give mercy & get mercy

Blessed are those who show mercy.They will be treated mercifully.--Matthew 5:7

This is something i wanted to share that I feel God give me to help out a few friends and I know will help myself!......

Sometimes I think we have to get up everyday and see our spouse as God sees us and thats is a perfect creature (even if they arent saved or living right) because what if he looked at us everyday for our past mistakes? We would be in trouble. Try for a few days if you can to wake up and not think about what he/she has done and not let it anger you. Change the way you look at him/her throughout the day. A lot of our frustration and anger comes from past unforgiveness and mistakes we are still dwelling on. Try to look at him/her as God sees us which is clean. And when he/she does something try to forgive them right then and work through it. This is probably gonna be the hardest thing you have ever done. But if it works its great and may change both of your lives forever and if it doesnt. Well u have already spent this long trying to figure out what works  what's another few days doing it the way God intended and thats forgiving, loving , and showing mercy:)?

He will never leave you!

Time has just completely gotten away from me the last two or three months! I didn't realize it had been so long since I had posted. I don't have anything particular in mind today just this scripture that keeps coming to mind.

Deuterononmy 31:6
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you, he will never leave you nor forsake you.

Just as God  spoke these words to Joshua through Moses for encouragement to lead the people to their inheritance. I believe he speaks them to us today. Sometimes we don't understand why things happen the way they do or we may not understand a direction God is leading us. He does though. That should be enough.

Have a blessed day!

He guides us!

Psalms 37:23
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

I havent posted in a few weeks due to change in schedule and sickness but hopefully I can still make time to post here and there around my new schedule.

Tonight I have been thinking about how God leads us in his ways. In our Wednesday night class at church we started a new lesson last night about walking in the spirit.
We all can learn more about being spiritually led if we were able to do it perfectly we possibly would have walked our way up to the Lord as Enoch did. This is why im happy to learn more because I know there is much more!

This all brought about me remembering this scripture above. God has so many promises for us its just amazing. But this one is very important to me bacuse it makes me see that if I am following Gods ways and being righteous in his eyes through the direction of the Holy spirit he says he will guide my steps..that is a wonderful thing because if I guided my own or ordered my own id be afraid to see the outcome.

I am just grateful for a God who loves, who cares, who protects, and who has sent his spirit to lead us.

Hope everyone has a great weekend & remember the spirit of God leads to life but following the flesh ends in death..choose wisely! !

just some good info I found today!

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Basics/hypocrite.htm

Money.. a battle we cause ourself!

"The wise Man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets." Proverbs 21:20

With the economy as it is today and job loss, seems alot of people are looking for ways to cut back, change habits, etc. Myself and my family included. I can't help but think though, if we were living as the bible asks us to such as "a borrower will be slave to the lender" and "owe no man anything" would we be in the shape we are in as a country now? I think not. I can only personally speak for my household though.
So many times we have made mistakes with our finances in the five years my husband and I have been together from buying vehicles to getting an unneccessary credit to just shopping or eating out when we should have been saving for the future. We now have 3 kids at home and my husband has a son we support as well. With the expense of daycare being so high, and mainly the fact that God has called me to be at home right now, I do not work. We lost half of our income with our last child being born, such a major life change! With all that said we have been through many changes since then we have lived with family, we have wrecked vehicles, changed jobs, and gone even further into debt trying to make ends meet. Seems like we were going down a never ending spiral! This all sounds terrible but there is light at the end of the tunnel!lol  Now that I have spoken the bad I will share the good. We purchased a home back in May of 2012. There were many, many renovations that needed to be done and still do before a bank would finance this home. (We had an agreement with our seller to owner fincance until we could get the bank requirements done) Well needless to say we were running out of funds and I was runningout of patience waiting on the funds and renovations to be completed !! I had decided that if my husband would say the word we would put a for sale sign out that day ..in fact I already had the one that was here when we bough the place! But instead of rushing to the road side with the sign I called made a phone call to a wise person who I look up to to get some advice on selling. Thank God he orders our steps!!! To my surprise that phone call changed everything to do with our house issue! Instead of what I thought I would get which was advice , we recieved a miracle!! This person said ' I would hate for yall to lose it when you have done so much work, and yall got such a good deal on the house, why dont we just pay the loan off for uou?" Remember this isnt a grocery trip or a $100 loan ...this is thousands of dollars. Now tell me God was not in this!! I think so!! And not only that the loan was interest free !!!!God is so good to prepare the hearts of others for our needs when we arent even expecting!!
Since this time we have had such a different outlook on everything. We have been able to do more work in the house. We have done nothing but become more free in our finances since this happened . Little by little the rest is coming into place.  Its amazing the doors God can open and the changes God can make in lives and hearts. Dont look at your circumstances he is MUCH bigger than that..he is GOD!!

todays thought:)

James 1:26
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

my grandmothers book

I wanted to share this link. My grandmother wrote this book and just had it published a few weeks ago its called 'Believe the works' it is a book on miracles. I started it and finished it in two days..its very good!!
The link to view and order is

https://www.createspace.com/3967137

Feeling like an alien!!!

