I Am on God's Mind!

 

Did you know that God actually thinks about you, just YOU!  When I first realized this it was awesome to me.  It took me awhile to just sit and absorb it.   In Psalm 40:17 (Amplified Version) it states:  “I am poor and needy;  yet the Lord takes thought and plans for me…”

Just think about that!  With all the millions who are God’s children, yet because He is God, He thinks of me as though I were the only one.
 
Dear Lord, You call me Your beloved, and You call me by my name.  Your desire is to me, and Your thoughts of me are precious (Psalm 139:17)  You saw me being formed in my mother’s womb and loved me even then.  You have said You will care for me even to my old age and gray hairs.  I am the apple of Your eye and through You I am rich and possess all things. When I go to sleep, You see me; when I awake You are still with me.  Praise God, I am Yours, and I am on Your Mind!  Amen

What Happens to my Sin?

Have you ever really wondered what happens to your sin when you accept Jesus as your Savior?
Have you wondered when something brings to mind a sin of the past, whether you need to again ask forgiveness?

In the book entitled "Pilgrim’s Progress’ by John Bunyan, is the story of Christian, leaving his home in the City of Destruction. On the back of Christian was his heavy load of sin and causing much grief. His journey was to find relief of his load on his way to the Celestial City. Eventually he came to a place where the road was fenced on either side with a wall, called ‘salvation’. Up this road he ran encumbered by the load on his back. He came to a place where there stood the Cross, and a little below in the bottom a Sepulchre. When Christian reached the Cross, his burden came loose and fell off his shoulders, tumbling till it came to the sepulchre where it fell in, and was seen no more. It was the sight of the Cross that eased his Burden. It is at the Cross where through repentance and trust in the one who paid our ransom, we receive life. Where does our sin go when we come to Christ’s Cross? How can we know it is really cast away?

Micah 7:19 states "…you will cast all our sins into the depth of the sea." 
Psalm 103:12 tells us that "As far as the East is from the West so far has He removed our transgressions from us."  
In Jeremiah 31:34 we are told "…for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Also, in Isaiah 43:25 God says He is the one who blots out and cancels our transgressions. And in Isaiah 44:22 He says they are blotted out like a thick cloud.
In Peter’s message at Pentecost, he tells the crowd listening "So repent (change your mind and purpose); turn around and return (to God) that your sins may be erased (blotted out, wiped clean…" (Acts 3:19 Amplified). These verses are only a few of the verses showing that our sins are gone. Some days when I am grousing about my past, and ask God again to forgive me, I can just imagine He is saying "What sin, my child? I have already forgotten!!."

Why did He do this?! Go back to Isaiah 43:25b. He says "For my own sake…" Wow!! He wants us to be clean and pure…For His Own Sake! We are His children, so for His sake He forgets all about our past, all about our sins. What a gracious, merciful God!

All Things

 

I love reading the book "31 Days of Praise" by Ruth Myers. If one doesn’t know how to praise, this book will open up the path for you. It will help you verbalize your own feelings by paraphrasing Scripture. Often when I read it, I think ‘that sounds like my thoughts’. It just causes my heart to be enlarged, as with joy I give God the praise that is His due.  With that said, I am going to give you the Prayer from Day 24, showing how our Lord can use ‘All’ things to work out his perfect will.  Any italics  are my own words added. The Scriptures used are at the end.  Read it prayerfully as you Praise God for His goodness!

"Thank You, my loving and sovereign God, that my failures and mistakes and sins are part of the "all things" You work together for good…as well as my tensions and stresses, my hostile and anxious feelings, my regrets, my trips into shame and self-blame—and the specific things that trigger them. I praise you that "all things," including these, can contribute to my spiritual growth and my experience of You…When my heart is overwhelmed, I’m more aware of my need to cry to You…to take refuge in You…to rely on You.

I rejoice that these things keep reminding me to depend on You with all my heart…that they prompt me to trust in Your love, Your forgiveness, Your power, Your sufficiency, Your ability to overrule, and Your transforming presence within me. Thank You for the ways that my shortcomings and failures, and illnesses of the flesh bring pressure on me to open myself to You more fully, and the way they let You show me deep and hidden needs: grief’s and hurts that I’ve never poured out before You, that I’ve never exposed to Your healing touch, and sins that I’ve never faced and acknowledged, I give them all to you, My Jesus. How grateful I am for Your constant cleansing as I confess each sin You make me aware of, and then turn back to You as my Lord. I praise You that I’m free from condemnation simply because Christ died for me and rose again…that it doesn’t depend on how well I live. (This is a Wow!)

I praise You for how You use my sins and failures to humble me, and for how this opens me to the inflow of Your grace—amazing grace, that enables me to hold my head high, not in pride but in humble gratitude for Your undeserved, unchanging love and total cleansing!"

Par. 1 Romans 8:28,29; Psalm 61:2
Par. 2 Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 37:5; 2 Cor. 3:18; I John 1:9
Par. 3 I Peter 5:5; Romans 5:5 (LB)

Freedom Rings

"Let Freedom Ring!" we lustily sing at this time of year. But do we really know what Freedom is?

