned his back on him and forsaken him. (Read Psalm chapter 6)


We can’t go by how we feel; our feelings will lie to us! I know I have to say things to myself sometimes for encouragement when I don’t feel it. Just because we feel like God doesn’t love us doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love us…we just feel that way. The truth still remains the same…God loves us! We have to go by what we know is true! David knew that and he constantly reminded himself of this truth…that God’s love is unfailing.

Trust that God loves you! That is what his word says. Unfailing love…. Let that sink in a bit.

To fail is to….
o Weaken
o Fade or die away
o Stop or fall short
o Become absent or inadequate

We can’t comprehend the love that God has for us. NEVER will his love fade, die away, stop or fall short, become absent or inadequate. Unfailing is the OPPOSITE of fail.

His Unfailing love will….
o NOT weaken
o NOT fade or die away
o NOT stop or fall short
o NOT become absent or inadequate

Psalm 21:7 “For the king trusts in the Lord; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken.”

What a comfort! To know that God’s love for me will NEVER change and will ALWAYS stay the same and CAN’T be shaken.


To read more scriptures on God’s unfailing love read Psalm:
Chapter 6 (6:4) Chapter 13 (13:5) Chapter 21 (21:7) Chapter 31 (31:16) Chapter 32 (32:10) Chapter 33 (33:5,18,22) Chapter 36 (36:7) Chapter 44 (44:26) Chapter 48 (48:9) Chapter 51 (51:1) Chapter 52 (52:8) Chapter 77 (77:8) Chapter 85 (85:7) Chapter 90 (90:14) Chapter 107 (107:8,15, 21,31) Chapter 119 (119:41, 76) Chapter 130 (130:7) Chapter 143 (143:8, 12) Chapter 147 (147:11)

That Little Voice

Romans 2:15 “Since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”

God has place a conscience inside of us to help guide us. It doesn’t matter where you are with your walk with Christ or if you don’t have a walk with Christ, you have a conscious. Our conscience is sent by God with one purpose which includes the standards of how God desires for us to live.

It’s like having a little Jesus sitting on your shoulder all of the time guiding us in every situation.

When you are doing something that you should not be doing and your conscience is whispering in your ear telling you to stop…what is your response?

Do you listen to that little voice?

Sometimes I think we just grab a long strip of duct tape and tape its mouth SHUT!!! That’s what happens when we IGNORE our conscience. That little voice can’t be heard if it has tape over its mouth. Until we take the tape off, you will not hear what that little voice needs to say.

Does your conscience have tape over its mouth?

Acts 24:16 "So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man."

Worry Weighs You DOWN

Psalm 55:22 (KJV) “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”


What are you carrying around with you today? Are you holding onto things that you are worrying about and can’t seem to let go? Take a moment and write down everything that is weighing you down.

Now, using your imagination pretend that you are putting a backpack on your back. Each problem that you are worrying about represents one brick. Place all the bricks into the backpack. Is your backpack heavy? Even if you only have one brick it is still heavier than it should be.

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV) “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Proverbs 12:25 (NIV)”An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.”

God wants us to give those things that trouble our hearts to him and let him CARRY it and HANDLE it. We can end up carrying around so many burdens that our LOAD is so HEAVY we can barley keep going. That is not what God intended for us to do when troubles come along in our lives. He wants us to give ALL our cares to him and trust him that he will take care of it!!

When you are faced with a problem you have two options.

1. You can carry it around with you
2. Give it to God

If you carry it around with you then you will worry about it…if you worry about it you will ONLY focus on the PROBLEM and worry yourself to death. If you give it to God and trust in him, then you will be FREE from worry and will focus on HIM and not the PROBLEM. It effects what you focus on…your PROBLEM or GOD.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV) “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Give your burdens to HIM!!! You will feel so much better!! :)

Spring Cleaning

I never understood why it was called spring cleaning. Why in the spring and not any time? Well…I was thinking that it may be in the month of August, but it is about time for me to do some spring cleaning in my spare bedroom. I have been putting a little of this and a little of that in that spare bedroom for a while and it is now completely full of nothing but JUNK!! I need to go through all of it and clean it up, get it organized and trash all of the stuff that needs to go!!


I wonder what kind of JUNK we store in our hearts without even realizing it. A little here and a little there and before you know it you are completely FULL to the RIM with lots of JUNK that needs to be cleaned out in a quick hurry.

Psalm 51:10-12 (NIV) 10 “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”

When was the last time you sat down with Jesus and repented, asking him to clean your heart out?   Is it time for some spring cleaning in your heart?