Have you ever seen an old friend or been around a group of people who didnt live for God and just felt weird? I have family and friends that arent saved and there has always been just a knowing of my beliefs and lifestyle, but today i just felt like an alien!! The bible talks about us being strangers to this world and today I felt great understanding of this scripture!! I believe God used this situation today to allow my faith in him to grow and allow me to see what he has done in me . To see the world now with a view of not being part of it was a good feeling. I would've never thought I would get to a place in my spiritual life that I could say that I felt very privileged to be on the short end of the stick as the world would call it financially, with materialistic things, and being in the midst of everyone's business! I FELT RICH!!! And BLESSED to be feeling so alienated!! I thank god for opening my eyes to see what is most important in this life and that is not things, money, looking good , or even feeling good! Emotions Lie and all of these things will feed your emotions. The joy of The Lord won't and that's what I want to be my stability in life, peace that passes all understanding!! Jesus!!! 
1 Peter 2:11-12 

Self mutilation

Self mutilation is more than a physical thing! I have learned that we sometimes self mutilate our own spirit man! Lord forgive us, for we do not realize that whether it be in works( religion) or by ignorance we are taking you out of the realm of being all that you are Lord, and setting ourselves up as our own justifier or God! This is so dangerous! We cannot possibly be all of what God has called us to be and self mutilate ourselves daily! The more I study the word and various teachings the more I am seeing that this world is so consumed with people who are deceived into thinking that we can do something to make ourselves more holy...in Romans it gives great discussion on grace and freedom from the law. I'm definitely not a scholar so I won't go and try to sketch it out but I do know that we are not to sin so that grace may abound. But at the same time we are to not hold our head down and be consumed with condemnation if we do mess up. Romans 8:1 for therefor now there is no condemnation in those in Christ Jesus. So staying between the boundaries of these lessons Paul teaches should free us from self mutilation due to works and free us from the bondage of making ourselves responsible for choosing what is 'good' and what is not. Let god be our justifier!

From the Abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh!

How many times have we answered without gentleness or just blurted out something and ended up in the middle of a mess!? Unfortunately, I can say many, many times. Today I just wanted to share these scriptures that have encouraged me to place a close watch on my heart and where it is because without the right heart our words cannot be right, which in turn can produce a harsh word and stir up anger and wrong feelings. Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 17:27 He that has knowledge restrains his words,and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. Isaiah 32:6 For the fool speaks folly, his mind is busy with evil: He practices ungodliness and spreads error concerning the Lord; the hungry he leaves empty and from the thirsty he withholds water. Luke 6:45 the good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

I wanna be selfless!

Self less What does it mean? To deny ourselves of things we want? To take ourself to an extreme and not be who we are? NO in the bible Christ says to follow him we should deny ourselves & take up our cross. I do not believe he ever intended for us to not have our own God given talents and abilities or to have different personality traits. Some people say they can't live for God because they can't be themselves, well that is a LIE! God wants us to be unique because we are fearfully and wonderfully made! He had every person in mind before we were created ! I believe to deny ourselves means to deny our selfish, sin nature desires that do not bear fruit. We all have desires at times whether it be monetarty gain, flat out selfish wants, or just simple things like wanting time to yourself when you have obligations to your family. The bible tells us we have died to this nature once we became alive in Christ. This being known to deny ourselves in my opinion would be to deny that sin nature that lingers and awaits to be used on a daily basis. From the biggest to the smallest temptation we are responsible for remaining selfless,)

When we lose sight of why we are here...

Isaiah 43:7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. There are many variations of people on earth. Young,old, mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and the list could go on and on. Of all these different groups of people I believe each and every person at some time in their life questions what they were meant for. What their purpose is and usually it's when things aren't going the way we think they should. Do you ever sit and get depressed thinking, what I am here for? Is this all life has for me? Is this what I am gonna be doing forever? I DO! I think this is a way Satan comes in to make us become self-centered. If we are absolutely the most boring, no excitement at all christian there is we have still a reason for exsisting and it has NOTHING to do with us! Wow! what a thought!! haha We aren't here to gain careers, or make money, or go to school, or have spouses, or make friends??? No, acutually we were not made especially for that! Yes, God blesses us with all these things but really we were made for his glory, for his pleasure! That is sometimes far from our minds when we think about things we aren't getting our way or looking back in life and thinking about what we could have, or should have done differently. Truth is God knew every step, every breath, and every mistake, even down to every hair on your head before you were concieved. So today I am challenging myself, and ask you to do the same. Look outside your self-pity circle, or list of things you feel you have to acheive and just thank God he created you and thank him for ALLOWING you to have those blessings that we sometimes make into curses because we put them before our primary purpose of being! Have a blessed day and give thanks bc it's not about us, IT'S ABOUT HIM!!!!

