Walk Boldly With Jesus

Be Bold & Have Radical Trust (Be Bold Series)Daniel 3:17 “If our God, whom we serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, oh king, may he save us! But even if he will not, know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue which you set up.”Radical Trust was new to me when I attended a conference in March 2011. I had seen radical trust in action many times, but I don’t think I had ever heard it called that. I was instantly in love with the phrase. I loved the idea of having Radical Trust in our God. I really enjoyed learning about that concept over the weekend. The speaker, Anne Trufant, asked us, “Do you trust God?” Not do you trust in God, but do you trust God? Do you truly trust what he says to you, what he tells you? It was a different way to look at it. Do I trust everything God tells me when I read the bible? Do I trust that he is saying those things to me? Do I trust God? I definitely took some time to ponder that and pray with that thought. After that retreat, I started to pray for radical trust a lot more often. I also tried to implement radical trust in my life. It’s not just about saying, “Of course I trust God,” it's about truly believing that with your whole being. Wouldn’t it be great if when we got a bill that we did not have the money to pay, we could say and truly believe, "God’s got this?" "I don’t need to worry because He’s got this." What about when we see that our kids are doing something that we know is wrong, and we can see all the ways they can get hurt if they continue down that path? Can we truly say, "God’s got this," and not worry about it? Ever since this retreat, I have prayed so many times for radical trust because, in my experience, it does not come overnight. And it is not always universal. Over the years, I have found myself having radical trust in one area but not in another. However, every day, I see the benefits in my life of praying for radical trust. I am much better about radical trust now. I have a supernatural trust that all will be ok. I do not tend to feel stressed out about the future because I know that God is in charge, and I am not. Why should I worry when he is the one in control? I enjoy reading books about radical trust because every example I read strengthens my trust a little more. So, I thought I would give you a few examples. The next two examples I have heard from people close to me. My mom and dad had 11 children. My mom stayed home with the kids, and my dad worked. He had a good job, but money was always tight because of the number of kids in our family. One day, my parents’ friends had to go out unexpectedly. They asked my parents to watch their kids. They had 10 kids. My parents said, “Yes, of course we will.“ Then they thought about how to feed all those 21 children when they had no food in the house. They had a radical trust and prayed to God, trusting that he would come through. They trusted even though they did not know how he would show up or come through for them. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was a neighbor with bags of groceries. The neighbor’s father had just moved into their house unexpectedly, and they had nowhere to put the food from the dad’s house as they had just gone shopping. So my parents gratefully accepted the food. They looked through and noticed that there was some pasta and sauce in the bags. They then thought they could feed everyone spaghetti if they just had meat. A few minutes later there was another knock at the door. A different neighbor had a cooler full of meat. They had just gone hunting and stocked their freezer and fridge with all the meat they could hold, and they did not know what to do with what was left. Again, my parents gratefully accepted it. Then, they immediately thanked God for providing for them as he always does. Another time, a friend was sitting in her car. She was at the store trying to buy groceries for the week. She had three small children. Her daughter was with her. The store had not opened yet, and they were the only people in the parking lot. As she made her list of what she needed, she realized she did not have enough money to buy all the necessities. She prayed to God then, “God, if I just had an extra $50, I could buy all I needed for the week.” At that moment, her daughter saw something fly past the car on the ground of the parking lot. Before her mom could tell her not to, she jumped out of the car to get it. She got back in the car and gave it to her mom. It was a $50 bill. When reading a few articles about radical trust online, one of them talked about how radical trust is trusting God even when he doesn’t come through. This is probably the hardest thing to do. If you always see ways that God is coming through, it is easier to have radical trust. I think it may be easier for me to have radical trust because I have seen and heard many examples of how people have trusted and God has shown up in big ways. But what about

Be Bold & Praise While You Wait (Be Bold Series)Acts 16:25-28 “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once, all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”This story actually begins a few verses before this. In Acts 16:16-24 it says, “Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her!” At that moment, the spirit left her. When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.”This is where our verse takes place. They have been beaten with rods and are now chained up in prison. You would think after a day like that they would feel defeated. You would think that they would be questioning God and asking Him why they have to suffer so much when they are just doing what He asked them to do. You might also think that they were passed out in pain and sleeping. Is this what they were doing? No, the verse says it was midnight and they were still praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. This is something that always amazes me about the apostles and other believers in the faith, such as the Saints. I am always amazed by their strength. I know that God underwent extreme suffering in the 24 hours before He was crucified. He sweat drops of blood. If that is not suffering, I don’t know what is. And yet, I think we can downplay it sometimes and think, well, He is fully God and fully human, so of course He can withstand it; he is God. However, countless other Saints have gone through extreme suffering and have done it with joy. Paul & Silas had just been beaten with rods, and yet they were not questioning God. They were praising and singing to Him. This is something that I think we can hear sometimes and not pause and think about how truly amazing it is. I don’t know if we glaze over it because we don’t understand it or because we don’t think we are capable of it. I don’t know the reason, but I wanted to pause and take a moment to recognize how remarkable these two are for how they endured their suffering. We could all learn a lot from them and how they lived not only when times were good but also when times were tough. The verse says that at midnight, while they were praying and praising, they were set free. The door opened, and their chains came loose. What strikes me about this verse is that they were set free yet did not leave. They stayed there until morning, when the guard woke up. What I hear the Lord saying to me about this verse is that everything He does is for His glory and the good of His kingdom. If Paul & Silas would have left at midnight, they could have escaped. However, it would not have been known how they escaped. People could have said that someone broke in and freed them. God would not have gotten the Glory. However, by waiting until morning, they not only converted the guard and his whole house to believers, but they were also set free and did not have to worry about being caught for escaping.Sometimes, the things we are going through or the things others are going through make no sense to us. If we had been there in that jail cell, it would have made no sense to us that when they were freed, they didn’t leave the cell. I can’t imagine sitting in that cell and just waiting for the jailer to wake up when we could have escaped and been hours away by the time the jailer woke up. Luckily, Paul and Silas were good at listening to the Lord and trusting in Him. They were not scared in that jail cell. They praised the Lord and trusted that the Lord would get them out of the situation. They were patient and w

Be Bold & Step Forward in Faith ( Be Bold Series)Hebrews 11:1-2 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old received divine approval.”I have done the Bible in a Year podcast with Father Mike for two years. This year, he is doing the Catechism of the Catholic Church in a Year. The Catechism aims to summarize in book form the main beliefs of the Catholic Church. I have owned this book for several years now and yet have never read the whole thing. I did find some things highlighted today when looking through it, so I have looked through it, but never read through it all. I was excited about this new podcast Father Mike is doing because I think it is important to be able to understand your faith completely and also to be able to explain it to others when asked. People tend to have many questions as to why Catholics believe what they believe. The other day, when I was listening, Father Mike touched on something that I thought was important to share with you because it is something that we have all run into many times in our lives. The Catechism talked about how God sometimes reveals things to people to invite them into His company. The adequate response to this invitation is faith. It goes on to say in paragraph 144 that Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, “the obedience to faith.” It says to obey in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment. Paragraph 145 says The Letter to the Hebrews, in its great eulogy of the faith of Israel’s ancestors lays special emphasis on Abraham’s faith; “By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where to go.” He lived as a stranger and pilgrim in the promised land by faith. By faith, Sarah was given to conceive the son of the promise. And by faith Abraham offered his only son in sacrifice.Father Mike pointed out that all three people mentioned here, Abraham, Sarah, and Mary, acted in faith. This was not the part that surprised me as I have heard the story of Abraham and Sarah many times, and I know everyone knows that Mary acted in faith when she said yes to carrying the Son of God. What Father Mike said that makes sense when you think about it, but I guess I never really thought about it before, was that God didn’t give these three people all the information before they answered in faith. He didn’t lay out every step they were going to take. He didn’t tell them every bump in the road they would run into. He didn’t give them a five-year plan or a 10-year plan. He didn’t even give them a one-year plan. He gave them the initial invitation with very little detail. Abraham knew he couldn’t stay where he was and that God was inviting him to leave his homeland. He said yes without knowing where he was going and how all would turn out. Sarah knew she would conceive a son but was not given any other information about when or how since she was advanced in age. Mary was invited to conceive the son of God, and she asked one clarifying question: How was that possible when she had not known man? She was told the Holy Spirit would overshadow her, and she would conceive the son of God. However, that was about all the information she got. She also was not told everything she would go through. She wasn’t told she would leave him in Jerusalem when he was 12, and she would be worried he was lost for 3 days. She wasn’t told about his suffering and crucifixion. She was told about just that first step.This is the part that I think we can all relate to. God is calling us all to something, and He calls us to it without giving us all the details. He shines just enough light on our situation so we can see the next right step. This can be scary for us. We tend to want to know what is coming next. We want to make sure we will be safe and secure. But what if we knew everything we would go through and were scared we couldn’t do it? Everything we go through in life prepares us for the next thing we will go through. If you knew it all in advance, you might not say yes. It is believed that Mary was very young when she got married and had Jesus. Do you think a teenager could have said yes to having a child that was going to be tortured and killed? Would she have had that kind of strength as a teen? I think Mary was able to be with Christ through all that because of all the things that came before that. Everything we go through, good or bad, prepares us for the rest of our lives. What about Abraham and Sarah? Do you think they would have been all excited about having a child if they knew they would have to offer him up in a sacrifice? Probably not, but God had been so faithful to His word that Abraham knew if God was asking him