He's Got The Whole World In His Hands

He's got the whole world in his hand

He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands.

He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,

He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,

He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands.

He's got the wee small baby in His hands,

He's got the wee small baby in His hands,

He's got the wee small baby in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands.

He's got all you lovers in His hands,

He's got all you lovers in His hands,

He's got all you lovers in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands.

He's got ev'rybody in His hands,

He's got ev'rybody in His hands,

He's got ev'rybody in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands.

He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the whole world in His hands.

I remember singing this song in Sunday school when I was a child; it has been playing in my mind this morning. The words to this song really stood out to me today. The whole world is in HIS hands. That means EVERYTHING!!! What a POWERFUL and MIGHTY God!!! If he is BIG enough that the whole world is resting in his hands then that means he is IN CHARGE!!! To be in the hands of God is to be taken care of and watched over.

He watches over us, takes care of us and is in charge of us. He is IN CHARGE of our destiny!! He made the sun, moon, stars and universe…all land, waters, mountains and the sky. That is the God we serve!! He created us, loves us, is taking care of us and is IN CHARGE of us!!

That means YOU are in his hands...your FINANCES…your FAMILY…your HEALTH…your SITUATION…your JOB…your DESTINY!!!

Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV) 25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[a]? 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Sometimes we can worry ourselves to death about things that could happen because we don’t know what the future holds. I sure am glad that my destiny is resting in the hands of God. Your situation isn’t out of HIS control or out of his hands…it’s out of YOURS!!!

Dear Lord, help us to not forget that you not only created EVERYTHING but are IN CHARGE of it all. So easily we begin to worry and stress over things that could happen to us that hasn’t even happed and probably won’t ever happen. Help us the next time we start to worry about what the future holds and to remember that the whole world is in YOUR HANDS.

In His Hands

Jeremiah 18:6 (NIV) 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

He is the potter and we are the clay. We are like the clay in the hands of God…shaping and molding our hearts! Each and every day he is continually working on us and perfecting us.

I’m not the same person I once was years ago because he has been working on my heart and is making it what he wants it to be. I don’t have the old desires I once had…I have new desires in my heart that were never there before!!

What a beautiful thing to be created by him! Just think…YOU are in HIS hands!!! He has this grand idea of what he wants to make YOU!!

Think about it!!! If you were to mold a pot out of clay, you would first start with just a clump of clay. You would place it on the wheel and begin to work!! Shaping and molding the clay in your hands after a while you would begin to see some sort of shape. The more and more you are shaping and molding the clay it will begin to start looking like a pot!!

There is nothing beautiful or special about a clump of clay. You can’t do anything with it and it doesn’t serve any purpose. BUT when you put a clump of clay into the hands of God…then you get something beautiful and spectacular!!

Dear Lord, I want to be in your hands for you to mold and create whatever you desire for my heart. Continue to create me into the person you have always desired for me to be. Take my heart and mold it…rearrange it…change it into something beautiful!!!

Are You Eating?

Matthew 6:11 “Give us today our daily bread.”


Could you imagine going a whole day without eating a single meal? What about weeks, months or even years? That’s so crazy!! Why on earth would we do that? Well, the answer is we wouldn’t!!! We MUST eat to LIVE!!! Our bodies need to eat daily to survive. It would be impossible to NOT eat anything at all and still be ALIVE, LIVING & BREATHING!! It works the same way in our spiritual lives. If we wouldn’t dare go without eating on a daily basis to ensure staying alive then why would we ignore that in our spiritual lives? It’s EXACTLY the same!! We MUST eat to LIVE in our spiritual lives. We shouldn’t be to the point where we are okay with living each and every day without the Word of God in our lives. We NEED it to LIVE and MUST have it to SURVIVE. Think of it this way…every time you open your bible you are sitting down at the table about to eat a satisfying and nourishing 3 course meal. Consuming the Word of God is essential and needs to be our highest priority in our lives. If we are NOT eating spiritually then we can’t keep it ALIVE. That is the only way we can continue to LIVE. Just like our physical body, if we don’t eat then we will die. How long has it been since you have had your daily bread on a daily basis? Is your spiritual life starving to death? It is so easy to forget and not think of getting into the Word of God is like eating daily to live. Why don’t we start today!! Let’s do it together!! Start diving into the Word of God and bring back your LIFE and LIVE!!

Directions

Proverbs 3:5-6 “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.”


