Through the Storm

The waves were crashing over me, the storm was getting more ferocious. I was barely able to stay above the water. The sky was getting darker and I looked up to the heavens and cried, "Where are you God?" But all I could see was a dark, empty, sky staring back at me. My heart felt abandoned and alone. Where is God? I tried once again to rise above the waves so I wouldn't drown.

I then heard my name. I thought I was imagining. There it was again in a gentle voice, quieter than the storm but more powerful. He said, "Don't be afraid. I 'm right beside you, I will walk with you." So I took His strong hand and felt His embrace. The storm raged on but now we walked through the storm safely together, for He was right beside me.

The journey of life is hard, filled with bumps in the road, raging storms and more. I can look up at the sky, cry and feel abandoned by God, or I can stop, listen and see that you are standing right beside me, desiring to walk through this with me.

You say, "Look into my eyes and follow me. You are precious in my sight. You are mine. I gather my people close to my heart, won't you come?"

Whatever the journey He has promised to walk with us through it. That is the guarantee. We all have different journeys but there are two things all journeys can have in common:
1. We can walk these journeys with Him by our side
2. Our final destination is the same: being reunited again in His heart.

Based on Isaiah 43: 1-7.

Your Spiritual Wardrobe

Paper doll and outfits of Mercea by Grandma Vicky

Do you remember Put Your Clothes On! ? In that post, I talked about the importance of dressing in your Ephesians 6 armour on a daily basis. But my 4 year old is teaching me that people can be very particular about their clothes; and for sure they want a variety to choose from.

Mercea is a true girls' girl. She knows what she wants to wear and she picks her own clothes out (this started at age 2) and puts them on. God knows us, especially us girls, and He has provided us a wardrobe full of outfits that we can wear in the Spirit realm. So I thought I would open up our spiritual closet for us so on a daily basis you can look in and see which clothes you want to wear on a particular day:

Outfit 1: Isaiah 61:3
A garment of praise, instead of a spirit of despair.

Outfit 2: Isaiah 61:10
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Outfit 3: I Peter 5:5
Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

Outfit 4: Colossians 3:12
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Outfit 5: Galatians 3:26
Cloth(ed) yourselves with Christ.

Outfit 6: Luke 24:49
Cloth(ed) with power from on high.

Outfit 7: Isaiah 52:1
Clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor.

Outfit 8: Psalm 30:11
You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.

Outfit 9: Ephesians 6:14-17
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Outfit 10: Ephesians 4:22-25
Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor.

Outfit 11: Colossians 3:14
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

We all face different events everyday and God knows it. He has provided everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). My challenge to you is to print out the list of these 11 outfits and hang the list on your closet door. For the next week, when you get dressed choose which "Spiritual outfit" that you will get dressed in as you dress in your physical clothes. Let us see what a difference it can make when we intentionally dress in the clothes provided by Our Father.

PS You can copy and right click on the list of outfits. Then transfer it into a word document and print it out. Or, if you're technically challenged you can e-mail me at forhisgloryalone@ymail.com and I can e-mail the list to you.

God above all other gods

I have always been disturbed by the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar (Genesis 22). As a child, this story made no sense to me at all;I always wondered if God would ask me to do a sinful thing to prove my love to Him and how do you say no to God and how were you to know if it really was God asking and not satan? As I got older I learned and understood that this story represented what God actually did for us, in sacrificing His own Son on our behalf. Frankly, though, this story still didn't sit well in my mind, especially as a mother. It always bothered me. What was Sarah thinking at home? If that was my husband, and that was his god, I wouldn't want anything to do with that god. I finally had to get to the point where I'd just focus on what it represented and tried not to go there with all my other thoughts and questions.

Well, I love God and He tends to get through to my thick brain, more often than not lately (thank you). During my Breaking Free study Thursday night, we were studying the kings of Israel and some of these kings did some pretty horrific things, including sacrificing their children on altars. One of the women in my group made a comment, "Well that was pretty common in those times, it wasn't an unusual practice." She kind of sluffed it off as no big deal. But it bothered me. "What do you mean, it wasn't a big deal?"

Three days later, ding, dong I finally answered the door!

Back in Abraham's time, guess what the other "gods" were asking of their followers? They were asking for child sacrifice. Unfortunately, in that culture and time that is exactly what was common, culturally accepted practice. Abraham was before there was a Bible, and God had called Him to leave His people and go to a new land. Abraham may have been the only person on earth at that time God was intentionally revealing Himself too. And do you know what God did? He asked Abraham to do exactly what the other "gods" were asking, "to sacrifice your child to prove your love to me." However, when Abraham got to that point, God stepped in and He DIFFERENTIATED Himself from ALL other gods!

Psalm 95:3

For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.

