Lest We Fall

Lately I have felt rather saddened by the displays of immorality that seem to hit the media every day. My heart goes out to all the families who have been negatively affected by the "Ashley Madison" scandal. Unfortunately it isn't only families involved who have been touched by this immoral misjudgment. It is the nation. I have been shaken by this piece of news, but I feel that the Lord has used it to help me examine my walk. The Lord has been re-crucified in the hearts of all of those who have chosen to trade what is pure and holy for a lie. This scandal is a blow to Christianity here in America. These individuals have not only deeply hurt their spouse, children, family, friends, and acquaintances, they have grieved the God of the universe. They have nearly forfeit their ability to minister truth in the future.

I could keep on going about how they have failed and how they've messed everything up for Christians here in America...well, I'm not going to. I'm going to talk about you and me. We are just like them. We are just as easily tempted. We leave the right hand of our crucified Christ for lesser things. We run to the small and useless things of this world to fulfill us. We look to everything but Christ even though we say that He is our greatest prize. Is He your highest joy? Do you chase after Him like you chase after education, friends, family, popularity, satisfaction, grades, relationships, times, money, and pleasure?

We are all like children playing in the mud. We are dirty and covered in grime...but we find satisfaction in it. Here we are making mud pies - ones we can't even really enjoy. We are this child who doesn't listen when his mother calls. He knows he should go, but he chooses to disregard her voice because he is too busy with what he finds to be important. One thing he doesn't think about is the delicious piece of freshly baked apple pie in on the table waiting for him. His mother made it for him because she knows how much he loves apple pie.

See? Are we not like this child? Unfortunately, because we don't listen we miss out on the Lord's wonderful gifts and trade them in for a short-lived pleasure that is worth just about as much as a soupy mud pie.

As I become sad about the scandals and the Christians who have turned aside for lesser things, may I be reminded that I am just as easily tempted. May I seek to keep my gaze on the Almighty. I pray that I would never see myself as a better person.

If we are going to compare we might as well say that we are worse sinners than the rest, for we are all guilty and unworthy. May the Lord bless His children and lift their eyes to Himself. Let our feet stand in the path of righteousness.

Let His beauty fascinate us. He is so worth our attention and praise! May we gaze on Him, lest we fall.

"...The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked with perish." Psalm 1

A little something to think upon

We are sinners and deserve death at best, but God chooses to bless and lead the lowly. He reaches into our hearts and shows us what His heart is like. He listens to our prayers and gives us exactly what we need and more.

I am in awe of the God I call Father!

Blessings all!!!

Morning Center Fund Raising

Friends and family,

 Did you know that for every 4 babies born in Memphis TN, 1 is aborted? That is 25%. Did you know that the baby's heart beat starts at just 18 days after conception? Every day little lives are being snuffed out. Shelby county (Memphis) holds one of the highest abortion rates in the state. In fact, there is only one county that has the messy stats that Shelby County does. Here is a link that will take you to a map of Tennessee where every county is categorized by it's abortion rates: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/usac/ab-usac2-TN.html

 My heart breaks for these women and children. Who is going to speak for the unborn? Who is going to take action? Why are so many standing and doing nothing? These stirrings sent me on my way looking for opportunities to get involved in the fight. The Lord led me to the Memphis Morning Center.

 As some of you may know, I have been volunteering at the Morning Center since the beginning of the year. You may ask, what's the Morning Center? Well, let me tell you. The Memphis Morning Center is a Christian pregnancy center offering free prenatal care to any pregnant woman who walks in the door. From the day a girl finds out she is pregnant until the day she gives birth, she isn't asked for a penny. The Morning Center is non-government funded and is affiliated with Samaritan Ministries. We receive most of our donations from individual donors. Though I have only been volunteering at Morning Center for a short time, I have seen the Lord bless many lives and save two babies from possible abortion. I have also been able to pray with ladies and share my faith in that way.

 Right now, The Morning Center is working on the ministry side. For the last year or so they have been focusing on how to serve the ladies medically. Now they are trying to hone in on the gospel side of things. As a volunteer who has contact with many of the patients I have been strategizing with our director and the volunteer coordinator on the best ways to share the gospel effectively. Right now, the MC is working in three locations. All locations are strategically planted in areas of town where low income families and high abortion and infant mortality rates are present. The location where they see the most patients is known for having higher infant mortality rates than most 3rd world countries.

The Morning Center is fund raising in hopes of opening two more locations in the greater Memphis area.