I was driving home today taking my usually route and the road was blocked which forced me to take another route home. There was only one option and I had never driven down that road before. Okay, so if you don’t know me very well just know that I will get lost anywhere much less on some road I have never driven down before. So, I think to myself…No problem, I will just whip out my handy GPS and it will guide me home!! No worries!! I won’t get lost!! Well, that got me to thinking about how I felt so confident that my GPS was going to get me home without any problems. I wasn’t worried that it might tell me to turn down the wrong road and get me lost…I was confident that it knew exactly which roads to turn on to get me where I needed to go. That got me to thinking….God needs to be that way in our lives. How can we put more confidence in our GPS than we do in God? Sometimes I think we just toss him in the back seat and jump into the driver’s seat taking the wheel like we actually know what we are doing and where we are going. We end up taking all the wrong turns, driving down all the wrong roads and get so lost we don’t know why we ever tried to do it our way in the first place and not his way. I think that we forget that he knows more than a GPS and has specific plans for everyone. If we would just relax and have confidence in him, give back the drivers seat and let him lead us we will get where we need to go without ever getting lost.

Evil Is Like Rotten Food

Proverbs 16:17 (NIV) “The highway of the upright avoids evil; he who guards his way guards his life.”


James 1:14-15 “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.”

In my words:  “A good Christian man that follows the Lord avoids what is not good and not of the Lord (evil) protecting what is valuable to him (relationship with the Lord… what matters the most… your desire to serve the Lord and to please him in all ways…the way you live your life) keeping away from those impure, unholy, ungodly, unrighteous things will assure him protection and will not be effected by those things.


Guard Your WAY

If you guard your WAY (relationship with the Lord… what matters the most… your desire to serve the Lord and to please him in all ways…the way you live your life) your LIFE will automatically be guarded. How do you guard your WAY? To guard your WAY is to make a choice to closely monitor EVERYTHING that you “intake” or “digest” on a daily basis (what you allow to fill your heart).


Evil Is Like Rotten Food

For an example, if you are trying to decide if you should watch a movie that contains scenes that are ungodly and impure and you are wondering…will this really hurt me? Is it really that big of a deal? Surly just this one movie won’t hurt me? If you can imagine evil (what is not good and not of the Lord) being like food…every choice you make you can think…do I really want to take a bite into this hamburger that looks 7 days old and is turning green and fuzzy??? Ummm…NO is the answer for me!!! That is exactly what evil is!!! Nasty, disgusting, rotting, mess that no one needs inside of them!!! If you don’t look at it this way then you are NOT looking at it as it is. Maybe taking a second to picture what EVIL looks like then maybe you will make a better choice to protect what is valuable to you. To make the choice to GUARD your WAY is by saying “NO I don’t want any part of that which is not good and not of the Lord”. By doing that you are taking a bite of a freshly baked apple pie which is GOOD not BAD. I don’t know about you but I would much rather take a bite of a freshly baked apple pie that melts in your mouth and throws you into a 2 hour nap afterwards than eating a stinky old green fuzzy hamburger!!! Everything that we do will affect us in a good way or a bad way. You may not see the evidence immediately but it is there and will eventually you will see the effects. We HAVE GOT TO PROTECT what is important to us like we are caring around inside of us a precious diamond that is worth all the money in the world and MORE!!! Because that is EXACTLY what we are caring inside of us…the most important thing that could ever exist… the Holy Spirit. We must protect it. In every situation each and every day that we are faced with, we have to make a choice.

Your Life Becomes Guarded

If you guard your WAY then how does that automatically guard your LIFE? If we were to choose not to “guard” or “protect” our WAY then we will be choosing to eat that stinky old green fuzzy hamburger. Weather or not we guard our WAY determines how it will effect our LIFE. Look at it this way…imagine you went a whole day of eating stinky old green fuzzy hamburgers, molded rotting fruit, nasty black old molded bread and disgusting spoiled chunky milk. By the end of the day you would have chosen so much of impure, unholy, ungodly, unrighteous things that you are filled up with them. The effects of choosing evil and not guarding against it will eventually over time get to the point of consuming you and overtaking what you use to be and before you know it you don’t even know who you are anymore and how you got there. So it all starts with guarding your WAY and that will guard your LIFE!!! Everyday choose to reject EVIL and what is valuable to you (his relationship with the Lord, what matters the most to him and life will be protected) will be protected and not affected.