One dictionary meaning is ‘a being able to act, move, use without hindrance or restraint’. Synonymous with the word ‘Freedom’ is the word ‘liberty’. The dictionary states that ‘liberty’ connotes past restriction, or repression. When our founding Father’s signed the declaration of Independence, they were stating we were no longer repressed or restricted by another governing ruler. We were setting up our new nation to be free and independent of England or any other nation. To have the Freedom to pursue Life, Liberty and Happiness.

So it is with our Spiritual life. Galatians 5:1 states "It was for freedom that Christ set us free…" and in John 12:36 it tells us that "if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed". Jesus declaration to us is from John 3:16, "Whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have Eternal Life." Jesus also said "I am come that you might have Life, and have it more abundantly." (John 10:10). In Christ we will have Life, we will have Liberty, and thereby we will have Happiness. This is our Declaration of Independence that gives us True Freedom!

From the heart of CCoblentz

Father, My Father

June is the month during which we set aside a day to honor our fathers.  This year it will be on June 17, should any of you have forgotten.  The Father whom we should most honor is our Heavenly Father.  He is the one who loved us so much that He provided a way for us to become His own children and joint heirs with Christ Jesus our Savior. 

When Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray, He said to begin this way: "Our Father in Heaven." (Matthew 6:9) In the same chapter, verse 31 and 32, He tells us not to worry about what we eat or drink or wear because: "your heavenly Father knows that you need them."

The Hebrew word of ‘Ab’, or Aramaic "Abba" means Daddy or Papa. This eventually came to mean ‘dear father’. A few years ago I heard a very strong Christian, a church leader, begin her prayer with "Dear Daddy". I felt very uncomfortable with this, totally against the way I had been brought up and feeling this was being disrespectful. Yet, in Scripture we are told that through faith we may each one of us call Him "Abba" which as we said in English is "daddy".

Three places in the New Testament, God the Father is referred to as "Abba". In Mark 14:36 when Jesus was pouring out His heart to the Father, sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, His cry was to "Abba". The verse says "Abba, Father" or "Father, my Father". To put it even plainer as to the Hebrew and Aramaic interpretation, He was saying "Daddy, my very own daddy."

In Romans 8:14, 15 it is telling us that the believer is a ‘son’ (or daughter) of God, and we can cry ‘Abba, Father’. Then in Galatians 4:6 it says we have the Spirit of Jesus to confirm that we are sons and daughters, by crying out for us "Abba, Father".

How can we have such a close association with God that we can call Him Father, or Daddy? We become God’s children by placing our trust in Jesus Christ as Lord. God receives us into His family and our sins are forgiven. When our ‘Daddy’ looks at us, He sees us as a pure and forgiven child because of what Jesus did on Calvary.

I may never feel the freedom to actually talk to God as my "Daddy" (He will always be thought of as ‘Father’ or ‘Abba, Father’ by me), but I will never criticize anyone who feels this freedom to do so. Our God is a loving compassionate Father, and because of Jesus going to the Cross and paying the debt of sin, we who have put our trust in Him, Jesus, now have the freedom to enter the Throne Room of God and cry out to Him "Abba, Father".

Father, my Father, I thank You for the gift of becoming Your child. I thank You for being my refuge and providing all my needs. May I always glorify You and may others see me as Your child. I would like to hear "she has her Father’s eyes", and may my eyes be a reflection of your love and image. Amen

My Prayers for my children and grandchildren

"Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud:  and he shall hear my voice."
(Psalm 55:17 KJV)

From this mother's heart:

"Father, hear us, we are praying

Hear the words our hearts are saying.

We are praying for our children...

Father, Father, be thou near them...

And wherever they may abide,

Lead them home at eventide."

(Excerpts from a poem by Dr. Edmon.)

Yes, Lord, 'evening, morning, and at noon' I give them all to You!
Amen

My Jabez Prayer

A few years ago there was a lot of talk about the ‘Prayer of Jabez’. This prayer is a little verse in the middle of a chapter of genealogy. This is how it reads from the Amplified version of I Chronicles 4:10: "Jabez cried to the God of Israel, saying, Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and You would keep me from evil so it might not hurt me! And God granted his request.

Wow! What a strange little verse, but a simple one and it says ‘God granted his request.’ As I was reading Psalm 119, I thought it interesting that one could take this little verse from I Chronicles and compare it to many verses in Psalm 119.

His first request: ‘Oh that You would bless me’.  Psalm 119:17 asks God to ‘deal bountifully with Your servant.’

His second request: ‘enlarge my borders’. ( Now this could mean he wanted more wisdom and understanding)  Psalm 119:33 asks the Lord to ‘teach me thy way’, and in verse 34 it says ‘Give me understanding.’

His third request is that ‘Your hand might be with me’.
In Psalm 119:35 the Psalmist asks that the Lord ‘make me go in the path of Your commandments’, asking for God’s guidance.

And the last request is that ‘You would keep me from evil so it might not hurt me.’
In Psalm 119:37 the Psalmist asks the Lord to turn away his eyes from beholding that which is not good and turn away reproach. And in verse 101 it states ‘I have restrained my feet from every evil way.

So here I am going to take the liberty of rewriting my own verse and calling it "The Prayer of Carol", using the thoughts from Psalm 119:

"O Lord, deal bountifully with Your Servant, helping me to increase my wisdom and understanding, guiding me in the way I should go, following Your commandments. Keep my eyes from looking on evil or that which is not good, and keep me from evil ways. And I thank you for hearing my Prayer.
Amen"