Be Bold & Fight Your Battles (Be Bold Series)Hebrews 12:1-2 "Therefore, since we are encompassed with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.Two years ago, I was away on a retreat with 20 other Christian women who are all dedicated to starting their year off right and turning their focus to God. Each year in Big Life Mentoring, shout out to Pamela Crim, we each pick a word and mantra. Our word and manta is what we say every day to help remind us of the commitments we made to ourselves to live as the best version of ourselves. This New Year’s retreat that I was on for the last 5 days was a chance to talk about what we want to get out of this year and also to form a great bond and friendship with several other ladies. These ladies can be our accountability group and support throughout the whole year. We know what each and every lady on this retreat wants this year, and we can pray for them and their goals. This was my first year going to this retreat. It was an amazing weekend. I love it when women who love Jesus get together to talk and get to know each other. We played worship music and walked to the beach at night to look at the stars and thank God for all He has done. We all talked about our strengths and our areas for improvement. We discussed where we are struggling and what we want from this upcoming year. We discussed what we would do to help make those wants a reality. It was really good girl bonding time, and everyone loved it. While I was on this retreat, several ladies talked about how they have that negative voice in their head so often. You know the voice I am talking about, the one that says you are not enough, the one that says God would never forgive you, the one that makes you feel awful about yourself. That voice that makes you question every decision you have ever made. That voice that makes you feel like you don’t belong. We all have our own version of the mean voice inside our head.This verse tells us that we can look to those around us as witnesses. I saw so many witnesses that weekend on the New Year’s retreat. The women who were on the retreat were truly amazing. We all struggle with different things and are all good at other things. We can look to each other for help with our struggles. Who in your life could be a witness? Who in your life could you look to for an example of how to live? The people in my prayer group are also great witnesses. They are all excellent examples of how to be the face of Christ to others. In the 6 years I have been in this prayer group, they have taught me much about God and His love. Look to those around you and learn all you can from them!This next line is the one that really made me think this was the verse for today. It says, “Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” That is a powerful statement and one that we all need to remember when we have so many burdens in life. We have so much that can go wrong each day. If we can lay aside everything weighing on us and run the race with endurance, life will be much easier. The verse also asks us to lay aside the sin that so easily entangles us. This is a very true statement of how sin works. We tend to get entangled in it. We make one bad choice and then another; before we know it, we are wrapped up in sin, regret, and shame. This verse is telling us to lay our burdens and sins aside. The question is, “How do we do that?” How do we lay our burdens aside? How do we avoid getting entangled in sin? The answer is right in this verse. “Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” Jesus is the author of our faith. He can show us the way. We can learn much just by looking at Jesus and how He lived. We can also look to Jesus when we are trying to find the strength to lay our burdens aside. We can look to Jesus when we are trying to find a way to make it through the day. That weekend, there were at least two ladies who said they were afraid that the enemy was stronger than they were. This is a real fear that many of us have. The truth is, the enemy probably is stronger than we are, but he is definitely not stronger than God is. God has already won that battle and come out as the victor. When we start to get scared that the enemy might be getting stronger than we are, we can remember Romans 8:31 “…If God is for us, who can be against us?” This is the truth that we need to keep reminding ourselves. If God is for us, who can be against us? God is for you and me and each one of His children. Yes, you, you are His child. Even when you don’t feel worthy, even when you don’t feel you deserve it,

Witness Wednesday #150 911 MiracleToday’s witnesses are actually two things I read on line and really wanted to share them with you. The first one is about how good God is, even in a tragedy. It is a story about what happened to one family on the terrible day of September 11, 2001. The second one is about a little boy who had extraordinary courage to speak up against someone a lot older than he was in order to defend someone he didn’t even know. They are both amazing stories of how God is working in our world.A man from Norfolk , VA called a local radio station to share this on Sept 11th, 2003, TWO YEARS AFTER THE TRAGEDIES OF 9/11/2001.His name was Robert Matthews. These are his words:A few weeks before Sept. 11th, my wife and I found out we were going to have our first child. She planned a trip out to California to visit her sister. On our way to the airport, we prayed that God would grant my wife a safe trip and be with her. Shortly after I said 'amen,' we both heard a loud pop and the car shook violently. We had blown out a tire. I replaced the tire as quickly as I could, but we still missed her flight. Both very upset we drove home.I received a call from my father who was retired NYFD. He asked what my wife's flight number was, but I explained that we missed the flight.My father informed me that her flight was the one that crashed into the southern tower. I was too shocked to speak. My father also had more news for me; he was going to help. 'This is not something I can't just sit by for; I have to do something.'I was concerned for his safety, of course, but more because he had never given his life to Christ. After a brief debate, I knew his mind was made up. Before he got off of the phone, he said, 'take good care of my grandchild.' Those were the last words I ever heard my father say; he died while helping in the rescue effort.My joy that my prayer of safety for my wife had been answered quickly became anger. I was angry at God, at my father, and at myself. I had gone for nearly two years blaming God for taking my father away. My son would never know his grandfather, my father had never accepted Christ, and I never got to say good-bye.Then something happened. About two months ago, I was sitting at home with my wife and my son, when there was a knock on the door. I looked at my wife, but I could tell she wasn't expecting anyone. I opened the door to a couple with a small child.The man looked at me and asked if my father's name was Jake Matthews. I told him it was. He quickly grabbed my hand and said, 'I never got the chance to meet your father, but it is an honor to meet his son.'He explained to me that his wife had worked in the WorldTrade Center and had been caught inside after the attack. She was pregnant and had been caught under debris. He then explained that my father had been the one to find his wife and free her. My eyes welled up with tears as I thought of my father giving his life for people like this. He then said, 'there is something else you need to know.'His wife then told me that as my father worked to free her, she talked to him and led him to Christ. I began sobbing at the news.Now I know that when I get to Heaven, my father will be standing beside Jesus to welcome me, and that this family would be able to thank him themselves ..When their baby boy was born, they named him Jacob Matthew, in honor of the man who gave his life so that a mother and baby could live.Please take time to share this amazing story. You may never know the impact it may have on someone. God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.“I was on my usual running path when I heard an older man yelling loudly enough for me to hear through my headphones. "Sexy lady, hey hey hey sexy lady!" He kept screaming it and I decided to just ignore him and keep running.This ignoring seemed to piss him off so he lashed out and said "eff you, dumb B****!" Now let's keep in mind he was well-dressed and appeared to be on his lunch break from an office job.That was my trigger point. The B word. I ripped off my headphones prepared to stand up for myself when this little boy who was walking alongside his mother and little sister in a stroller looked at the guy and said, "Hey. That is not nice to say to her and she didn't like you yelling at her. You shouldn't do that because she is a nice girl and I don't let anyone say mean things to people. She's a girl like my sister and I will protect her."The man was immediately embarrassed and started gathering his lunch to leave. I asked the mother if I could hug the little boy (his name is James) and I told him how grateful I was for him. He just shrugged and said "Well I just wanted to make sure your heart was okay."According to his mother, this is a typical day in the life of James. Thank you so much to the mothers and fathers who are raising the next generation to be brave and courageous, and to be little earth angels for all. I am so touched.” Weren’t those two stories amazing! The

Be Bold & Fear Not (Be Bold Series)2 Timothy 1:7 “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power, love and self-control.”There is a lot of fear in the world today. There was a lot of fear during the pandemic, but now there may be even more. It seems as though everyone is afraid of something, and some people live in fear all day. People all over the world are fearful. There is so much violence in the world right now. So many people are fighting. In America, there is a lot of fear with the change in government. There are people afraid for their lives, afraid to get sent back to unsafe conditions in their countries. People fear losing their jobs, health care, and benefits like food stamps and social security. People are afraid of losing their rights as American citizens, and many are afraid of losing democracy altogether.There are a lot of reasons to be fearful. These reasons are real; the threat is real, and it makes sense to be cautious. However, we need to remember who we are. We are children of God. He tells us in Matthew 6:27, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Worrying won’t get us anywhere. However, knowing this does not make our fear any less real. I was doing Jeff Cavin’s Walking Towards Eternity bible study during the pandemic. One of the chapters addresses fear. One thing that I think is important to point out is that there is a difference between healthy fear and unhealthy fear. The difference is that a healthy fear keeps you safe and helps you make good choices. For instance, having a healthy fear of God can help you make choices that keep you from sinning. Having a healthy fear of COVID-19 or any disease can help you practice good hygiene and make other choices to prevent spreading the virus. An unhealthy fear is one that keeps you trapped in some way. For instance, you are so afraid of COVID-19 that you don’t leave your house even when necessary or spend every moment of the day afraid you might catch the virus. One of the questions I found in the chapter that I thought would be especially relevant for everyone right now was, “What practical steps can be taken to overcome fear?” Did you know that fear, all on its own, triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses and activates more than 30 different hormones? Here are several practical steps you can take to conquer your fear.1. Turn your fear over to God. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5. As soon as you notice you are having a fearful thought, take a moment and hand that thought over to God. 2. Ask yourself if this fear is a legitimate fear/scenario. Is it likely that the thing you are afraid of will happen? Oftentimes, we worry about things that never happen. Mark Twain once said, “I… have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”3. Educate yourself: “Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear … The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.” (Catechism 1784) Learn your faith, learn to know God, the more you know and understand the word of God the less you will be afraid.4. Understand your fear: Some fears are based on personal experience, and some are a result of culture and past experiences. Understand how your fears came to be. Understand how it comes on, how it makes you feel, and what level of intensity it is.5. Visualize Courage: What would it look like if you did not have this fear? What would it look like if you overcame this fear? What if this fear did not exist in your life? 6. Act as if: If you act courageously in a gradual way, you will overcome the limiting story you tell yourself. For instance, if you are afraid to give a presentation, one way to start overcoming this fear is to give a short presentation to a family member. When you are comfortable with that, you could give the presentation to a close friend and then to a not-so-close friend. The point of this is to step outside of your comfort zone slowly and then gradually expand your comfort zone. 7. Move towards your fear: Instead of running away from your fear, turn around and face it. Write down 5-10 ideas of ways you can face your fear in some small way, and then act on these ideas daily . 8. Don’t live in Denial: It is important to examine how your fear is limiting you. Sometimes, we are so used to our everyday routine that we don’t see the ways our fear has us trapped.9. Fortitude: “The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes one even to renounce and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause. ‘The Lord is my strength and my song.’ ‘In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’” (Catechism 1008) Keep going, even when you don’t want to, even when you are afraid. 10. Channel you