~Seasons of Spiritual Growth~

Daniel 2:21 and He changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings and setteth up kings, he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge unto them that know understanding.

The bible teaches that God moves in and brings us through seasons. During these we usually experience different things in life whether it be circumstance changes, trials, mountains, pain, heartache, joy, loss, gain, ect. During these things I believe God's intentions is for us to become more and more like him. This is so important to our spiritual walk because it is up to us to make sure we are surrendered and willing to be taught by the holy spirit to recieve what God has for us during whatever season we may be in!

As a stay at home mom I sometimes become a little frazzled, overwhelmed, and stir crazy at times (Im sure I am not alone:) But during these times at home I know God has important things for me here, whether it be writing, cleaning, reading, praying, spending time with my kids, preparing our meals, or just talking to a friend on the phone. To me this is a season, but in that season lately I have noticed that the actual physical 'weather' season has played a toll on me this year. Being at home I can easily get lazy at times and want to spend nap time with the kids actually taking a nap! or I can put off cleaning until they take a nap and do it then. The problem is the fact that I am not taking all my available time possible and using it for God's glory. Whether it be prayer, writings, studying, ect. So many times I waste precious time God has given me and I truly notice that it is more in the winter for some reason!
I believe that in my personal life that Satan uses this season because of the financial strain on this time of year after and around Christmas, the circumstances (being my kids and I are stuck inside when its cold), and just the whole 'winter blues' everyone talks about. But I'm writing this today to announce that he has been caught in his attempts to get me down! LOL

Knowing what the enemies schemes and plans are is such a great gift the Holy Spirit gives us!!!

2 Corinthians 2:11 In order that satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

Knowing that God works in seasons, and that his desire is for us to grow and bear fruit. Search your life today I'm sure that some of you reading this have a specific 'weather season' that gets you down, and makes your spiritual connection harder to keep up. For most of you it's probably winter. Well today instead of just considering it 'winter blues' or just a normal way of life, I challenge you to stand up a worship the Lord with all you have and get in your word and make satan eat what he has been throwing out for you! Make it a ritual that when this season that gets you down comes around again that you press through with such a determination that the enemy is afraid to even attempt to depress, mess, or disrupt you in that time!
 Make that 'weather season' a new spiritual season of growth and maturity in God!!!!

extra reading Ecclesiastes 3:1-22
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Speak with a holy life in mind

For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a Holy life. 1 Thesselonians 4:7 Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you say or do something that you had no intentions of harm but you were convicted for it? This morning I was on the phone with a friend and I remembered a funny story my husband shared with me. I felt like I shouldn’t say anything about it when I started the story but I had already began talking so I kept on. It really wasn’t something terrible or what you would call ‘bad’. And actually it wasn’t meant to tear this person down. BUT after I spoke it the holy spirit showed me that when words are spoken that are not edifying or building each other up that even if we are not being spiteful or trying to put others down they shouldn’t be spoken for several reasons. 1. Its gossip. 2. If the person you were speaking about was to find out you repeated this they may not think anything BUT what if they were convicted for it already?? How would they feel knowing that something they done was being spread around after they had asked forgiveness! 3. How can we live a holy life when we let our tongue out run the holy spirit? God has called us to live a holy life! DO YOU? 1. Do you feel your daily life consists of spoken words that God would consider a holy life? 2. Do you want to take action to control what comes out of your mouth? Challenge! 1. Make sure no unwholesome talk comes from our mouth today 2. The words of the wise are few the words of the fool are many. Make sure we use the least words as possible to get through each day to tame the tongue! HOW? Listen to the nudge of the holy spirit throughout the day to keep ourselves holy, afterall he is our helper! having a pure heart begins with paying close attention to our thoughts, because our thoughts become our words, our emotions, our attitudes, and our motives!- Joyce Meyer

Let us REJOICE and MOURN with our brothers & sisters!

