Psalm 34:15, “The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.” Proverbs 5:21, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He ponders all his paths.” 1 Peter 3:12, “For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers…”

As we were recently finishing up the Jerry Bridges study, “The Joy of Fearing God”, I was struck by the following statement, “But God’s eyes are never distracted, never turned away from us. In His infiniteness He carefully watches over each of His own, every moment of their lives.” At every moment of every day, God sees you. He is constantly caring for the things that concern you. When you wake at 2 am, He is already there, already caring for your concerns. “Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” Psalm 121:4. “The LORD will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands.” Psalm 138:8. “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” 2 Timothy 1:12. God never goes off duty. You can relax IN HIM, because He sees you. You are always in the center of His attention even when tragedy strikes in China, He does not take His eyes off of you, not even for a second.
That thought can bring a great sense of comfort and peace or can cause anxiety. I have met numerous people who grew up similar to me in the sense that God was OUT THERE watching everything and everyone just waiting for us to step out of line at which point He would administer the spiritual wooden spoon. If you grew up with that perspective of God it explains why the thought of God’s ever-watchful care can produce anxiety, but more importantly, your view of God is inaccurate. That description does not match the God of the Bible. It does not describe the One True God. So relax.
If however, you are walking in a pattern of sin, God’s constant presence can also produce anxiety, and it should! That unsettledness is the Holy Spirit convicting you of sin prompting your repentance.
It simply amazes me that God constantly gives me His undivided attention at the same time he is giving all of His creatures the same undivided attention. What an awesome God!

Diane

A Passion for His Name
“O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

I remember as a kid, I was at the playground with my sisters and brother and we had nothing to drink. I distinctly remember swinging back and forth wondering how thirsty a person had to get before dying of thirst. I was only about 6 or 7 at the time and I thought I might be getting close to that death threshold. All I could think of was what that first drop of water was going to feel like on my parched throat. No matter what we did, it was shrouded with my thoughts of getting a drink.
One of the definitions of “passion” in the Merriam-Webster On-line dictionary is: “intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction” and another, “a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept.” I think the former describes what I was feeling that day as I was intensely aware of my thirst to the point that I remember it some 40 years later. I can still picture the swing set in my minds-eye. My desire for water is probably better described by the second definition. As I imagined getting that first drink, I could almost taste that cool water on my tongue.
Now this may seem a silly illustration but it came back to my memory as I was reading Isaiah 26: 8-9, “Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you.” I had to ask myself the question, “Is God’s name and His renown the desire of my heart the way that water was so many years ago?” Do I have a passion for His name and His renown? Does my soul yearn for Him? Does my spirit long for Him? Does my flesh long for Him in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water? (Ps 63:1).
Do you have a passion for His Name and renown? Do you long for Him more than you long for any other thing in life? Are your thoughts of Christ woven throughout everything you do?

My challenge for you is to pursue a passion of Him as a “dying” thirsty 6 year-old would seek a cup of cool water.

Diane

Are you willing to break a sweat?

There I was, walking uphill with my arms swinging, at a good clip, sweating bullets, which I do daily or nearly daily to fight the ever present battle for fitness and health. I was working out on our treadmill when the thought occurred to me, “Are you willing to break a sweat to obey God?” I am willing to break a sweat when I exercise but am I willing to break a sweat to obey my Lord? How silly that even sounds. If I am not willing to break a sweat to obey, am I recognizing Jesus as Lord of my life? Or am I being lord of my own life?
“You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.” Hebrews 12:4. “Bloodshed”? That makes my question about breaking a sweat seem so insignificant. Scripture is saying we need to take our sin seriously. Christ confronted sin to the point of bloodshed in the most excruciating way. He overcame. He had victory. “Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2.
“Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:26-27.
Obedience takes effort on our part combined with the power of the Holy Spirit. Obedience without faith is outward compliance. Obedience by faith is pleasing to God. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Hebrews 11:6.
How serious are we about obedience? Are we willing to break a sweat to obey God? Are you willing to break a sweat to obey God?

Diane

What’s the difference?