Be Bold & Be Strong & Courageous (Be Bold Series)Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”I saw this verse on my refrigerator this morning. A few years ago, someone gave me one of the desk calendars. Each day, a new page features a new picture of amazing scenery worldwide. The calendar also includes a different Bible verse. I hung this one on the fridge because I needed the reminder. Today, I know several of you need this reminder, too!This is a great reminder to be strong and courageous. A lot is happening in the world right now, both in our own families and our own houses and the world at large. I know people who are scared because their loved ones had major surgery, and their recovery is going slow. They are worried that things won’t get back to normal or that it will be a long and painful road back to normal. I know someone living in her car right now who is tired of not having a safe place to sleep at night. I know someone else who is always scared, and she is unsure why. As you can see, there are many reasons why I thought this would be a great verse for today’s devotional.In this verse, the Lord reminds us not to be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Do we know this already? I wonder if we are scared even though we know the Lord is with us always or if we forget this and that is why we are scared. It can be one thing to know the Lord is always with you and another to know He will take care of everything. I was talking with a friend the other day, and she knows the Lord is with her always, and yet she can’t help but be scared of things. This fear that she has did not just develop overnight. She has carried it with her from childhood and is only now finding some freedom from it.Isn’t it amazing how things from our childhood or past can have such a strong influence on our present and future? Often, we don’t even realize our past is creeping into our present. We know we are scared of something but don’t know what. Maybe we are scared of our boyfriend or husband leaving us. We don’t know where this fear is coming from, and yet, if we look back at our past history, we have had loved ones leave us. We might be afraid that our loved one will not recover completely from surgery, and when we look back, we see that in the past, we knew people who had surgery and didn’t recover.Our past can creep in and try to make us afraid of the future. This is one of the enemy's favorite tricks. He loves to use our past against us. He loves to point out all the places where we messed up in the past and try to get us to believe we will do it again. He loves to point out all the places where people have hurt us in the past and get us to believe they will do it again. We are not our past. Just because something has happened in the past does not mean it will happen again.It is not easy to be strong and courageous. If it were, everyone would be doing it, and this world wouldn’t be such a scary place. However, it is possible. It says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity but of power, love, and self-discipline.” We were not born with a spirit of fear and timidity. God created us with a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. However, sometime in the course of our lives, a lot of us have lost or forgotten about the spirit that God created us with. We have become afraid and timid. It is time to reclaim our true nature, our true spirit.The question is, how do we do that? How do we reclaim our spirit of power, love, and self-discipline? I think we can do it by remembering what this verse tells us. We must remember that the Lord is with us wherever we go. I think sometimes we think that we can go places that the Lord won’t follow. For instance, we are stuck in a pit of despair, and so there is no way the Lord would be with us there. Guess what? He is right there next to you in that pit. We think He won’t follow us into the hospital or home from the hospital. He is right beside you as you do your best to help your loved one. God does not leave your side, no matter where you go. If you are sleeping in your car, God is sleeping right there next to you.God is always by our side, and the more we can remember this, the more we will be able to be strong and courageous. The more we believe that God is right there with us, the more we will trust in His protection. I have heard many stories of people who have been scared and cried out to the Lord, and miraculous things have happened. For instance, one time, a woman was about to walk down an alley and saw a man who looked pretty scary at the end of the alley. She asked the Lord for protection. The next day, she read in the paper that a woman was attacked in that same alley that same night. She went to the police station to help ID the man she saw in the alley. When she asked him why he did not attack her

Be Bold & Be Christ-LikePhilippians 1:20 “No matter what, I will continue to hope and passionately cling to Christ so that he will be openly revealed through me before everyone’s eyes. So I will not be ashamed! In my life or in my death, Christ will be magnified in me.”I have really enjoyed reading through Philippians this week. There were so many good verses. I started at the end and worked my way forward. I am unsure why it worked out that way, but it did. I read this verse yesterday, and it stuck with me, so I wanted to share it with you today. This is something for which we can all aspire. We can all continue to have hope and passionately cling to Christ so that when others see us, they see Him.Paul says, “In life or in my death, Christ will be magnified in me.” How great is that? How great would it be to know that you have helped to bring others to Christ, not only in life but in death, too? This makes me wonder, what am I doing to magnify Christ? When people look at me and how I live my life, do they see Christ?I will always remember what Father Mike said on the podcast Catechism in a Year. He said to take a minute and imagine it is illegal to be Christian. Luckily, this is not the case in America, but pretend it is. He said to imagine now that you are on trial for being a Christian. Besides going to Mass or your church service on the weekend, would they have enough evidence to convict you? I don’t know why this has stuck with me over the past two years, but I think it is a compelling question.Many of us go to church on Sunday. We love God, and we think that is all we really need to do. However, we are all called to be Christlike. We are called to be Jesus's face to all we meet. Jesus said we need to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and then He also said we need to love our neighbor as ourselves. I think this is the part that we often forget. I think we all remember to try to love God, although I am unsure if we try to do it with our whole heart, mind, and soul. I think we try to love God when it benefits us. We all remember God when times are hard; I hope we remember Him when times are good, too.We often forget to love our neighbors. This doesn’t just mean the person living next to us; it means everyone we interact with. If we had a private investigator following us for a week to look at our behavior and try to gather evidence that we were a Christian, would they find any evidence? Would they see you being compassionate to all those you interact with, whether you know them or not? Would they see you being patient and considerate when you are driving around? Would they see you being kind and helpful to the poor? Would they see you were a Christian when interacting with the various people you met throughout your day? How did you treat that one co-worker who always gets on your nerves? How did you treat that person who cut you off in traffic? How did you treat that person who cut you in line just as you finally reached the front? What about the homeless person who asked you for money?How we treat others matters. We can’t simply focus on our relationship with God and disregard the rest of the world. We can’t claim to love God and then treat others unkindly. Our actions toward others reflect our faith and our commitment to living a Christlike life. When others look at our lives, they should be able to see Christ in all that we do. Jesus addresses this in the Gospels. God would not have ensured this was in the Bible if it didn’t say something we should pay attention to. The following verse shows us how important it is to care for everyone we meet.Matthew 25:31-46 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[f] you did it to me. “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked

Be Bold & Trust (Be Bold Series)Psalm 56:3-4 “But in the day that I'm afraid, I lay all my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart. What harm could a man bring to me? With God on my side, I will not be afraid of what comes.”Today, I decided to read from the Jesus Calling Devotional. I have not done that in a while; I am unsure why. For those of you who don’t know, this is a devotional book written as if God is speaking to you each day. It is really good and often says exactly what you need to hear for that day. Today’s spoke right to me. It reminded me how important it is to trust God in all times with all things. It is just as important to trust Him with the small things as it is to trust Him with the big things. I will read today’s devotional for you, as I think it will speak to you just as much as it spoke to me.“TRUST ME with every fiber of your being! What I can accomplish in and through you is proportional to how much you depend on me. One aspect of this is the degree to which you trust me in a crisis or major decision. Some people fail miserably here, while others are at their best in tough times. Another aspect is even more telling: the consistency of your trust in me. People who rely on me in the midst of adversity may forget about me when life is flowing smoothly. Difficult times can jolt you into awareness of your need for me, whereas smooth sailing can lull you into a stupor of self-sufficiency.I care as much about your tiny trust-steps through daily life as about your daily dramatic leaps of faith. You may think that no one else notices, but the One who is always beside you sees everything — and rejoices. Consistently trusting in me is vital to flourishing in my presence.”Do you see what I mean when I say it often says exactly what you need to hear for the day? I love that it is written as if God is saying it directly to you. This is truly how God talks to us. I am not sure how many of you listening have taken the time to sit and listen to what God has to say to you. If you have not, give it a try today. God wants to talk to each one of us, and yet the world around us is so noisy it is hard to hear him. However, if we sit down and take the time to listen, we will hear what He wants to tell us. This can take time and also practice. The more time you spend trying to hear God talking to you, the more clearly you will hear Him. The more you will begin to recognize what He sounds like to you.I have a journal, and I try to write in it as often as possible. In 2020, I changed the way I write in my prayer journal. I used just to write God about my day and what was going on in my life. I still do this, but I don’t just do this. Now, I try to stop and take the time to listen to what God has to say back to me. This has been amazing. I have spent a lot of time listening and have given the Lord time to speak into my life, and it has been life-changing. You would be surprised what the Lord wants to say to you if you only gave Him the time to say it. He is so gentle and affirming.Sometimes, we think we wouldn’t want to hear what the Lord has to say because we feel we aren’t doing a very good job, and He probably wouldn’t have anything nice to say to us. This is not true. That is what the enemy wants you to think so that you don’t stop and give the Lord time to speak love, light, and truth into your life. When you give Him the time and you listen, you will be surprised at how nicely He talks to you. You will be surprised at how much He loves you. Even in our brokenness, even in our sin, He still speaks so much love to us. It is truly amazing.This is why I started ending each episode with the Word from the Lord that He gave to our prayer group. The more we all start hearing the way He talks to us, the more we will start to recognize it when we hear Him talking in our own lives. Here is what I do when I write to the Lord. I write Him a letter, and then I ask Him to answer me using my pen, and then I start to write a letter back to myself. I don’t question what comes to mind; I don’t overthink it; I write everything that comes to mind. Does that mean that everything I write down is from the Lord? No, probably not. However, I asked Him to answer me, and when we ask, He answers, so I trust that what I am writing down is from Him.After you are done writing it down, you can re-read it and see what you wrote and how it makes you feel. If you wrote anything down that makes you feel bad, shameful, or guilty, that is probably not from the Lord. That is not how He talks to us. Sometimes, He will convict us of something if we are doing something wrong. However, He doesn’t use shame and guilt to do it. God does not condemn us. He lovingly points us in another direction and then gives us the strength to go in another direction. Anything you are not sure of, you can take to discernment. You can ask the Lord to clarify; you can ask the Lord to explain more, and you can always go deeper with what you got in the lett

