About You

You are LOVED by God. There is nothing you can do, or can't do to make him love you more or less. He loves you because he loves you. Because you are His child.

YOU ARE~
Redeemed
Worthy
More then your past
Forgiven
Whole
Enough
Worth it
A treasure
Righteous
Free
Accepted
You matter.


Thursday, September 29, 2011

More of him.

I don't know why, but sometimes I just feel led to share what I am learning along the way here.  I'm sure by sharing my thoughts and being such an open book, sometimes I may not make myself look real good but I am OK with that.
I think God wants me to share my faults and airheadedness with others so they know they are not alone.

I was with some of our church family last night, and I realized how much we are all on different levels. Some are so advanced in their faith and knowledge of our Lord, and not just knowledge, but true heartfelt understanding and love for our Jesus. Then there's others, like me, who all along have  thought the love I had for God was good, and in my mind, I did love him, but in reality I wasn't doing much of loving him at all.

The wonderful thing about our God is that he gives LOTS of Grace and Mercy and Love. He knows us. He forgives us when we ask for it.  I am so thankful of that.
I think back to blogging in the spring when I went for a walk in the morning and I was walking toward the sunshine at 5:30am and it was so bright and warm and it just felt so good. I just remember the feeling I had that I didn't want to turn around and walk the other way, or go in the house, I just wanted to bask in that sunshine.
That's how it is with Jesus. The closer you get to him, the more time you spend with him, the more you want, and the more you love him.
He loves to bless us and give us favor.

I was reading this morning, Psalm 34

God will deliver us from fear, save us from our troubles, guard and deliver us, show us goodness, supply our needs, listen when we talk to him and redeem us.
But the following statement was, to receive these things, we must do our part.
What is our part?
Crying out to him, trusting him, fearing him, refraining from lying, turn from evil, do good.

So it's not a one way relationship here. Yes, He loves us. No matter what. He died for us, and you don't die for someone if you don't love them A LOT.
But when we do our part in the relationship with the Lord, he blesses us more. He gives us favor.
I want that.
God's been really working in my life the last few months, really convicting me of things and opening my eyes to things, and helping me understand things that I didn't before. He's giving me wisdom that I prayed for. It's a bit scary. lol.
Jesus' light is not only warm and inviting and feels good, but sometimes his light shines nice and bright and uncovers some really ugly sin in our hearts.

There's a verse that I heard this week that struck me pretty deep. The New king James version is this~


Psalm 66:18

If I regard iniquity in my heart,

The Lord will not hear.

Here's a  few different versions of the verse~

If I had cherished sin in my heart,

the Lord would not have listened;

Or

All believers, come here and listen,

let me tell you what God did for me.

I called out to him with my mouth,

my tongue shaped the sounds of music.

If I had been cozy with evil,

the Lord would never have listened.

But he most surely did listen,

he came on the double when he heard my prayer.

Blessed be God: he didn't turn a deaf ear,

he stayed with me, loyal in his love.



The verse is saying, if you have sin in your heart, if you become cozy with it, living with it daily and accepting it as OK, God turns his ear from you.

That scares me. I do NOT want God to turn his ear from me and not hear my prayers. Will he still love me? Yes he will. But sin can put a wedge between us and God. He's a holy God and can't be around or tolerate sin.
No, we can't EVER be perfect in this life here on earth. But we can sure be more aware of our sin and not allow the sin he shows us to dwell in us.
I have sins that dwell. They've been dwelling for a long time, and it's time I get rid of them.
Jesus died so that I could be a victor not a victim.

The bible says we are more then a conqueror in Christ.

We need to make the decision to put Christ FIRST in our lives.

We need to stay in position where we receive his favor and blessings, that position is a repentant heart. Loving him, making him LORD of our life, and repenting of our sins DAILY.

I want God's favor and blessings. I don't want to live insignificantly for Jesus. I want to be his hands and feet and face and let him be seen through me. I can't do that and continue to have unrepented sin in my heart.

I was reading in 1 John Tuesday morning and recorded some verses.

1 John 1:6-7

 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

The commentary says~
Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, sin cannot exist in the presence of a holy God.
If we want to have a relationship with God, we MUST put aside our sinful way of living.
To claim that we belong to him, but then go out and live for ourselves is hypocrisy. Christ WILL expose and judge such deceit. 

What we need to think about is, what does living for ourselves really mean?  It means, we are not putting him first. We are not living for him. We have idols in our heart.  We love other things more then we love God and put those things before him. It could be anything that you choose to love more then God.

Things God has shown me lately as Idols are~ my own comfort and convenience are idols for me. Wanting to be able to relax when I want, do what I want, not having to clean up after others all the time. A clean house is an idol for me. Being accepted by others, another idol...........

For some, it may be money, or sports, or exercise, or their looks, anything can be an Idol to us, something we put before God. It's got to go!
They are Idols of our heart and God wants to be first.

Remember, we will have to stand before him one day and give an account. He IS coming back. What will you have to say when you stand before the mighty king?  I sure don't want to have to hang my head and say I'm sorry that I thought "I" was more important then the King of Kings.

We are to have no other God's before us.

Exodus 20:3

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

Deuteronomy 5:7

‘You shall have no other gods bbefore Me.


Judges 10:13

Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods; therefore I will no longer deliver you.


Back to 1 john 1:6-7 that I posted above,  We can't love God and court sin at the same time.
When we commit our lives to Christ, by accepting him as our LORD and savior, and thus identify ourselves with him, his death becomes ours. We need to die to self.

If that is not happening, maybe we never really accepted him as LORD.

It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately about myself and my own relationship with him.


1 John 2:3-6

We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.  Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.  But if anyone obeys his word, love for God[a] is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him:  Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.


1 John 3:6-10

No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.



 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.  The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.  No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.


I don't want to be known as a child of the devil. No thanks.  I'm a Jesus girl, which means I should be lookin like a Jesus girl.


Today in reading Psalm  34 I wrote down, When we take the first step of obedience in following him, we will discover that he is good and kind. As we trust him daily we discover how good he is.

That is my mission to give up Amy for him. More of him and less of me.



















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