 If you are interested in becoming involved financially, please check out this link:
https://secure.morningcenter.org/np/clients/morningcenter/donation.jsp?campaign=21&

Any donation will help further the work of the Morning Center in Memphis.

For more information about the Memphis Morning Center, check out their website at www.memphismorningcenter.com.

If you are interested in the work of the Morning Center, please pass this on! Our goal is to reach as many people as possible!

This is what I get? Really?

All I needed was to go to the bathroom, and what do I get? Really? Is that whole entire roll of toilet tissue honestly sitting in the public Kroger toilet? It was obviouse that someone did this on purpose. The seat was up so that the large 12" or so wide roll could be placed in the toilet to soak and get nasty. The plastic tissue dispencer was pried open. 

Outside the single stall bathroom I met two Girl Scouts coming out of the bathroom. I looked at them and asked if it was vacant (I also thought it was strange for the two girls to come out together...as the bathroom has only one toilet). The younger of the two said that it was and so I went in. And there it was. I couldn't help but feel upset that someone (possibly these girls) would do something like that to me. I immediately started personalizing the situation. 

I guess I feel entitled. I feel like everyone should like me, and why wouldn't they? Right? Aren't I special? Don't I deserve better? Can't I be the one that everyone seems to adore? What's up with that look that woman gave me? Why did he just honk his horn at me? Why did that little girl tell me a lie?

Wow, this world is just so messed up isn't it?! No one seems to notice or care about me.

You know...that's okay! God has been working in my heart recently showing me these thoughts and feelings. He has been challenging me to think about things other than myself. I honestly don't deserve for anyone to like me. I don't even deserve to walk into a restroom that is to my liking! I have to always be reminding myself that this world isn't for me. Yes, I live here, but I am an alien here. I have a home waiting for me. I have a place where I will no longer feel estranged. Here on earth I am a servant and ambassador of Christ, nothing more and nothing less. What more could I ask for?

The Great Distraction

My church is going through a study called "Behold Your God". It has been really good so far. There have been a few things that really strike me. One of which raises the question how much Christians care about the person and character of Christ. How much do we study and seek to know the one we are trying to imitate? How often do we find it easier to talk about God and then we seem to get bashful when we start talking about Christ. Or maybe we find it easy to study Gods love, His holiness and all those attributes and somehow we clam up when it is time to study the person of Jesus Christ. Don't you feel this in your heart? Don't you have this odd feeling as if it has to be boring to study Jesus? 

I am ashamed to admit it, but I feel a twinge of this. I've got to ask myself how I can possibly be this way. How can I not want to study and know the one I claim to be following?

It's almost like me wanting all the good things that my husband can give me like his love, his protection, his provision, and his conversation, and me saying, "But I don't want you." Where really, I feel about him that all I want is him. I don't care if we have to go live in a shack, I want to be with him because I love him and I want him. All the stuff he brings with him is good and all, but it isn't what makes me like him so much. Shouldn't God be this way to us? Shouldn't Jesus be the one that we are so enthralled with? Shouldn't we long for him instead of what he can give us?

I feel like this nation is full of Christians who are named after a man they don't really know and don't really have a desire to know. They can watch Christian movies and read Christian romance novels, but they can't sit down and study scripture to figure out who this person they say they live for is. 

How many Christians do you know that have an obsession with their Creator? How many believers have you seen who are so distracted with Christ that the world is not their top priority? How many people who say they walk the narrow way actually do what is unnatural to the flesh and deny themselves the distractions of the world?

These questions are hard and they prick my heart because I realize how much I am unlike every one of these people. I see how distracted I am by everything around me. Somehow I have let The Greatest Prize fall to the bottom of my list. I have not made Him my Great Distraction when He should be. 

I am ever learning and ever posing these questions to myself and to the ones who need to hear them. Please do not hear judgment in my tone, but listen to a heart that beaks for those who don't have the truth and who don't have a grasp on The Greatest Prize. Christ is the one who should distract us. He is the one we should be allowing to infiltrate every part of our lives.

The Grey Days

Oh, the day is dreary my dear friends! It is cold, wet and rainy out. My bones are chilled and my chilly feet tell me that it is time to go home and curl up in bed. I don't wish to succumb to the grayness of the day, but it is ever so easy to let the cold of the day seep in and make me feel  as the day looks.

I know in my heart that it is a beautiful day that the Lord has made. I know that He sends rain when He sees fit. How can I say that He should act otherwise? How can I look out at His creation and call it less than perfect. Yes, it is not what it could be, it was certainly perfect before the fall...yet even now, it is beautiful.