Witness Wednesday #149 Day of ReflectionToday’s Witnesses are from a Day of Reflection that I went to last Saturday. The Charismatic Renewal Service of Boston put it on, and some Encounter Ministry students ran it from the Boston Campus. Year 2 students at Encounter need to do a project before they graduate to show they have learned what they were taught. It was a really special day filled with praise and worship, adoration, mass, and fellowship, and we had a section where people could receive individual prayer for impartation and prophecy. We asked the Lord what call he had placed on their life and what gifts they might need for that call. Any gifts he has given us that they may need, we imparted our gifts on them. It was really amazing, the things that the Lord showed us. The group I participated in ran very smoothly, and the Lord was so good to confirm most of what we were hearing. The participants said they were moved and that what was said really resonated with them. There was a time for large group sharing towards the end, and these witnesses were shared during that time.One woman named Nancy said that they did the project so they could give back to the community. “And when I see three people from my prayer community that gave the Life in the Spirit seminar, that was my introduction to faith-filled Catholics. And it was my gateway to be reconciled to the Lord, to come back to the faith. The Life in the Spirit seminar is a series of talks; they kind of lay out the gospel message. I had such an experience of the presence of Jesus at that seminar. And it just changed my life.And I've had such a beautiful life since. So I was so happy that in some way, I hope, I could give back to Gail, Carolee, and my husband Mike for all the years that they've accompanied me on my faith walk. And so I'm enjoying it.Next, Mike spoke and said, “Today has been a blessing to me. Just a flood of beautiful blessings and memories since I've been in the Spirit. It started off right when I walked through the door and was given a book a book by Father Ralph Diorio, who died recently.I had been to one of his healing services. And I heard he's going to be in Franklin, the next town from us, in that way. And for healing services, a big deal, St. Mary's Church, you have to get tickets. You want to sit in the upstairs church. I wasn’t going to go, but then they said, there's a bunch of women, from one of the senior housings, they want somebody to drive them there. All right I guess I will go. So we're down in the basement. Beginning of the service, Father had some kind of word of knowledge thing and announced a few ailments that he felt the Lord wanted to heal. If you had the problem he was talking about he wanted you to come up to where he was.He started talking about a man who had this and that. I started to think, I have those problems. Then he said a man who recently had back surgery. I said, I'm getting a throbbing throat. He's talking about me. And so I went up, and they had about five of us sitting in the sanctuary when he went through his healing service.And then he prayed with the other ones, one, two, three, four. Then he got to me. Now, what are you here for? Well, I'm the back person. He said, Okay. You can sit down. I'm going to look at you. He said, Did you know your one leg is shorter than the other? I said, Not really, because it wasn't significant. So he said, Stretch out your legs. And the way this ran, it was like a closed circuit TV. So the people in the basement in the lower church could see what was going on.And so the camera behind me was focused right on my feet. The people in the upper church couldn't see what was going on. But some of my neighbors and their friends down there, they could see. We saw your leg grow. Yes. Now, frankly, it was just a little bit shorter. And nothing had ever bothered me. But I said, you know, I always wear out the heels of my shoes faster. So that was true, I guess.So it was nothing that even fascinated me. So okay, well, that's interesting. But it turns out my neighbor, who was also there, had a son who was a little older than the toddler. He had some kind of growth, I don't know what you'd call it, abnormally, where one of his legs was growing less than the other. At his next doctor's appointment, the doctor told my neighbor’s son, “Oh, you're okay now.” So I said, I think mine was just a sign for what was going on with my neighbor’s son. Next we heard from another Nancy:As I was preparing to be on the team today, you know, I took a day and I fasted. And I prayed that I could hear Him for each person that I was going to pray over. I get nervous. And God, in his faithfulness, is easy. He gives us the graces so easily that in praying over people, a word would just come. Not that I had prepared it or thought about it or whatever. And so, God is faithful. And I have learned over and over again and still need to learn over and over again to just trust in him to relax and step back an

Be Bold & Ask For More! (Be Bold Series)Isaiah 40:28-31 “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”“He will not grow tired or weary.” I thought of two things when I read this. The first was, wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice not to grow tired or weary? I know a lot of us have been feeling tired and weary lately. A lot is going on in our world, and we are ready for a break. This is why my first thought was, wouldn’t that be nice. My second thought was, do we believe this? Do we believe that God doesn’t grow tired and weary? I wondered this because I feel as though often times we treat God as though this is not true. We treat God as if He is not the almighty and powerful Lord that does not grow tired or weary.I say this because we tend to be cautious with our prayers. We save up our prayers for the really important times, as if we only get so many, and we don’t want to run out. This may sound silly, but you know you have all thought that at one time or another. Maybe you didn’t think that exact thought, but you did hold back from asking God for something because it wasn’t that important, and He had bigger things to think about. We have all done this. We want to pray that our child wins the football game, but then we feel guilty because there are people with real problems, and we are taking God’s attention away from them to ask Him to help our kids win a football game or to help me find a parking spot. This verse is telling us something that we already know on some level but have trouble believing. God does not grow tired or weary. God can help you with your small request and help someone else with their giant request all at the same time. He can do it all and still not grow tired or weary. He is that amazing.The next line in the verse says that no one can fathom his understanding. We can’t even begin to understand all that the Lord knows. We see how he is working in our lives, and we think He is a little crazy, or we think He is upset with us because things aren’t going our way. We don’t understand that all these things are happening so that His plan for us to have ridiculous goodness can come to fruition. We needed to lose that job to get this better one. We needed to lose that sense of security to appreciate it when we regained it. We needed to go through that hard time to show someone else they can get through it, too. We can’t fathom the Lord’s understanding. It’s just like it says in Isaiah 55:8: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.” The Lord knows what He is doing. It is ok if we don’t understand. It will all make sense one dayThe next line says, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” This is something that can help us if we can remember it. He gives strength to the weary. How long have we been weary for? Did we know that God would give us strength? Did we ask for it? If a lot is weighing down on your heart, I want you to know I am right there with you. There isn’t a single person I know right now who is coasting through life with no troubles. We are all weary. I think it is a condition of living in a broken world. We are imperfect; we all hurt each other, sometimes without even knowing it. We have fallen into an age where our own pleasure and our own wants trump all else. We don’t want to hurt our loved ones, and we also don’t want to give up the things that we want. We are weary because we are trying to exist in a world that doesn’t understand the Christian way of life. We are weary because we rely on the world to give us our strength when our Lord sits by, watching and trying to offer us the strength we need. However, we are so busy trying to do it all ourselves that we don’t see him there handing it out. What is coming to me right now is that we need to stop turning to the world to get our strength and our power. Yes, the world does offer us power, and it might feel good for a while to have that power. However, if you find your power from he world, you will never be fulfilled. You will always be searching for more. You will have this part of you that will always feel empty. However, if you turn to the Lord and ask him for your strength and power, He will fill you up completely. You will be lacking nothing. It says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in

Be Bold & PersevereHebrews 10:36 "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”This was one of the verses I typed for our August discernment notes for the Prayer Group. The message translation came up when I looked up the verse on biblegateway.com to check out different versions. I love the message translation because it puts it in our current terms. It takes what the Bible says and uses common everyday language to tell us what they are talking about. Another thing it does is group verses together. So, instead of having verse 36, it had verses 32-39 all lumped together. This way, you don’t take any verses out of context. I don’t always use this translation when writing the devotional, but I frequently look at it to ensure I understand what is being said. Today, I didn’t intend to look up the message translation; it just came up, and the verses blew me away. When I get a verse, I often read it before and after it. When I do this, I sometimes switch to those verses. The verses before this one give us much more context into what this verse means.Here is the message translation for Hebrews 10:32-36, “Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn’t touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don’t throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It’s still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God’s plan so you’ll be there for the promised completion.”I loved these verses because they explain how hard it can be to stick with something. When we start something new, we are excited and go all in, or at least I do. I always want to do it because it is new and exciting. Even if it is hard work, it can still be exciting, and we can still be motivated. However, what about when it is not new or exciting anymore? Think about a hobby you started. You were so excited about it that you bought all the things to go with it and did it all the time. When I got married, my neighbor started selling Creative Memories scrapbooking supplies. To support her, I started a scrapbook for Tony and me. Then, when I had kids, I got more into scrapbooking. I would stay up late doing it. My fellow moms and I would have scrapbooking nights going well into the mornings. I bought more and more stuff, and I loved it. Then, as I had more kids and they got to ages where they were into more stuff, I slowly got away from scrapbooking. Now, I have two bookshelves full of supplies, and I rarely ever scrapbook. I also got into running during COVID-19, and I was excited to go out and run. Not excited every day, but excited enough to get myself out there. I don’t think I ran much at all this past year. Our interests come and go. Our relationship with the Lord should remain a constant in our lives.The letters to the various communities in the New Testament addressed the people of the early church. Jesus came here to set up a new kingdom in this world. This religion was new and exciting. It was familiar in some ways and radically different in other ways. People were excited, and they were all in at first. People were excited about this new religion, and yet it was not an easy life for those who believed in Christ. Nowadays, if you believe in Christ, you may have some persecution, but nothing like they received back at the beginning.Right after Christ died, there was a lot of persecution. Many could not openly worship, and if they were caught, they were put in jail or they were killed. Peter was crucified, Paul was beheaded, Andrew was also crucified, Thomas was pierced through with spears, Philipp was arrested and cruelly put to death, Matthew was stabbed to death, Bartholomew was a martyr for the Gospel, James was stoned and then clubbed to death, Simon, the zealot, was killed after refusing to sacrifice to the sun god, Matthias was burned to death, & John was the only one to die of natural causes. It was not easy to be a Christian when these letters were being written. This is why the early church fathers wrote letters to their people. They wanted to encourage them to keep believing.These verses do just that. “Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them.” This reminds them of how they felt when they first came to know Christ. They are reminding them that times were hard even from the beginning, and yet they followed Christ anyway. They were kicked around, and they were abused in all sorts of ways, and yet the Lord was still with them, and they were still with

