REFLECTIONS

"I will give thanks to the LORD according to His righteousness And will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High." Pslam 7:17

So this is my birthday verse... (July 17th :) )

AND I love it because it says that we are to worship the Lord according to HIS RIGHTEOSNESS!

This verse just reminds me it's not by my own righteousness or lack of.. but according to HIS because in Him and through Him (Jesus Christ) we have been made right with our heavenly Father and He no longer see us for the filthy rags we are but as new creations; the very reflection of His Son!!! Because of His beautiful righteosness we now have the oppurtunity to walk in sweet communion with our Lord and enjoy the comfort of His presence in the midst of all of life's storms!

JESUS I LOVE YOU!

Impressions

I am a dreamer at heart... and an Idealist really. With that comes BIG dreams and ideas that I have for my life that sometimes seem outlandish to people. I just love the idea of the impossible becoming possible. The coolest thing to me about God is that WITH God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!!!
So, how do our dreams and ideas become realities ? Well, one of the best lessons I've ever learned was to WAIT UPON THE LORD. What that means is just because you dream it up Monday doesn't mean it's time to act on it Tuesday! My heart is to continually stay in the path my Father above has for me.... to do that we must wait... and in His perfect timing our deepest desires, our dreams that have yet been seen will ALL come to pass!
I would never want to step out of God's timing because the will of God MINUS the timing of God equals the absence of God.

The following is a devotional from the book "Streams in the Desert" This encouraged me in the waiting. I hope it encourages you!!!!

"The ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them" (Num. 10:33).
God does give us impressions, but not that we should act on them as impressions. If the impression be from God, He will Himself give sufficient evidence to establish it beyond the possibility of a doubt.
How beautiful is the story of Jeremiah, of the impression that came to him respecting the purchase of the field of Anathoth. But Jeremiah did not act upon this impression until after the following day, when his uncle's son came to him and brought him external evidence by making a proposal for the purchase. Then Jeremiah said: "I knew this was the word of the Lord."
He waited until God seconded the impression by a providence, and then he acted in full view of the open facts, which could bring conviction unto others as well as to himself. God wants us to act according to His mind. We are not to ignore the Shepherd's personal voice but, like Paul and his companions at Troas, we are to listen to all the voices that speak and "gather" from all the circumstances, as they did, the full mind of the Lord. --Dr. Simpson
"Where God's finger points, there God's hand will make the way."
Do not say in thine heart what thou wilt or wilt not do, but wait upon God until He makes known His way. So long as that way is hidden it is clear that there is no need of action, and that He accounts Himself responsible for all the results of keeping thee where thou art. --Selected
"For God through ways we have not known, Will lead His own."

New Perspective!

Ok I'm not that good at this whole keeping up with my blog thing especially since I don't have internet at home.... But I wanted to do a post real quick about last night....


So, I'm doing this Philippians study right now that I meant to start this summer and never did. Anywho, after last night I felt so FULL from just Chapter 1! It's all about having JOY in the midst of your circumstances. Right now the focus is having a Right perspective on things.
This is what I've been learning:
Knowing and Understanding your purpose will change your perspective on your circumstances. If we know our purpose it will be reflected by our perspective on life.
As Christians our purpose is all the same to GLORIFY GOD in EVERYTHING... TO KNOW HIM AND MAKE HIM KNOWN!
If that's our purpose then our perspective on our problems changes because our purpose is not on ourselves or our own achievement but on Christ and WHO HE IS IN US!
Paul understood his purpose so dispite the hardships he faced: 1Corinthians chapter 11 tells us of just some of his trials:
"I have been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches."
Even as he writes what is known as the sweetest of all the letters to the Phillipian church he was sitting in a prison for preaching the gospel.
So where does he find his JOY? Through understanding his purpose! That's why he says in
1 Corinthians 9:26 "So I run with purpose in every step.."
Because He did this:
1.)He was able to view that jail sail as an opportunity rather than an opposition, (My favorite quote from this devotion was "Who knows if your next obstacle will be your next pulpit!")
2.)He was able to view the "competition" he faced as a "partnership." He realized the importance of fighting on side by side on the same team not against each other.
3.)Relationships to him were of UPMOST IMPORTANCE because he knew His purpose was to love God and love others!
4.) He even had a knew perspective on life and death... he said it's better to him to die than live but to live is CHRIST! He had a purpose set for eternity!

Let's allow God to change our perspective on things and find the Joy that He longs for us to all have!

Walk it Out!

So over the past few months it just seems like the Lord has just been reminding me that "He directs the steps of the righteous" I mean it's been crazy the things that happened in my life the past two months that the Lord was just like... "I see you, I know exactly where you are, and i made YOU to be here for 'such a time as this.' "

See when the Lord says he has this "good, pleasing, and perfect plan" to work out in you he means it... "he has plans to prosper you... to bring you a hope and a future." He wants you to experience life to it's fullest!! All you have to do is yield to HIS leading...