Mark 7:21-22 (NIV) “For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”


Your Eyes, Ears & Heart

We must guard our WAY by guarding our eyes, ears and heart. If we live to serve the Lord and truly desire to please him we should want to be selective in what we involve ourselves in on a daily basis. What our ears hear and our eyes see goes straight into our heart. You may not think listening in on a gossip conversation won’t hurt you, but it does more damage than you realize. If you are letting that gossip enter into your heart it will come out into words and actions eventually. You are what you eat!!! That is a very true statement. You are what you consume (spiritually). The more and more you read the scriptures, dwell on them and study them the closer you become to the Lord. The closer you become to the Lord the more you begin to take on his characteristics and develop a desire for the things he desires. The more you take on his characteristics and develop a desire for the things he desires you begin to act on it. Those are the type of things that will come out of you…GOOD and Godly things. But if you choose to fill your heart with the things that are not of the Lord then that is what will come out of your heart.

1 Thessalonians 5:22 “Avoid every kind of evil.”


What Happens - The Process

What your ears hear and what your eyes see will go into your heart. What goes into your heart is what you will dwell on. What you dwell on will come out into actions and words. Picture it like this…if you plant a seed in the ground it begins to grow and develop. Soon it will burst out of the soil into a real live plant.


Heart Is Your Center Core

Think of it this way…look at your heart like an engine in a car, it’s the center core. If you put sugar in your gas tank instead of gasoline it could cause some major damage and in most instances, cause the car to stall and require major repairs. If you continue to put the sugar in the gas tank then eventually the car will quite working. See?? Sugar wasn’t made for cars…just like that nasty, disgusting, rotting, mess (EVIL) wasn’t made to pollute our hearts. Let’s say you involve yourself in a conversation that is full of gossip and tearing others completely apart with words. You have just eaten that stinky old green fuzzy hamburger. Avoiding that conversation is exactly what guarding your WAY means…to choose to not be apart of that conversation will eliminate filling your heart with things that are not of the Lord. Therefore, guarding your WAY (your desire to serve the Lord and to please him in all ways, the way you live your life).



Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Philippians 4:8).

Wash Up!!!

Isaiah 1:16 “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil.”


We wash our hands throughout the day somewhere between 10 to 20 times per day. Every time we go to public places we get back into our cars, pull out the hand sanitizer and get to cleaning!! We never forget to wash up immediately after touching all kinds of filth in public places…after using the restroom…after opening doors…after playing with our pets…before cooking dinner. Shouldn’t it be that way all throughout the day with our hearts? Constantly examining our hearts to see if it needs a good scrubbing? Could you go a whole day without washing your hands? Yuk!! I wouldn’t want to do that…would you? What about several days or weeks? Well, we shouldn’t want to go a day without letting Jesus scrub our hearts clean!! The next time you are washing your hands, let it be a reminder to take a moment and check your heart.

He Is the Vine...We Are The Branches

John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

I was on my computer and the battery light blinked saying battery low and it hit me…we are just like that when it comes to God! We are not so different than this computer…we are nothing without a source of power…HIM!!! We NEED him each and every day of our lives…he is our “source of power”… he is the vine and we are the branches. So as I plug up my computer with the “source of power”…the blinking light turns off and everything is okay... the battery is charging. That’s what it needed…the source of power “Plugged in” directly. If we will stay plugged up to Jesus (read, study and meditate in his word, focus on him, pursue him daily…etc) we would have ALL we need. We would never have a reason to drink to find answers to our confused minds…we wouldn’t take pills to drown out those bad and painful memories we can’t seem to forget or even know how to deal with….we wouldn’t look for love in all the wrong places when we are actually looking for JESUS…that’s what we need and are looking for and CAN’T live without...JESUS!!! He is the one that brings the PEACE we are searching for... the LOVE we are longing for… the JOY and FULFILLMENT we were made for…NOT THIS WORLD or anything in it….HE IS ALL WE NEED!!!

He Is Able

II Corinthians 9:8 “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”


When we are facing difficult times in our lives we automatically think to ourselves “I am not able to do this”… “I am not able to handle this”… “I am not able to change this”. II Corinthians 9:8 reminds us that He is able!!! We easily forget that we don’t have to do it, handle it or change it all by ourselves. Give it to him and know that he is able to handle it.

Dear Lord, help us to not forget that we don’t have to do this alone. Our strength alone is not strong enough to face hard times that come our way but it’s your strength we need to get us through it. You are strong and we are weak. You are able to handle the situation and I am not. I am so glad to have a God that IS ABLE to handle ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that comes my way!!!