Lately, as the result of different things transpiring in my heart and life, I have been confronting this question. What difference does it all make? In other words, has being born again, made brand new in the image and likeness of Christ, made a difference in the way I do life? If so, what does that difference look like in my daily life?

One discernable difference should be in the way I love.

Scripture every believer is undoubtedly familiar with is 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a:

“Love is kind and patient, never jealous, boastful, proud or rude.
Love isn’t selfish or quick tempered. It doesn’t keep a record or wrongs that others do.
Love rejoices in the truth but not in evil.
Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting.” (CEV)

“Love is patient and kind;
Love does not envy or boast;
It is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
It is not irritable or resentful;
It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never gives up.” (ESV)

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut.
Love doesn’t have a swelled head. Love doesn’t force itself on others.
Love isn’t always “me first”. Love doesn’t fly off the handle.
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others. Love doesn’t revel when others grovel.
Love takes pleasure in the flowering of truth. Love puts up with anything.
Love trust God always. Love always looks for the best. Love never looks back.
Love keeps going on to the end. Love never dies.

I know I was a bit redundant here and yet I do not apologize for belaboring the point. Love is one thing our lives as believers, is to be deeply marked by. Love looks like something and the Lord made it as plain as the nose on our faces.

Let us begin today to be love to the people we live with, work with and coexist with.

Loving, gracious Father, help us to love others as You have so loved us. Even when it’s hard Father, may we chose to remember we have been bought with so great a price. Even when the one you bring before us to love isn’t all that nice or pleasant to be around, may we resist what comes natural to us and love them, whether we feel like it or not. Your own humility and weakness provided for us a way to live love and to love be.

Stephanie P.

“I just want to be Blonde!”

I was sitting in a salon recently getting my hair done and this was part of a conversation I overheard between another patron and her stylist. I felt so sorry for her, she was maybe mid-forties, a pretty lady, but she was hurting. She spent the first few minutes talking to this stylist, she’d never met about how she had a recent break up, her boyfriend left her for someone younger and how she just didn’t feel very pretty right now. Well, the stylist offered advice on how she might color her hair and style it, but this woman would not let go of the idea of being blonde. She just had to be blonde! Now let me say in no way was she even close to blonde, but more brownish, blonde was going to be a stretch, but in the world of hair color, anything is possible. So they agreed on a blondish tone base with some highlights. That seemed to satisfy both client and stylist.
As I was sitting there worrying about my own red tones, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, poor girl; she must not have the Lord, other wise why would she be relying on a hairstyle for a pick-me-up? If she only knew how much God loved her, she would be able to move on and realize a new doo would not heal a broken heart. If I wasn’t so busy obsessing over my own hair I would go talk to her. PLEASE!
Now let me confess why I was there, I needed, no I wanted to get my hair done, I mean dyed, cut, something different, something better. I wanted to look better. I wasn’t feeling very pretty either and I guess I thought this would help. I tried to get an appointment where I normally go to no avail. The nerve! So instead of waiting a week, I decided I would go someplace new, pretty well known but new none the less. Most women will know what a trying experience it can be to have a new hairdresser. I mean this is important stuff. She better be good. Well, she was ok, but the color was bad, bad, bad. My natural color is not the easiest color to match. I knew when it took her ten minutes to mix the color I was in trouble! But nevertheless I let her do it. Well let’s just say it was not quite what I envisioned, however well it covered the grays! (grays? Did she say grays?) After that we would add the blonde highlights and she assured me this would lighten it, and it did. I looked like Lucy Ricardo after too long in the sun! And of course every one in the salon told me how great it looked.
I couldn’t wait to go home and wash my red hair! I can say I not only didn’t feel any prettier, I felt guilty too. Guilty that I had just spent $140 on something I didn’t like and couldn’t afford.
I felt like such a hypocrite, pitying this girl when I felt the same way she did! I don’t know if she knew the Lord or not, but I do and I still believed the lie of “Look Good, Feel Good”.
Little did I know that was the beginning of a work the Lord was doing in me. I needed to get right on the inside with Him first and the countenance that would be reflected on my face and in my eyes from a right heart with God would truly be a beautiful thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for maintenance, hair color, lip stick etc…(even as I type this I’m pondering when I can go blonder). But primping and grooming are always so much better as an enhancement to our beauty rather than a mask for our pain and insecurities.
Proverbs 31:30, Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