See I had gotten to a point where I had my hands to much in His plans... everything I was living through was under my own control. I had forgotten to NOT rely on my abilities but HIS CAPABILITIES through me!

When He finally shook that foundation from under me I felt like I was falling out of control! BUT the moment I threw up my hands and said "Ok! your will not mine!" It's like He has showed me this whole new pathway of complete faith... yeah sometimes it seems like you're walking blindly but just TRUST that He won't let you fall and His plans for you ARE really in your BEST interest!

All you have to do is "Walk it Out!"

A Voice for the Voiceless

I found this on the website for the 30 days of prayer I'm doing. On the previous post I made a comment about being a voice to the voiceless... the question arises...

Who are the voiceless?

All around the world there are people living quietly,

Quietly ignored, quietly but firmly isolated.

All around the world there are people living on the outskirts of life - people living in the margins…

Society has margins, full of margin lives the marginalised.
Margins are places occupied by people who for the most part go unnoticed,

Whose stories remain untold,

Whose existences are hidden

Those who seldom come to the centre stage.
The margins are crowded with people whose brokenness gnaws away at their hearts.

These are the voiceless - they are women,

Children, refugees, little girls, many young people, old people,

People of all sorts of races speaking all sorts of languages.
They are voiceless not because they have no voice

but because they are disempowered and therefore can not make their voice heard,

Their voices are drowned out as they cry out in pain,

They are silenced, alone, They live quietly, weep quietly, die quietly

Today's focus for prayer: Child Prostitution

Definition: It is the sexual exploitation of a child for renumeration in cash or kind, usually but not always organized by an intermediary (parent, family member, procurer, or teacher)

Facts:

~10 million children worldwide are engaged in some facet of the sex industry. Each year at least one million children, mostly girls, become prostitutes.

~In Thailand, 10-12 year old girls service men in the sex industry. They typically have sex with men 10-15 times daily and sometimes as many as 20-30.

~In South Africa, there are 40,000 child prostitutes

~Children are more susceptible to HIV and other STDs

Tough stuff to hear I know but remember "without knowledge people perish"

The Truth of the Word comes back at this and says:

"Because of the oppression of the weak and growning of the needy, GOD WILL NOW ARISE!" Ps. 12:5

Prayer focus: That God will arise and defend the little ones and that God would raise up rulers to end this savage exploitation.

Let me my love see the world outside of me...

Over this past weekend in St. Louis the Lord really began to open my eyes again to the suffering that's going on in this world. It's like for a season I had been blinded by my own selfishness and was just living in my own little world. On friday night there was a song that was sung and all they had to say was "let my love see the world outside of me" and that did it for me. All of a sudden my ears heard, my eyes saw, and my heart was moved.
You know the bible talks about it this way...

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

It's time we as christians stand up and realize we CAN and SHOULD do something to help. A lot of times you may feel like "What can I really do? I'm only one person"

Romans 5:19 says "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."

ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

It's time that we as the body of believers who were designed and fashioned to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ here on this earth begin to make ourselves aware of the injustice and suffering going on around the world. Nothing moves God's heart more than one of His children suffering.

It's time we use what we have and be a voice for the voiceless!

*be looking for statistics and real life stories that I'll be posting.

Relentless in St. Louis!

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Joyce Meyer's Women's Conference. This year the theme was being "Relentless" and boy was it a word that the girls and I needed. Relentless basically means NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE GIVING UP... Pressing through anything that comes your way and being determined to outlast opposition.

This conference impacted my life greatly... I will most definitely be posting blogs about it later this week. I've just learned so much from this trip that it is gonna take a few days to get it all out. I love y'all!!! Let's be determined to be RELENTLESS in our pursuit of Christ!

Testing

James 1:2-4 says "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Last night I was reading in an amazing book called A Heart Ablaze by John Bevere and in one of the chapters it talks about being tested.
He pointed out that when we go through testing it's to allow what's inside us to surface. Good or bad either way it's an opportunity to have a mirror held up to our face to see what we are really made of on the inside. Are we letting the fruits of the spirit define us? Or are we being defined by some sinful nature that we were otherwise ignorant of.
When put into the fire gold is purified because the heat makes every impurity surface so that THEN it can be removed and transformed into it's purest form.
Testing gives us the opportunity to see what we are made of and remove anything that is not like our Jesus.

The Message puts it this way "Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way."

So be encouraged if you are going through a testing or trial period because it's an opportunity to make you just like Jesus.

My 1st Bog.... :)

HELLO!!!!
Ok, So I'm finally giving this whole Blog thing a try... I'm really excited about it, although I have no idea where to begin.
I just want to first thank my girl Trina for all her help in starting this and the inspiration she has been to all of us to create one of these! I love you Trina Bina!!!!