As Christians it is our job according to scripture to be what our brothers or sisters in Christ need. I had three specific incidents today that reminded me so much of the scripture Im basing this post on. Two of them were phone calls one with great news and one with very sad. As I was talking to them I was reminded to be very sensitive to their needs. ( not saying I did it very well, but I tried and I count it A+ for just being able to hear the spirit speak when I have all my opinions or thoughts raging to let out to them!lol) I felt like I needed to write on this because I am sure I am not the only person in the world that becomes a little self-centered at times,even when it may seem like we are just offering advice or trying to relate to that person or event, sometimes I believe when need to completely cast our own thoughts and opinions aside and focus directly on what or who you are dealing with. God has given us a mission, that is to spread the gospel as Jesus did and love and show compassion to all. I don't think he would be pleased with us knowing that we were called by a friend that needed us to show compassion for a loss of a family member or to rejoice for wonderful news and all we wanted to do was somehow relate their problems or good news to our life. I truly believe sometimes God uses these moments in our lives just to test our compassion and ability to minister to others as Christ ministers to us. If that were so how many times would we to fail because we are centered on some silly opinion that we thought up with our own mind! I would way rather lend an ear, Speak Gods word to minister, and or pray with them for strength or thanksgiving for whatever the good news is! Sometimes people just need us to Rejoice with them or Mourn with them!

Romans 12:15  Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.

PRAY HIS WORD!

why would we want to pray and it be less powerful than it could be?

why would we want to ramble on in prayer time when our time is precious?

I have heard from many sources the power of praying a scripture over the last few years. I can personally say this is so true!  I placed a list of prayers and things that my heart desired for my life and my family on my refridgerator . I listed them with a scripture for everyone and I would pray these everytime I saw the paper or was in my prayer time. I posted these back in July? maybe August but i can honestly say as of today EVERY request if not answered completely is in process as we speak! GOD Is So GOOD!  

 I cant give whats on my heart hardly without a testimony of his goodness to me :) 

