Tag Archives: God’s Best

My First E-Book Now Available On Amazon

8 Oct

Book CoverGrief, pain, hardship and tragedy happen to all of us equally. God gives us all the same opportunity to come to Him through Jesus, His Son. There is a misconception that Christians should be free from pain and suffering. They should have it better than everybody else, and that if they are having problems there must be some deep dark sin in their lives.

God is often judged by the circumstances that affect the lives of His followers. If something bad happens to them, it might appear that God failed or that He is punishing them or teaching them a lesson. The misconception is that Christians are loved by God more and therefore He treats them better and gives them more.

God is frequently viewed as a mere option in our world today. Even some Christians view God’s participation in their lives to be necessary only if they are unable to handle something on their own – especially a crisis.

This series of books will visit many of the hard questions asked about God and what it means to be a Christian. Step by Step guidance will help the reader understand how to become a Christian, how to live daily walking and talking with God, and how to understand His will for your life.

Walking with God is a deliberate action taken by those who want to be born again into life everlasting with Him – it requires only believing in Jesus Christ, asking for His forgiveness of our sins, and learning how to live and walk daily with Him in your heart and at your side.

God is very real. He isn’t a figment of our imagination. He isn’t spooky or strange. He is loving and kind. He is good and loves each and every one of us more than we can even understand.

God doesn’t just love Christians. He loves every single person in the world. He doesn’t favor Christians. Christians aren’t better than everyone else. Knowing and following Jesus Christ doesn’t mean a life with no sorrows or pain.
The difference is in our hearts. Walking daily with God and talking to Him at any time you want to is better than having your best earthly friend by your side all the time,and even better than any other person you believe to have everything you want and/or need.

God is the peace you need, and the protection you need, He has the provision you need, and the guidance you need. He can and will direct every step you take, if you let Him. It’s not always easy. That’s where faith and trust come in.

God is the one thing in this life that has never changed and will never change. But, it doesn’t mean He is old fashioned or out of date. There is nothing on this planet that wasn’t already arranged by Him long, long before time, as we know it, began.

The first book in this series is part of my testimony. It starts about the time I graduated from high school. I was raised in a Christian home, went to church because my mother made me, and all I knew of God was that I was supposed to love Him and be good.

As it is said, “Life Happens”. I went to church from the time I was a little girl and accepted Jesus at a Baptist Camp at the age of nine years old, I didn’t really come to know Him until life started invading my space. Those were the times I began to “consider” God – wondering if He was really there and wondering what He wanted from me.

I am now 68 years old. I can tell you it has taken a long life of mistakes, pain, hardship, suffering and grief – just like everyone else I know – Christian or not. The only thing I would change if I had a “do over” would be that I would have worked harder at getting serious about my relationship with God and I would not have worked so hard at doing things my way. I would have spent the necessary time getting to know my maker and letting Him guide me rather than having Him constantly have to bail me out of my troubles and set me back on my feet.That’s life. After this one there’s one in eternity. Where will you spend yours?

Do You Live in Bondage or Walk in Freedom?

31 Oct

WHAT DO I PAY FOR FREEDOM?

We all want to be free. What does that mean to you? If you love the God of Abraham, freedom comes by walking in obedience to Him. To be able to do that you must first know Him.  You must be born again by inviting Jesus Christ into your heart. To know Him you must spend time reading His inspired Word written down for us in the Holy Bible. This is where true freedom is.

God wants only the best for us. Satan tries every way he can to deceive us; his mission is to steal, kill and destroy. Some have unknowingly tried to make the God of Abraham like pagan gods by worshiping an “image” of whatever they have made Him out to be.  Instead He is our Father in Heaven who wants to know us personally and develop a relationship with us – a personal relationship.

Serving God is not following a set of rules, nor is it just attending services to fulfill an obligation. Serving God is an honor and a privilege. He loves you and me with a love we can’t understand. We have to use our faith to receive it. The more time we spend getting to know Him, the more we are drawn into His presence and the more our spiritual eyes and ears are opened to His ways and His truth.

WHAT IS FREEDOM?

Freedom means different things to different people. God has a plan, a pattern for our lives – a road map, if you will. He didn’t just toss us in this world and tell us to sink or swim. If you belong to Him, He is with you always and will never, ever leave you. He will walk with you through whatever comes your way. He doesn’t always remove the pitfalls but He does pick us up and dust us off when we fall down. He sets us back on our feet and stays with us, continuing to guide us.