He stepped in and He showed Himself as Jehovah Jireh, a Provider. Unlike the other gods, He does not require His people to murder their children, to satisfy Him. He is not like all other gods, He is above ALL gods and in fact He will provide the way to prove His love for us. This was the missing link for me, the step that I needed to have to understand and appreciate this whole story. Before, I thought Sarah would have had a grudge against Abraham her whole life, but now I think when Abraham got home, Sarah was very excited and she did want to know more about this God who was different than all other gods and would provide a better way than the sacrifice of their child.

And God continues to differentiate Himself from all other gods. He is the only God, who loves us so much that He would give up everything, suffer, die and rise again with joy to have us as His inheritance.

Do you know who He is? Do you know who you are in Him?

Flipping for Jesus

Light Bulb No.2 by Caveman

Last night, I had my second session of Breaking Free. If you ever have a chance to do a Beth Moore study, I would highly recommend it! She believes in the power of being in God's Word and that is where she has you live during the study; being in God's Word brings life.

Last night we flipped back and forth between Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 61 to see what Jesus gave up so that we could have freedom! It was incredible. I've been a Christian for 23 years, went to a Christian school and had Bible class everyday, have rarely missed a church service and yet I had never seen these two passages discussed next to each other. I've heard of and read Isaiah 53, in fact Beth said that is the section of Scripture most quoted in the New Testament. I of course, love Isaiah 61. I think it is an incredible set of verses. But seeing the two next to each other, flipped another switch on in my heart.

At first, it was a little annoying flipping back and forth between Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 61, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 61, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 61... you get the point. But then excitement began to arise as I understood what was taking place and then I couldn't wait to see what took place between Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 61!

Below, I will give you the benefit of seeing what glorious things Jesus did, what He gave up so that you could have FREEDOM! So if you have a minute please print out these verses and do the flipping yourself, you will be amazed:

From Breaking Free by Beth Moore pg. 29
1.Isaiah 53:2; Isaiah 61:3 Christ was like a root out of dry ground so we could be a planting of the Lord.
2.Isaiah 53:2; Isaiah 61:3 Christ's beauty was veiled so ours could be revealed.
3.Isaiah 53:3; Isaiah 61:1-2 Christ was despised and rejected so we could be favored and accepted.
4.Isaiah 53:3; Isaiah 61:3 Christ became a man of sorrows so we could become a people of gladness.
5.Isaiah 53:7; Isaiah 61:1 Christ was imprisoned and oppressed so we could be released from prison.
6.Isaiah 53:5; Isaiah 61:3; 2 Cor 5:21 Christ was crushed by our iniquities so we could become His righteousness.
7.Christ remained silent so we could proclaim his great salvation (Isaiah 53:11; Isaiah 61:1-2)

Beloved, I pray this hits your heart like it hit mine. We all know what Jesus did on the cross. We know that we are saved by grace. But He also did so much more! Do you see the many things He intentionally chose to suffer in order that you could have specific areas of freedom here on earth? He paid an incredible price for our freedom. He is offering you so much more than a mundane life of “being a good Christian.” He is offering you beauty, favor, joy, gladness, freedom from the chains, His righteousness and the opportunity to proclaim who He is and what He has done to others!

He alone is worthy to have full access to your heart today. Give it to Him and see what He will do!

Smorgasbord Tuesday: Green Tea Frappuccino

Frappuccino by powerbooktrance

So I've managed to avoid the Starbucks craze for how many years now?? But about 2 months ago my good friend stopped by my house and dropped me off a Green Tea Frappuccino. It was good; in fact too good! I have since had 3 of them and now I watch for Starbucks. I understand my other friends (you know who you are) who want to stop at Starbucks whenever they can. Addicting!

Well, just like my new Starbucks' addiction I'm also becoming addicted to Ephesians 4:2. I've already talked about this particular verse two times, but here is for the third time:

Ephesians 4:2

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

During the last month, having this verse on the forefront of my life has been a lifesaver and a delicious blessing. I have times in my life where I know conflict is coming; it's pretty predictable. Do you? I have been entering those moments with this verse as my defense mechanism instead of my old "self-protective" methods (which always led to conflict).

I recently used this verse and it again ended up being very helpful to me. In this particular case, I knew conflict was brewing and I breathed in, and said this verse in my head. The verse ends with the word, love and I prayed, "But I don't feel like loving right now, what is love anyway?" And the Holy Spirit brought to mind 1 Corinthians 13 "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy... it keeps no record of wrong." Oh yeah, "Keeps no record of wrong. I think I'm doing the opposite of that right now." So I proceeded to deal with my own heart issues, instead of what I perceived to be the other individual's issues. And guess what, no conflict ensued. Instead, there was peace and on top of that peace, I was giving an additional blessing from the other individual that was totally unexpected and refreshing.

So I'm not usually a person who promotes addictions. But I am becoming addicted to Ephesians 4:2 and I invite you to become addicted too! It is surprisingly refreshing and enjoyable verse to add into your daily life.

If you've had any "positives" with this verse over the last month, I'd love to hear about it!

Be Blessed,

P.S. If you have a moment stop by and read this blog post: Tiny Dental Mirrors by Adjusting to the World! I was blessed by it so I had to share it with you!