No matter how gray the day, I should always be ready to look up and praise Him for His awesome goodness.

One Sacrifice of Christ is Sufficient

One Sacrifice of Christ Is Sufficient

10 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very ^[a]form of things, ^[b]can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. ² Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? ³ But in ^[c]those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. ⁴ For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ⁵ Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,

“Sacrifice and offering You have not desired,
But a body You have prepared for Me;
⁶ In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.
⁷ “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come
(In the scroll of the book it is written of Me)
To do Your will, O God.’”

⁸ After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), ⁹ then He ^[d]said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰ By ^[e]this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

¹¹ Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; ¹² but He, having offered one sacrifice for ^[f]sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, ¹³ waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. ¹⁴ For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are ^[g]sanctified. ¹⁵ And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,

¹⁶ “This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws upon their heart,
And on their mind I will write them,”

He then says,

¹⁷ “And their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more.”

¹⁸ Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

I read this today in my time with the Lord. I had several chills go down my spine as I read this passage.

If you read the Old Testament, you will find that a priest offers sacrifices every day. There is one sacrifice that he offers once a year  on a specific day. This day was called The Day of Atonement. The High priest (Aaron, if you are reading in Leviticus 16), on this day would take a live goat and place both of his hands on it's head. He would then confess over all the sins of the sons of Israel. He would then have the goat driven into the wilderness where it would bear their sins of the people far away.

You see, this was done yearly, and it was only a small portion of what went on in or around the temple. There were daily sacrifices taking place to cover the transgressions of the people. Thousands of offerings were given, thousands of animal were slaughtered to bring atonement for the iniquities of the Israelites.

All the while, Christ and the Father were looking down, knowing that soon, they would be sending a sacrifice that would cover all, once and for all. This sacrifice was perfect, innocent, and blemish less. It would come as a child in a humble stall. It would walk as a man of sorrow. It would speak as one with authority. It would stand before the High Priests...and at the hands of a sinful and perverse generation would die. 

This sacrifice is Christ. The day He died, the last Day of Atonement faded into memory. He was the ultimate sacrifice. He was the Darling of heaven come to earth to die as if a thief or murderer. He came to fulfill the prophecies and to bring salvation to the lost, He was slain at the hands of those He came to redeem. He was mocked and whipped by the ones He chose to love.

Because of the perfect plan of God, the Son was crushed on our behalf. No more scapegoats where needed. The blood of lambs and bulls was worthless to the Lord after the death of Christ. His blood flowed forth covering all who would be called His own, from age to age. He died to save the nations and the generations both before us and those to come.

Who is this that I follow? Who is this that I serve? 

I serve the ALMIGHTY of Heaven! I serve the Lamb of God who was slain! I look to the One who rose from the grave on the third day and who ascended into heaven! I serve a mighty Savior who is coming back again...  

 

Sitting at my Window

I am sitting at my window...waiting...watching...hoping...praying...wanting something great to happen. Not really in the sense that most people would think of greatness, but in the sense of a small miracle. I just want to see the sun come out and smile at me. Or maybe watch as a happy old couple walk by holding hands. I want to hear birdsong and not the pattering of the rain. I want to see blue sky instead of gray.

I guess I want a lot of things...

The sun shouldn't have to shine in order to make me happy. I shouldn't have to see what I long to see or get what I want in order to be content, should I?

No.

When I sit at my window with a thousand thoughts swirling around in my head, I need to look through the gray and see the beauty behind it. I need to know the peace of God in the sound of the rain pattering down. Maybe He wants me to find joy there rather than in bird song. Maybe I need to look to the heavenly Son rather than the earthly sun that gets clouded over and drown out by the storms. Even in the storms I have a hope and a promise that Christ the Son of God will never stop shining. He is my light and my strength when I am weak.

 "He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distress, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong"

 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I pray from the deepest, most feeling part of my heart asking that God would grant these words to be the words of truth that come from my lips. I want to be happy when all the world is crashing down around me. It isn't just about being happy either, it is about being completely satisfied and content in Christ, and in nothing else. 

Here I am, at my window looking out into the gray. Here He is, right next to me. He's got his arm around my shoulder and His pierced hand in his lap. 

My hand is folded in His and my head is laying on His shoulder...

I am right where I need to be. I am right where He wants me to be. I am being taken care of. I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to worry about. What more can I ask? What more do I need?

Nothing.