Be Bold & Pray (Be Bold Series)Ephesians 6:18-20 “Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.”Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. Praying in the Spirit, to me, means praying in tongues. It says in Romans 8:26, “ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” In other words, we don’t know how to pray, but if we allow the Spirit to take over for us, then He can pray what we really need to pray. I am not sure how many of you listening to this podcast have prayed in tongues before or even believe that praying in tongues is something people do. I thought I would take a moment to explain what happens when you pray in tongues. When you are praying in tongues, your mouth and vocal cords are making sounds that most of the time do not sound anything like real words. You do not know what you are saying when you are praying in tongues. It is a conversation between the Holy Spirit and the Lord. The Holy Spirit is speaking what it finds in your heart and sharing that with the Father.When looking up the meaning of this verse, two different sites talked about how living and praying in the Spirit was about more than just our thoughts and our desires. Praying in the Spirit also has to do with our submission to God. We need to realize that we are dependent on the Lord for all things. It is about turning to God and asking Him to help us, and then we also trust that He will help us and His help will be whatever is best for us. Then the verse says to keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. When I first read this, I thought it was asking us to persevere in asking the Saints for their help. However, upon research, this verse is actually asking us to persevere in supplication for the saints, not from the saints. It is asking us to pray not only for the things that we need but also for the needs of other believers. It talks about how we are to pray persistently and about all matters. Although we might not be able to pray out loud every second of every day, it is important to develop the habit of praying consistently. When something comes up, no matter how big or how small, our first thought should be to share it with the Lord. We need to turn to Him no matter how small the matter is. The second half of this verse talks about St. Paul. St. Paul was imprisoned because he was sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Now, in this message, he is asking for prayers so that he may speak boldly about the message of the Gospel. He is still in prison when he writes this, and that is why he is saying that he is an ambassador in chains. How many of us would be willing to continue to proclaim the Gospel if we were sitting in jail for doing that very thing? Take a minute to think about it, would you? I have prayed for a holy boldness ever since I knew that was a thing. I don’t remember when I learned about holy boldness or where I first heard that term, but I instantly loved it. If you don’t know, let me share something with you: I am a crier. I cry when I see a sad movie or TV show. I cry when I see a happy movie or TV show, especially if I didn’t expect the happy ending. I cry when I am upset, I cry when I am nervous, and I cry when I am happy. Sometimes, I don’t even know why I am crying. I can feel the tears falling down my cheeks, but I don’t feel sad, and so I don’t know why I am crying. I have been told that tears can be a gift from the Holy Spirit. They have never felt like a gift. I know some people who can’t cry. Due to their upbringing, things that have happened to them in their past, or some other reason, they can’t cry. No matter how hard they try. So when they see me cry, they feel that it is a gift. I guess it all depends on how you look at it. The reason I mention this is because this is a big part of the reason I never really talked about my faith to people unless they started the conversation. I was afraid that if I got nervous and started to cry, they would think I was crazy. I still don’t really like to walk up to someone that I don’t know and start a conversation. However, I am getting better at this as I have been asking God to help me with this for a very long time now. I remember the first time I felt called to ask someone if I could pray over him. It was a silent retreat, and I had just been given the gift of speaking in tongues. This guy was really suffering, and I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to pray over him. I didn’t know this guy. I hadn’t ever talked to him. The only reason I knew he was hurting was because he shared that on t

Be Bold & Spread The Gospel (Be Bold Series)Ephesians 3:7-13 “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.”It was tough to pick a verse this morning. I have been reading Ephesians, and there are so many good verses in there. I kept reading and re-reading chapters 1 and 2, and so many things were jumping out at me, but I didn’t feel like any of those verses were the ones I was supposed to talk about today. Then I went on to chapter 3, and this verse jumped out at me. I felt the Lord wanted me to speak to you about evangelization today. If you are like me, that word might scare you a bit.When I hear that word, I want to look around and see who else the Lord might be talking to. When I hear that word, I instantly feel inadequate. Why is this? I know several Gospel stories and parables, so it is not as if I don’t know what’s in the Gospel. I know that God is love, which is the most important word to get out there. I know it is essential that people discover the love God has for them. I know these things, so why do I feel so afraid when I hear someone say that we are all called to share the good news with everyone we meet?St. Paul was an extraordinary man and a great evangelizer. He is credited with writing about half of the books in the New Testament. Yet, in this opening verse, it says, “Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, to preach to the Gentiles.” St. Paul knew he was called to be an evangelist as well. He knew his calling was to spread the word of the Gospel to all he met, but he really didn’t feel qualified.I take comfort in this. I take comfort in knowing I am not the only one who gets nervous when I look at the call the Lord has placed on my life. I also hate to be the bearer of bad news, but God has also put this call on your lives. We are all called to bring the Gospel to all we meet. Does your stomach feel funny when I say that? Do you get nervous when you realize God calls you to spread His word? If you do, you are not alone. I don’t know anyone who is only excited and not nervous to go out and share the Gospel. Don’t get me wrong, I know people who are excited to share the Gospel with others; however, they are nervous about doing it and feel inadequate to do it. I don’t know anyone who sets out to evangelize, thinking they know everything and that it will be easy.This is why the next line is so important. It says, “This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him.” This verse says we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him. Jesus can give us the boldness we need. Let me read you this part in the message translation. “I have been made a messenger of this wonderful news by the gift of grace that works through me. Even though I am the least significant of all his holy believers, this grace gift was imparted when the manifestation of His power came upon me. Grace alone empowers me so that I can boldly preach this wonderful message to non-Jewish people, sharing with them the unfading, inexhaustible riches of Christ, which are beyond comprehension.”I love that this translation says, “by the gift of grace that works through me.” Grace is a gift from God. Grace can help us do things we could never do on our own. The verse also says, “Grace alone empowers me so that I can boldly preach this wonderful message.” God is calling us all to share the Gospel with all we meet. This means that He will equip us with all the grace we need to do so. If you feel inadequate to share the Gospel, join the club; we all feel inadequate. However, that doesn’t mean we get to excuse ourselves from doing it. How we feel doesn’t stop us from fulfilling our calling.There is a podcast I used to listen to called “Do It Scared.” This is what we are called to do. We are called to step out in faith even when we don’t think we are the best person for the job. Who are we to question God’s judgment? We are called to step out in faith even when we are scared. We are called to trust that God’s grace is enough to empower us to do what He has called us. We are called to step out wit