So my advice to making your prayer time more powerful and knowing you arent asking something outside of Gods will would be to first renew your mind to know what his good, pleasing and perfect will is, but also to compare your requests to scripture and pray Gods word over every aspect of your life ! 

~~~ Isaiah 55:10-11 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven ,and do not return witbout watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yeilds seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

WWJD?

I first want to say that my 8 year old son, Bryan got saved last night! Such a good feeling as a parent to know your Child loves and wants God to be part of his life:)

As i was listening to the radio this morning my earcaught a commercial that came on. I am not sure if it was an encouraging word or just an adverstisement  but either way it blessed me. The man was talking about how Jesus spoke so many times through the bible about following him. He was saying that nowadays there are so many doctrines people follow and so many rules and things but if we could just get the concept that its not all about a checklist of what we are supposed to do if we would just FoLLoW Jesus! we would know how to love, know how to pray, know how to deal with problems, etc. This sparked my memory to the old simple saying What would Jesus do? My prayer today is to follow Jesus in everything I do that i use thos question and make it a part of my everyday life..how can we go wrong if we are following Christ? 

WALKING IN VICTORY BY FAITH

THIS IS JUST A FEW NOTES I JOTTED DOWN TODAY, THERE IS NO PARTICULAR ORDER OR AGENDA JUST WANTED TO SHARE
*Sacrafice. Set aside a specific time for God and time to focus on him only. Not your kids, not your phone, not your spouse. YOU & GOD!
*Apply the word. We can read until we are blue in the face but applying and knowing are two different things. BE YE DOERS OF THE WORD NOT HEARERS ONLY!
*Strip ourselves of everything we know of to be of ourselves giving it to God to replace with his love, mercy, and grace. We must walk in his spirit at all times to be victorious in this life and we can be full of ourselves and his spirit at the same time.DO NOT WALK IN THE FLESH ONE DAY AND ATTEMPT TO WALK IN THE SPIRIT THE NEXT!
*Allow God to mold you into what he wants you to be (potter and the clay) not what you think and expect to be molded into by looking at everyone or anyone else and their walk with God. We are the Body and that requires all different parts to be complete. Be satisified with what God has called you to do no matter what it may entail and allow him to mold you to perfection in the area he needs you in.
*We cannot expect victory if we have a defeated mindset.. meaning we walk around speaking we are at our end, we have had enough. We have to speak the same thing we expect to happen. God isn't going to change his mind about our 'trial end date' because we have decided we have had enough! He has already known what we could handle before the trial even began. We need to begin to walk in victory by saying, I WILL KEEP GOING, I WILL PRESS THROUGH THIS, THERE IS A MIRACLE IN THE MAKING AND I WILL NOT GROW WEARY IN WELL DOING! GALATIONS 6:9
*And we should daily speak life into ourselves LORD YOU ARE OUR PORTION!!! WE WILL WAIT ON YOU !! NO MATTER WHAT!
*We must be so spiritually minded that no matter what circumstances come our way our faith in God will see us through. Whether it be small or large things. FAITH IS BELIEVING WHAT WE CANNOT SEE!!!
*We cannot be double-minded (walking in faith and walking in the worlds ways) at the same time! God wants us to trusting in him in EVERYTHING!!!!!

OPEN YOUR WHOLE WORLD TO GOD AND ALLOW HIM TO REDO YOUR MINDSET, YOUR WAY OF THINKING, YOUR WHOLE YOU!!! AND PRAY THAT WE FOCUS ON GODLY THINGS AND WAYS IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE:)


*

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Proverbs 18:21

This is actually something I wrote on June 27, 2011 so it is a little out of order with my daily journaling and it may be like that here and there because I'm trying to post as I feel the spirit of God leading not as I wish to post.. this is a story of a personal experience some may think this is ridiculous or that I'm making it up but I'm telling you when you have an encounter with a spiritual presence other than God you will definitely know its real..
I was lying in bed around midnight last night while my family slept. The feeling of anxiety gripped me then I began having to pant for breath.. My mind was being attacked, out of nowhere ! I immediately knew this was satan and something he was attempting! I began to pray, or try to but all i could do was say Jesus, Jesus , Jesus over and over. I payed there speaking my savior a name while the devil attempted to continue to speak to me using my families past to talk me into believing that the grip on my mind he thought he had was true. The feeling I felt was unexplainable ! It was like something was literally pulling my mind out of my head and I knew that if he won I would be lifeless. I spoke Jesus until this feeling fled which didn't take long:) at the same time The Lord was speaking to me also .. Jennifer , the words you speak are very important!! My mind went back to earlier in the day when I said my favorite saying " you kids are gonna make me lose my mind!!" People may think I'm fanatical or like I said earlier that I'm making this up but this was a very real experience and I am so thankful I knew to say Jesus!!
I shared this because during church tonight I was reminded that we say soooo many things everyday that are not positive things and that we do not realize what or who we are talking down too! Gods word says that there is life and death in the power of the tongue , I personally have reason to believe this but if you believe the word of truth you should believe this as well experience or not! Meditate on whatsoever things are pure, just, of good report! Renew your mind, and rid yourselves of all ungodliness because from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks!! Fill your heart with goodness so the overflow into our mouths brings forth LIFE when it comes out!!!

Delight yourself in The Lord & he will give you the desires of your heart

One of the first things I want to talk about is the true revelation of dying to self. I cannot, of course, say what is perfectly right or perfectly wrong but I will share what God has shown and done in my own life personally. I was saved as a child 8 years old to be exact, I strayed away from The Lord as a teenager and made several crazy life choices and many mistakes .. Through it all though I know I am now where God intended me to be, with a crazy past, three beautiful children, and a Husband who lives for The Lord. All of that shared to get to this I dedicated my life to God with my husband in June of 2008. We became very involved in church and thought we were doing very good but behind the scenes satan was working to tear us apart but what he seems to forget a lot is Romans 8:28 :) anyway he's just a working and striving to tear everything God had blessed us with including our marriage apart .. Meantime all this warfare brought me to a place where I would call 'the bottom' I knew I couldn't keep going like I was, I was spiritually sick and almost completely turned from God our life bore no fruit and my marriage was falling apart .. One day I was home folding clothes and doing what I usually would and I knew I was done with everything I had made my ' phone calls' and everything to friends and family stating I couldn't take anymore I was leaving.. This is EXACTLY where God needs me to be and satan just thought he was fixing to win.. I ended up after all those calls in my room in my bed on my knees crying out to God begging for help at this point I can honestly say I was at the end of myself ( I'm still being worked on though lol) just at this point I knew there was absolutely NOTHinG in this world I could possibly do to change my circumstances my husband my bitterness towards the situation our finances NOTHinG I knew I needed something more than another day of banging my face on a brick wall with no results I knew that what I needed was my savior, my first love, my portion. It was a long several months to get me and my family to where we are now in our personal relationships and in The Lord but I can honestly now be a living speaking testimony of Romans 8:28 and an example of Gods grace and mercy has definitely been poured on and manifested in our lives.. I have so much to say and so many great testimonies of Gods love towards us and good things he has shown us even through the bad things we have overcame but to start our I just wanted to share this story and one of my favorite scriptures Lamentations 3:21-24 the reason I can still find hope is that I keep this one thing in mind: because of  the Lords mercy we were not consumed his compassion never fails and his mercies are new every morning his faithfulness is great my soul can say The Lord is my portion!