Dina

Today I was thinking back to Christmas when I was a child. One of my favorite gifts was a beautiful doll dressed in blue and was wearing a white fur coat and hat. I’m not sure how old I was, but today that doll would be considered an antique! I kept her on my bed, taking good care of her and at age 16, I gave her to a special little girl.
Our youth group chose a project of giving gifts to children through a mission church in Philadelphia. We asked our church congregation to join us in giving. What a blessed Christmas that was, not only for the children, but for us in the youth group. We were able to see a few children receive gifts, and I watched as a little blind girl was given my doll. She rubbed the fur coat to her face and hugged her tight. I don’t remember one gift I got that year, but I’ll never forget the joy I received in giving, and the happiness of that child. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35
God gave us a special gift. He gave His only son, Jesus. God loved His son, but gave Him, knowing His Son would become the Savior for all who would accept Him. Romans 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
I received the gift of salvation, also as a child. When I was nine I asked Jesus into my heart. It is the greatest gift I’ve ever received! I would guess my doll is long gone, but my gift of salvation from the Lord is eternal. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Thank you God for that precious gift!

Dottie

In 1996, shortly after completing Seminary, my husband and I began to
consider home schooling our two children (then 8 and 11years old). As part
of our preparation for the curriculum we selected, we listened to a cassette
tape about home schooling. I remember very little of that tape except the
distinction the speaker made between preference and conviction. He asked
whether it was our preference to home school or was it our conviction. I
thought it was our conviction until he proceeded with his description of
conviction. He basically said that conviction means we would be willing to
go to jail if our right to home school was ever challenged.
I’m still not sure how I feel about that but the principle he
suggested has far reaching implications in our Christian lives. Is it our
preference to be Christians or are we convicted Christians? Is it our
preference to obey God, or are we convicted in our obedience? How serious
are we really about the Name we bear?
This illustration came to light recently as I was discussing with
someone their desire to do the right thing (I can’t even remember what the
issue was). When I raised the question – is it your preference to do the
right thing, which wanes when it gets difficult or is it your conviction to
do the right thing, no matter what?
I can identify with that personally. I would really like to glorify
God in my eating habits and my attitude about food. I mean it. I would
really like to do it; but I have to admit it is more a preference than a
conviction. Am I willing to go to jail in order to glorify God in this area?
To my shame I’m not even willing to skip a meal.
Perhaps your issue isn’t food; perhaps it’s being kind, or
respectful. Maybe God has been prompting you to forgive someone and be
released from your bitterness. Sure you would like to forgive them, but it
is more a preference than a conviction. How serious are you about doing
what is right?

My challenge for you is to give due consideration about what your
convictions really are and what are just preferences?

Diane

This year I began a new DVD collection of the TV drama “Little House on the Prairie”. A couple of nights ago, as I watched for the first time, the following scene played out during one of the episodes. In this scene Mary and Laura have had an encounter with their nemesis Nellie Olson. (She’s one of those characters in any drama that you can’t stand the moment you lay eyes on her.) Nellie was just plain old mean-spirited and full of herself. She had no problem bragging on or flaunting the fruit of her father’s labor in front on anyone unfortunate enough to be within hearing range of her whiny voice. And she seemed to take an extra degree of satisfaction from any distress she could bring upon Mary and Laura Ingalls.
It was after one of these encounters with Nellie that the two girls found themselves sitting on the front steps of the store owned by Nellie’s father.
Mary sat in stunned disbelief over the meanness of this character and says to her sister, Laura, “I could never be that mean.”
Without missing a beat, pipes right up and say, “Oh I could.” After a brief pause she remarks, “If mom and dad would let me.”
Right away, I thought to myself, “So could I!”