Today’s Witness is actually from the Encounter School of Ministry Website. The Encounter School of Ministry has healing services in person and also online. Gabriella was watching this healing service on Zoom. She was suffering from Lupus and had a lot of inflammation. Her story is miraculous and so exciting. It is exciting not just for Gabriella and her family but for us, too. It is exciting for us because if God will do it for Gabriella, He will do it for you, too!! Anything is possible with the Lord! No matter what you are struggling with, don’t give up! Keep praying for the Lord to heal you!! Here is Gabriella’s testimony. We have all seen God working in our lives. However, we might not all be aware it is God working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience of how God has worked or is working in your life, please email me at [email protected] or click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. Music:"Adding the Sun"fine us. It is not fun, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com CLICK HERE TO DONATE CLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emails CLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily life CLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Be Bold And Ask God (Be Bold Series)Acts 4:29-31 “And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your Word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.”Last night, I attended the East Coast Encounter Ministry Conference. I was so happy to be there. I love being in a room that is full of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever had the privilege? Have you ever been in a room where you could feel the Holy Spirit? I am not even talking about when you have a sense that the Holy Spirit might be there. I am talking about when you walk into a room, and you can feel the Holy Spirit is there in a big way. It is a feeling I can’t quite describe. There is so much joy in the room. It is truly amazing. Last night was one of those nights. The conference started with worship, which is how we should start anything. Even your own personal prayer time will be more meaningful if you start it with praise. God loves when we praise Him. There isn’t one certain way that we need to praise Him. He leaves the how up to us. My favorite way is to listen to Christian music and sing along. Maybe you would prefer to tell God how great He is or call out various names for Him. The choice is yours. After worship, we had prayer time, where a Deacon spoke words of prayer and words of prophecy over the whole group. Next, we had a speaker talk to us about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was a wonderful and funny talk. I am sure I will pass along some of what I learned at a later date. Right now, I am just letting it all sink in. After the talk, there were prayer teams that were set up to do individual prayers over people. It was so beautiful. There were people who were overcome with the Holy Spirit everywhere you looked. It was amazing. The Holy Spirit definitely showed up there last night. However, I wasn’t surprised as He always shows up when we call on Him. He is so good like that. He wants to give us all He has, His gifts and His fruits; we just aren’t usually asking for them.The speaker went through several scriptures tonight, one of which was the scripture above. I liked how this verse begins because the person writing this verse is telling God to “look at their threats,” talking about the Jews that killed Jesus. It’s as if the speaker is telling God something He didn’t already know. There is nothing that goes on that God does not know about. He not only knows about it while it is going on, He knew about it long before it started. He knows everything, from the beginning of time until the end. It wasn’t necessary for Peter or John, whoever was speaking at that time, to make that statement and yet it speaks to their human nature. It is tough for us to wrap our heads around the fact that God knows everything. So, sometimes, oftentimes, we feel the need to remind Him of what we are going through. What Peter and John are looking for in this verse is boldness, along with signs and wonders to be performed in Jesus’ name. They understand what they are up against. They are trying to spread the Gospel to people who lived the same time Jesus lived and yet still don’t believe. They are trying to spread the Gospel at a time when they could be put in jail, stoned to death, or crucified just for saying Jesus’ name. They know if they want to have any chance at being successful in their mission, they will need to preach with a holy boldness. They know if they expect people to believe them they need also to have signs and wonders to back up their teaching. It would be so great if we could all believe without seeing, but that is not how a lot of us work. We need to see first and then believe. The apostles knew this. What happened after they asked for boldness, signs, and wonders? “When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.” What happened? God answered their prayers. He always does! He is good like that. I know there may be a lot of people in your life that you can’t count on. We live in a fallen and broken world. However, God is not one of these people. You can count on God to answer your prayers every time you ask. He will never let you down. I feel like I should say something about that last statement. Every time I write that statement, I wonder if this is true. When I say He will never let you down, I mean He never says He will do something and then fails to do it. He never breaks His promises. He never leaves us. He is always with us. He always answers your prayers. There is never a time when you are asking for something and He is ignoring you. He always comes through.I think why I get this funny feeling when I write that God never lets us down becaus

Be Bold & Sprinkle Love Like Confetti 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.I liked this verse when I read it for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that it says, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.” I liked the phrasing of it. The verse is saying that they have confidence in God through Christ. They are acknowledging that Christ is the reason the have confidence in God. It is through Him that all things are possible. I like this because it means that all the responsibility for trusting God is not on my shoulders. If I ask, Christ will help me with my confidence in God.The next line says, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God.” I like this because, again, it takes some of the responsibility off of us to have to know how to do it all and to be good at everything. If God asks us to do something, then He will give us all we need to do it. This is sometimes hard to believe. Imagine God asking you to build an orphanage in a foreign country. One where you have never been before. It is difficult to say yes to this when you have no idea how any of the pieces will come together. Maybe you don’t even know how to build anything, and you are not a fan of travel. Maybe you don’t have any money and you don’t have the first clue how to do fundraising. It would be hard to step into this calling when you don’t have any answers. And yet, some people do. God asked Noah to build an arc. He asked him to build an arc in the middle of a drought. Noah had no idea how to build an arc. He was a farmer. Noah had never built an arc before. I don’t think that Noah had all the supplies to build the arc before he said yes to the Lord. God asked Noah to build an arc with very specific dimensions, and Noah said yes. He said yes, not because he knew what he was doing and not because he had all the answers. He said yes because he loved God, and God asked him to. He said yes and relied on the Lord to give him what he would need to complete the project. I wish we all had this kind of trust in the Lord. I wish that when God asked us to do something, we all just said yes. We didn’t think about it, we didn’t weigh the pros and the cons, we didn’t worry about whether we were good enough or not. I wish we just said yes. If God wanted to erase everyone except Noah off the face of the earth, then it seems like the world was in a pretty bad place. The world is in a pretty bad place right now. It seems as though you can be anything you want today except for Christian. You have to be tolerant of everyone else’s beliefs, but no one has to be tolerant of Christian beliefs. Don’t get me wrong, I think that we should be tolerant of other people’s beliefs. I just expect that same respect, and it doesn’t seem to be happening these days. I believe that God is calling us all to action. I believe He wants us to spread the gospel and to live His word every day. This brings me to the next line in this verse, “our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant.” God made the apostles competent ministers of the new covenant. He will do the same for us. If we just say yes, he will equip us with the knowledge and power that we need to spread the good news. If you are anything like me you shrink away from the responsibility to spread the good news. You think to yourself, “Who am I to talk about God? What do I know?” or you say, “There are others much better suited to talk about Jesus. Others that have studied harder or paid attention more.” There are any number of things we tell ourselves to convince us that God may be calling some people, but He isn’t calling me. I am not worthy to serve the Lord. I am not good enough, smart enough, educated enough, or whatever your version of “not enough” is. This is the enemy talking! He has convinced us that we aren’t enough, so God couldn’t possibly use us. All the proof you need to know this isn’t true can be found in the Bible. God never used the most educated men, the most holy people, the people who got everything right. He used normal, everyday people to be his instruments in the world, and He wants to use you. Do not believe the enemy that you are not enough. Are you worthy? No, none of us are worthy, and yet God loves us and wants to use us anyway. God made us in His likeness and image, so we can’t be all that bad. The last part of this verse is a really important part. It is one that I find really interesting and want to dive deeper into. I will touch on it today to draw your attention to it, and then, if you want to dive deeper to understand it better, you can do that. The last part of this verse says, “

I Am Saved! (Identity Series)2 Samuel 22:1-6 “David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge, and my savior— from violent people, you save me. “I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise and have been saved from my enemies. The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.”I heard this verse while typing up the minutes for my prayer group yesterday. I was just going to use the first part, the part that ends with “my refuge and my savior —from violent people you save me.” That was where I was going to stop, and yet I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to include the next few verses, too. The thought came to me, “What if the Lord hasn’t saved them yet? What if they are still stuck in a rough time? They will want to hear the next few lines. They will want to see that David knew the real dangers. I will start at the beginning. “David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of his enemies and from the hand of Saul.” If you don’t know the story of David’s life you should read it sometime, he had a truly fascinating life. Most people know about David and Goliath, and maybe that David is the author of many of the Psalms, and that’s about it. If you only know about David and Goliath, you might think that David has a pretty great life. It seems like if he did something that amazing, he would be instantly famous. In today’s day and age, he would become an influencer and go all over the world talking about how we can all slay our giants. However, this wasn’t David’s fate. David killed the giant and then went back home to tend to his dad’s sheep. One day, the prophet Samuel got the word from God that he needed to go and anoint one of Jesse’s sons as the next king. Samuel saw David’s older brothers and thought for sure they would be the anointed ones because they “looked like kings.” God told Samuel that He will not judge by outside appearance but by inside appearance; he will judge by what is in their hearts. David was not home when Samuel first got there to pick up a son. Once the Lord ruled out all the other sons, Samuel asked if Jesse had any other sons and they sent someone to go get David. David was now anointed with oil to be the next king. After being anointed as the next king you would think that David’s life was not going to get really interesting. Maybe he would go to the palace and learn from the present king. You might think that he was to become king right away. Neither of these is what happened. I believe David went back to taking care of his father’s sheep. From the time that David was anointed King to when he became king was 15 years. During that time, David went to play the Lyre for the current king, Saul, got banished by Saul, hid in the desert, lived on the run, was forced out of the nation, and fought many battles. This was all in the 15 years before David became king. I didn’t intend to go into so much detail about David, and yet I think the Holy Spirit wanted to let us know that life is not linear. It is not that things in life always work out at the time that we want them to. It is not always moving forward. Sometimes you will get great news, like a job promotion is coming and yet that promotion might be three years in the future. You might pray for God to save you from your current boss, and He is, just not yet. You might take three steps forward and two steps back. This is how it was for David. He would have something amazing happen and then nothing. He would be doing great and then find himself hiding in a cave.I feel what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us this morning is that this verse is absolutely true. The Lord is our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer; Our God is our rock, in whom we take refuge, our shield and the horn of our salvation. He is our stronghold, our refuge, and our savior. This is all true and on good days, in good times, we know this, we say this, we tell others this. What about the bad times? Do you still know this? Do we still tell others that God is our rock and our savior when we are in the middle of a really hard time? Do we tell ourselves? Is there a way to rely on the Lord in these hard times?You might be thinking when you first hear David’s songs to the Lord, as he has many, that David is different because he was anointed. Of course, he can rely on God, or, of course, he is taken care of by God; he is anointed. I’ve got news for you my friend, so are you! You were anointed in your baptism as priest, prophet, and king. David was anointed as king, you’ve been anointed for all three. One thing I really admire about David is that he was never too proud to turn bac