If you are a believer in the God of Abraham and you want to live a life dedicated to Him, you are expected to walk in obedience to Him at all times. You can’t know His will for your life if you don’t know Him. We make it so hard on ourselves. The Bible tells us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. That doesn’t mean we won’t have problems. If becoming a Christian meant being free from all problems . . . well, it just doesn’t.

CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES

We face a world full of choices and decisions every day. Some are easy – most are not. Let’s discuss the ones that have us really bound tightly. We have a problem and we take it to God in prayer. We tell Him the problem and then tell Him what solution we need.   ????   Hummmm, it really doesn’t work that way. We can certainly tell God what we want and how we would like the answer to come.  Then comes the hard part. If our minds are set on only receiving our answer the way we want it we may be in for many disappointments. Preconceived ideas generally set us up for disappointment. The Bible tells us that God’s ways are higher than our ways and that we cannot fathom the depths of His understanding. In other words, He has plans for us that we can’t even understand, let alone ask for.  We ask Him for something based on our limited knowledge of how things should be worked out.

GOD IS FULL OF SURPRISES!

The most exciting thing about God is He is full of surprises. His answers will always be the right ones. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Also understand that when God answers prayer it isn’t always a “yes”.  It can be “wait” or . . . “NO”! Oops – not what we wanted to hear.

THIS IS WHERE THE FREEDOM COMES IN . . .

If you limit God to what you know and what you can see you are possibly setting yourself up for a great fall. You are also in danger of becoming “bound” – Encarta Dictionary defines bound as “. . . obliged to do something or behave in a particular way”.  Two definitions from the Thesaurus for “bound” are “obligated” and “constrained”.  That is opposite from “freedom”.

It’s a matter of the Spirit being in control – yielding our Spirit to God for His guidance. He loves us like we love our children. He wants the best for us and has the ability to make it happen. He also has the ability to “see around the corner” – He knows what is coming, we don’t. His answers sometimes aren’t what we want to hear. Yielding to God is not always easy. It means yielding (submitting) to Him. Many times it means we don’t get our way. This is where trust comes in. If you will notice, when you let God have His way you are putting your trust and “faith” in Him. Remember, faith is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Scripture also tells us that without faith we cannot please God.

NOW FOR THE HARD PART

When God answers with “No” or “Wait” or leads you in another way, your emotions (soul) kicks in and you want to dig your heels in – have it your way. You can. But when you do, you have lost your freedom. Say what? You heard me correctly. When you pick and choose which of God’s directions you will follow, you are not actually being obedient.

Let’s say you pray that God remove you from a situation and you tell Him how you want it done. He answers by sending just what you need to be removed from the situation, but it’s different from the terms you told Him you wanted. So, instead of following God’s plan and being removed from the situation, you hold out for doing it your way. In the meantime tension builds, stress becomes harder to deal with and everything turns out to be a mess. Then, the “way out” God offered you may not still be available or even if it is, you have delayed your freedom by trying your own way first. If you had done it His way immediately, you could have avoided many of the problems and most of the stress.

That is sort of a simple way of saying it, but I think the message is clear. We have freedom of choice – God gave us a free will. But, we have the honor and the privilege of having His Holy Spirit as our counselor and our guide to give us the perfect solution to our situation. It doesn’t mean we will always immediately like the way God has shown us. But, as we step out in faith we will eventually see that His ways are better than our ways and He has a reason for wanting us to follow the map He gives us.

God’s Timing

2 Jan

Time – none of us have enough of it. When we do manage a little “down time” we find ourselves so exhausted that when we try and “do nothing” – quilt knocks at our door.

It’s interesting to me that God’s timing remains constant. He isn’t concerned about man’s deadlines or other legalistic rituals. At times we remind Him that we have an upcoming deadline and just want to make sure He is aware of it. (Well, what can I say?)

I’ve witnessed many times how God brings us right up to the edge (of what seems like a cliff) and then just before “it’s too late” He rescues us. Let me add that in reality God is never too late. He is always on time (remember Lazarus).

Actually, I’ve witnessed times in my life where God “missed a deadline” (mine, of course) because He had a much better plan than I did. Imagine that! He can cause men to overlook rules, regulations and laws on our behalf.

Here’s the catch – God wants us to learn that in order for us to be in His will and receive His best we must forget about our own timing and learn to trust more in His. If a deadline passes us by it’s not because God missed it. Don’t proceed until you have His peace. A deadline is not in God’s vocabulary. And the biggest lesson I think we learn from this is that we need to give God time for His timing – not ours. If we will learn to do this, we will truly learn to walk in the peace that passes understanding and discover that nothing can move us because we know that we know God is in control!

Ask me how I know this!!