In fact on any given day, I could do any number of things according to the dictates of my flesh and in my own, stubborn willfulness be as anxious as Laura to slap Nellie silly. What stops me? (What stops you?) In part, yes, it’s my mom and dad. They raised me much better than that and I am often conscious of the fact that I don’t want to do anything to bring shame down on them.
More than that though, I am stopped cold by the spirit alive and constantly at work within my members. Apart from the saving Gospel, which is to say, -apart from Christ Jesus dying on the cross to save me from the penalty of my sin, there is no telling who or what I would be at this point in my life and just like Laura in this beginning episode, I would if I could.

Oh Lord, thank you for your mercy even when we sin. I ask that we would clearly see when we are wrong and be quick to seek your forgiveness. Show us the way to worship you with true passion and show us how to love the unlovely you have sovereignly placed in our lives.

Stephanie P

At the end of October I went to a “Small Group Leaders Conference” with a group of people from my church. From beginning to end I was blessed by the hearing of truth; truth spoken by men who are passionate about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and profoundly grateful for their salvation. I was simultaneously awed and humbled by their obvious passion for Holy Scripture. I don’t know many people like this. In fact, I am not like this!

What happened? When did I allow complacency to set up house in my life and mediocrity to tend the gardens of my soul? There is no answer that I am all that comfortable in sharing with you at the moment. But I am glad; very glad indeed that, I serve a good God – a God who is faithful and just to forgive me my sins and to cleanse me from all, all, all, all unrighteousness! Glory! If I didn’t believe this, what would be the point to anything I say or do in my ministry?

During the entire conference we were continually encouraged to make the Gospel the main thing. Everything else is secondary to:

* passionate pursuit of relationship with the God of scripture
* passion for the application of truth
* passion for the practice of obedience

The last thing on the list stung me very deep because anyone who knows me up close and personal knows that I do not like being told what to do. Ouch! Ouch again! It’s true. More often than not I need to go before the Lord before I can obey with the right heart attitude. I wish I could say it ain’t so, but, alas I cannot.

But sisters, let me tell you, I thank God over and over again for those never ending moments of grace that He lavishes upon me in the form of remembrance. When I bow my head seeking Him for help, He ever so lovingly reminds me of who He is. He gives me very brief but clear snapshots of who I was and who I am apart from His grace and kindness in my life and apart from His own Sons obedience.

My prayer for you today and always is that you lay yourself out at the feet of Jesus and seek Him for a brand new desire to pursue Him with a passion you haven’t know since you first fell in love. Repent of any sin in your life. Allow your heart and mind to be renewed by passionate, vigorous application of truth.

Stephanie P.

Exodus 17:10-12 (CEV)
“The Israelites out-fought the Amalekites as long as Moses held up his arms. But they started to lose whenever he had to lower them. Finally, Moses was so tired that Aaron and Hur got a rock for him to sit on. Then the stood beside him and supported his arms in the same position until sunset.”

There are a number of things in these two verses that immediately catch my attention.
* There is a serious battle raging
* Moses depends on the Lord
* With his hands lifted up Moses prays, prays, prays, prays
* Moses’ hands get tired
* Moses had two faithful friends who supported his weary hands until the sun went down and the battle was won.

Wow! I have a lump in my throat even now as I think about that last point. The very idea; the thought, of someone standing in the gap with you until…

Sister. Friend. Are you at a place in life where you are weary and wondering how oh how, you are going to get through? Is there a battle raging in your home, heart or life that threatens to undo you? And lest we be too self-focused, I must also ask you to consider the people in your sphere of influence. Is there one among them whose hands are tired and need your support?

Dear sister there are two things I encourage you to do and see.
To do:
* Pray! Pray! Pray and ask for help! Don’t allow pride or any other thing to rob your strength for another second!
* I urge you not to be slow in offering that place to sit and rest.
To see:
* See that not a single one of us can get through life without help.
* See that the main thing; the most important thing written in verse 15 is “Moses built and altar and named it, ‘”The Lord Gives Me Victory'”.

Moses explains, “This is because I depended on the Lord…”. Our bottom line, now and always – we don’t get through on our own. We must press in and remember that God is our banner and shield and it is He alone who sustains us.

Stephanie P.