I Am Confident (Identity Series)1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”This is one of the verses that was covered in my class last night. In case I didn’t mention this before, I have enrolled in a two-year program with the Encounter School of Ministry. This school was designed and established from the heart of Encounter Ministries. This school draws from the richness of our Catholic heritage as we seek to teach, equip, and activate disciples to demonstrate the love of God through the power of the Holy Spirit in their spheres of influence. In conformity with the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church, we offer students a dynamic 2-year training program designed to take them to the next level in their ministry. I am really loving the class so far. I truly believe that Jesus gave us all the authority to do signs and wonders here on earth when He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit. I am sure I will be using a lot of the Bible verses from class in the podcast so that everyone can see how powerful the Holy Spirit is. This first quarter is all about Identity and Transformation. Last night, I heard something, and I knew I wanted to share that with all of you. Our teacher asked us a question. What is the devil most afraid of? Do you want to take a guess? Maybe you already know, but I don’t think I did. The enemy is most afraid of confident sons and daughters of Christ. Did you know that already? What does that mean? What she meant by confident sons and daughters is that we are confident in who we are as sons and daughters of Christ. We have talked before about how the enemy loves to steal our joy with half-truths. He takes a kernel of truth and then twists it into a lie that we believe hook, line, and sinker. Why do we believe it? Because we are insecure in who we are, and He knows that. Remember when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, and then the Holy Spirit came upon Him, and He went into the wilderness for 40 days? This can be found in Matthew 3 & 4. In Matthew 3:16-17 it says, “And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Immediately after this, Jesus went into the desert for 40 days. In Matthew 4:1-3 it says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Do you see how the devil was trying to get Jesus to question His identity? God had just said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Now the devil is coming in 40 days later when Jesus is hungry and trying to get Him to question His identity. The devil says, “If you are the Son of God.” Luckily, God had just affirmed who Jesus was, and Jesus was confident in who He is. He was not tempted by the devil. I wonder if we can say the same?Are we confident children of Christ? Do we let the enemy get in and twist the truth of who we are? Let's look at this verse and see who we actually are. The verse says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” It starts out by saying we are a chosen race. Did you know you were chosen? God chose you, yes you, to be one of His children. It says so right here in this verse. If this is something you struggle to believe, post it somewhere you can read it multiple times a day. We are a chosen race. You are His chosen child. Next, it says we are a royal priesthood. I was not sure exactly how to explain this, so I looked it up and found the answer on lavendervines.com. “We are a royal priesthood, which means we have direct access and fellowship with God like a priest but are also called to expand the Kingdom of God and influence the world like a king.” I will post a link to her article as she goes into a lot more detail in her article. Basically, we have direct access to God; there is nothing in between us like there was in the Old Testament. The moment Jesus died on our cross, the veil at the temple was torn in two. (Matthew 27:51) This veil in the temple was meant to keep the Holy of Holies apart from the people. Only Priests were allowed to go in there. However, when Jesus died on the cross, that veil was torn in two, and we were granted direct access to the Lord. That is another thing I learned somewhat recently and something that still amazes me. We now have direct contact with the Lord. We don’t have anything standing between us. Next, the verse says, “A holy n

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website, popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose a few testimonies from the Addictions and Deliverance Category. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. When we hear how God worked in their situation, it gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray that when you hear these testimonies, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, also. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your situation, He can help. I hope you enjoy these testimonies.Jim: The story I have is 100% God!!! In the darkest days of my opiate addiction, I went to jail. Then, I received a three-year sentence. I had never been in trouble as a teenager or a young adult.At one point, I overdosed and if God had not put air in my lungs, I would have died. Nobody was around and nobody would have been there for days.God knows our hearts and I went to Greater Cleveland Teen Challenge and completed that phase. Then, I went on to Cape Girardeau Missouri where I completed an additional ten-month program.Jesus Christ set me free from the bondage of drugs and alcohol!Thank you, Lord, for your sovereignty and for calling me out of the darkness and into Your marvelous light!Thomas: For years I was struggling with what everyone else thought about me. I was also struggling with a bad pornography addiction. But then I moved to Florida and during the North Florida Youth Revival I got saved.But after that, for years I bounced between that line of doing what God wanted me to do, and I wanted to do. I realized that I needed to stay on the path of righteousness.Then God brought my amazing girlfriend into my life. With her help I was able to crush my addiction and live a happy life with her and God by my side.But I also want to share a message we all need to hear and that is, God’s not dead.He is alive. Through God anything is possible.Now I know at times it’s hard to see it. But trust me God will do everything He promised us in time. We just have to be patient. God will do everything through his Son Jesus.Jennifer: I wanted to share some of my testimony, since Matthew’s music has been a crucial part of my story. I met his father 3 years ago in Dallas and told him how much Matthew’s song “Strong Enough” had an impact on my life. In November 2013, I was facing my 3rd DWI and time in prison. I constantly had this song playing because I didn’t know what God had in his plans for me, but I didn’t think I could handle prison. I would cry, work out, and praise God while listening to this song. I shouldn’t even be alive with all the abuse I put my body through. But here I am, praising God through it.My attorney told me I was looking at 6-9 months prison time, and I had my 2 year-old son at home. I finally submitted to the Lord. While driving home from the attorney’s office, I told God that if his plan was prison, then “Ok.” I completely submitted for the first time ever. Within 10 minutes of being home, my attorney called me and told me that he’s not sure how, but the district attorney called him and said, he’d give me drug court, which meant tons of counseling and self work, but no prison time!!! I know now, that was GOD stepping in!!!This was the start of me changing EVERYTHING! I was able to become a sober mom, a sober wife, and a beacon of light for others who feel that darkness is all they can see. I started a blog and a website to help others and I now am over 6 years sober, with two sons and a wonderful marriage!!So many of Matthew’s songs touch my heart as they talk about forgiveness, grace, and our amazing God, who saves us no matter what. Even when we feel like we are lost, He doesn’t feel that way.Matthew, this is only a very, very small portion of my story, but I wanted to share how much of an impact you and your songs have made in my life. Thank you for expressing my heart and my words in all of your music. Now I can share your songs with my sons and they can feel the Lord through them as well. Thank you for sharing your heart and God’s spirit in all you do.Brandy: My God moment was over 17 years ago. It started with a bad drug addiction my husband had to cocaine. He was so hooked that when he would finally come home, it was with no money left from his paycheck, and with people he owed money to knocking on our door. He had bad asthma, so when doing the drugs, many times he would have an asthma attack, until one day it was much worse.We had no house phone or cell phone, so I would have to go across the road to my neighbor’s house to use a phone. This particular time he was having trouble breathing. He trie

I Am Heard (Identity Series)Isaiah 38:5 “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.”When I read this verse this morning, my first thought was of a friend of mine. She is really struggling right now, and I felt like God was talking to her when He said, “I have heard your prayers and seen your tears.” Then I got to thinking, and I actually have several friends that are struggling right now. Struggling with some really difficult issues. For all of you who are struggling right now, I want you to know that you are not alone. Life is difficult for so many people right now. On top of all that the world is going through right now, you have had added levels of difficulty. I am so sorry that life has been so hard. Life is not perfect for us either, and yet I can see how the Lord has been with us through it all.What if you can’t see that? What if you don’t know where God was in all of it? You can be someone who loves God and has a close relationship with God, and you can also question where God is and his plan. King David was anointed, and he had a very close relationship with God, yet even He questioned God. Psalm 13:1-3 “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” Have you had these thoughts before? Have you, or are you going through something, and you are wondering how long you have to endure the suffering before God will save you and answer your prayers?If this is your first time, I want to let you know that this is okay. Sometimes, we can make our pain worse because on top of the pain of the situation, we feel guilty because we are questioning the Lord, or we are mad at the Lord. Sometimes our minds say things like, “If I were a good Christian, I would just trust God,” or “I’ve had a relationship with the Lord a long time, I shouldn’t be worried or questioning.” God can handle our questioning and our anger. He is strong enough for anything you have for Him. He wants you to turn to Him in times of need. You are not the only person angry with God and questioning how long you will have to suffer. Trust me. There are many people in the same boat. Please let the guilt go. Please do not judge yourself for questioning. David questioned often, just read the psalms and you will see just how often, and yet God chose David’s lineage to bring forth the savior of the world. Second, I want you to know that this scripture verse is for you. God wants to talk directly to you right now when he says, “I have heard your prayers, and seen your tears.” He is there with you, even when you can’t see Him or feel Him. He is there every moment of your life. I know it is sometimes a struggle to understand why you had to go through some of the things you had to go through. I know that not knowing is sometimes the hardest part. I want to assure you that things will get better. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when. I do know that God wants ridiculously good things for you. It says in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God will get you through these difficult times, and there will be great times on the other side of this hardship. Just hang on. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you will endure this hard time.I want to give you two things that may help you through this difficult time. First, it is from the same psalm that I read from earlier. In Psalm 13, David questioned the Lord and asked how long he would have to suffer. Then he ended the Psalm with verses 5-6: “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.” David does question the Lord, and then he turns back to praising the Lord. Praising the Lord in a difficult time can really be helpful in getting out of that difficult time quicker. Now, I can already hear some of you saying, “But what if I am struggling to trust in God’s unfailing love?” or “What if I don’t know what to say?” This is ok. God knows this. When I struggle to believe in something, I go to Mark 9:24, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”Sometimes, we get to a place where we can’t pray. Has this happened to you? If so, I want you to know you are in good company. I am unsure if you know this, but Mother Teresa had this happen to her. She was so close to the Lord, she was doing His work every single day, and yet she went through really long, like several years long, dry spells where she could not pray. She would enter into her prayer time, and nothing would come. The enemy makes us feel like we are the only ones that these things happen to and that we are awful people because of it. I want you to know that YOU ARE NOT A

I Am Rescued (Identity Series)Psalm 103:4 “You've rescued me from hell and saved my life. You've crowned me with love and mercy.”I think most of us can say that God has rescued us from hell at one point or another. Of course, this hell looks different for each one of us. Your hell might look like years of depression that seem overwhelming. Your hell might be years of anxiety too much to deal with. Your hell might be an abusive relationship that you can’t seem to leave. Your hell might be money troubles that keep getting worse and worse. We all have something we are dealing with. Mine was family trouble for a very long time. It was really difficult to parent my children, and my marriage was not going well. This went on for a very long time. Maybe yours has gone on for a long time, too.When our difficult times go on for a long time, it can be difficult to believe that God will rescue us from them. Understanding why God hasn’t rescued us from these difficult times can be challenging. However, He always does rescue us from them. Not only does he rescue us from them, but he walks with us while we are in them as well. God never leaves our side. He is right there with us each step of the way. In my Encounter Ministries class, they taught us an exercise to help heal wounded memories. The first step is to stop and ask Jesus, “Where were you when this occurred?” Did you know you could ask God questions like this? Did you know asking where He was when you were struggling was okay?Did you know that if you ask and truly listen, He will tell you where He was? That may seem strange to you if you are not used to listening to or hearing the Lord’s voice. Well, actually, it’s not usually the Lord’s voice you hear. It is usually more like you hear your own voice in your head or you get a thought in your head with no voice. But you will get an answer if you listen for one. I remember volunteering to do this exercise in front of the class so the teacher could demonstrate how it works. When I asked Jesus where He was during a specific experience with my boys, He explained that He was right there, giving me the strength to keep getting up each morning. He gave me strength and perseverance, so I never felt like giving up. He was with me through it all.He is doing the same with you. You might have had some truly terrible experiences. Know that Jesus was right by your side through them. I don’t know why He didn’t prevent them from happening. That is something for Him to answer. I know He was there with you; no matter how alone you felt, you were not alone. He was there, walking by your side. God is so good like that!The next part of the verse says, “You've crowned me with love and mercy.” These two things can be challenging for us to understand. We might be unable to believe that the Lord loves us for many reasons. If no one on earth has truly loved us, then it can be hard to believe anyone could love us, let alone someone as magnificent as the Lord. If we have had a hard life and done many things we are not proud of, then we struggle to believe someone could love us. The Lord’s love is unconditional. It is not dependent on what you do or say. It is not dependent on whether you love him back. You do not need to earn God’s love. It is freely given. This can be hard to understand, especially if we had to earn love as a child. We live in a broken world, so we don’t all love unconditionally.The second part of this line also says we are crowned with mercy. The definition of mercy is “compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.” This is why we struggle to believe in God’s mercy. We know He has the power to punish us. We know we deserve that punishment, yet God wants to shower us with His mercy. That doesn’t make much sense to us because that is not how the world thinks. We live in a day and age where we seem to be back to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It seems like if someone does something to you, you have to do something back to them.For instance, when we are on the highway, and someone cuts you off, you have to blare your horn at them. You have to show them they did something wrong. My question is, “Why?” Why do you have to let them know they did something wrong? Can’t we have mercy on them and let them go on their way? I was driving with one of my sons the other day, and he wanted to get into a lane, but the driver wouldn’t let him in. He passed him on the right, and then my son got into that lane. However, my son was so angry that this man passed on the right and didn’t let him in. Where is the mercy? Where is the forgiveness?People seem to get so angry at the slightest offense or at the slightest wrongdoing these days. This makes understanding how God can show us mercy when we have done some pretty big things more challenging. We are a flawed people, and we turn away from God often. So, how can he keep forgiving us when we don’t want to forgive those around us? These a

I Am Part of Something (Identity Series)1 Corinthians 12:26 “ If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”I am listening to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) podcast with Father Mike this year. The last two years, I did the Bible in a Year, and this year, when he started this one, I thought it would be a good one to listen to. The Catechism is basically a rule book for the Catholic Church, and I am definitely a rule follower. Also, I have a lot of friends who are not Catholic, and they wonder why we do a lot of the things we do or why we believe a lot of the things we believe. I don’t want to have to say that is a good question; I have no idea. I love to learn why we believe what we believe. I did not really expect it to be too interesting. I mean, if you read the terms and conditions booklets of any of your appliances, you wouldn’t think that was interesting reading. However, I was wrong; I love listening to the CCC. It’s not just a list of rules. It explains exactly what we believe and why we believe it. I am learning so much from it. It really is beautiful. I came across this verse the other day when listening to the CCC and knew I wanted to share it with you. I am sure I have heard this verse before. I agree with this statement. If one person in your family is suffering, you all suffer together. If one person is honored, you all rejoice together. This makes sense. I can see how this is true. Think about a time when someone in your family was suffering. Did your whole family suffer with them? What about when they were honored? Did the whole family rejoice? I know this is how our family works. Not too long ago, my sister sent a text message that her son was accepted into one of the top High Schools in the United States, and we all rejoiced with her. Another sister found out she was having medical problems, and we all suffered with her. I am sure you will be able to think of many examples in your own family as well. I learned from listening to the CCC that we are all part of the communion of saints. We are all members of the body of Christ. We are members of the communion of saints, and that means that what we do is for everyone; it's not just for us. The CCC says, “In this solidarity with all men, whether living or dead, founded on the communion of saints, the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all.” Whenever we do something good, it is not just for our grace; it’s not just for our good; it is for the good of the whole communion of saints, for the whole body of Christ. Father Mike put it like this: “Every good thing we do, even the smallest thing, is for the community. If you're homebound right now, if you do nothing in the sense that the world would say that's productive or that's important, if you simply unite your prayers and your heart to Jesus and your suffering to Jesus, that doesn't just help you and purify your heart; it helps the entire body. If you just offer that suffering up in love and say, “Jesus, use the suffering, take my suffering and use my suffering, that doesn't just make you holy or sanctify you; it helps everyone. There is no such thing as private virtue or grace. It belongs to all of us. This was really inspiring for me to hear. What are your thoughts on it? The reason I think it is so inspiring is twofold, I think. First, it lets me know that I am part of something bigger than myself. I am part of a community we all are. Sometimes, the world can feel like a scary and lonely place. Knowing we are part of a communion of saints can help us feel less alone. The second part of it is that it helps me see that what I do matters. It matters if I pray because my prayers, as small as they may be, are building up the whole body. My good deeds are not just my good deeds. They help everyone. It makes me realize I am not just part of a community, but I also have a responsibility to do my share in that community.As inspiring as I thought this first part was, the CCC goes on to say in the very next line something that is pretty convicting. It is something that really makes you think. It says, “Every sin harms this communion.” This is not as inspiring, and yet it makes you stop and think. It makes sense. If we are part of a communion of saints, and every good thing we do builds up this communion, then it would make sense that every bad thing we do tears down the communion of saints. It makes sense, and yet it is not really something we want to think about. We like to think about how much our good deeds help everyone else out because it makes us feel good, and yet thinking about how our sins affect others is not something that makes us feel good. Father Mike said there is no such thing as private sin. There is personal sin, sin that I have done on my own, but there is no such thing as private sin because our sin belongs to everyone. In the same way that our good deeds build up the church, our sins tear

I Am Redeemed!Isaiah 44:22 “I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.”“I am redeemed” is something I think we all need to hear. We tend to live in our mistakes. We tend to think about our transgressions a lot. We look at all we have done over our lifetimes, and we decide that God can’t possibly love us because we are a bad person. We judge ourselves so often. I have discovered this is not something that just a few of us do. It is something that all of us do. The more I pray with people, the more I see that we are all struggling with the same things. We struggle with thinking we are enough. We struggle with thinking people don’t like us. We struggle with thinking we are ugly. We struggle with self-hatred.You might be surprised how many people hate themselves. I was at a personal development conference once, and the speaker, Rachel Hollis, said she asked the audience at her last conference to raise their hand if they hated their body. Not if they didn’t like one part or another, but if they hated their body. She said that over 90% of the people in the audience raised their hands. If you hate something about yourself, I hope you know that you are not alone.The problem with hating our body or hating something about ourselves is that God created us. He made us in his likeness and image. He loves us just as we are. He wouldn’t change a thing about us. This is really hard for us to believe. Actually, what just came to my mind is our sin. He would change that, I am sure. I am sure God does not love when we sin. However, that doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us. Have you ever said that to your children? I love you; I just don’t love your behavior. I have said that lots to my kids. It is actually something they have repeated back to me. My sons have told me that they know I will love them no matter what they do.If we, as humans, can say this to our children, why don’t we believe the same could be true for God? God loves us more than we can imagine. He loves us no matter what we do. It says in Matthew 18:12-14 “What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.”God doesn’t love when we mess up, but he knows we are going to mess up. He knows everything about us. When we mess us up, God leaves the 99 to come and find us and bring us home. He doesn’t abandon us. He doesn’t give up on us. He just gently comes to find us and bring us home. The verse ends with, “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.” I have heard many describe God as an old man sitting in heaven just waiting for us to screw up. I can tell by this passage and so many others that this is not what God is like at all. He is rooting for us. He is rooting for me. He is rooting for you!Today’s verse says, “I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.” In today’s verse, the Lord is calling us back to Him. He is telling us not to worry about all we have done. He has swept away our transgressions like a cloud and our sins like mist. This is a great visual. We can imagine our transgressions, and then we can picture them sitting on top of a cloud and blowing away in the wind. Take a minute, close your eyes, and picture some situation, transgression, or interaction that you are not proud of. Most, if not all, of us have situations or interactions that we look back upon from time to time and wish we would have acted differently. Maybe we wouldn’t have said that thing or done that thing.Think about those interactions that you have had that you wish you could change. Now, close your eyes and imagine you can put that situation, interaction, or transgression on a cloud and just watch the Lord sweep it away. That seems so peaceful. Do you feel any lighter? Were you able to let those things go? Let’s hand them over to God; they aren’t doing us any good.Next, the Lord says that our sins turn to mist. This is another great vision. You can picture the sins you have committed. The ones you think could never be forgiven. Those that you confessed at confession and are still holding on to because it is so hard to believe the Lord can forgive you for them. Close your eyes and picture those sins. Then picture them exploding into a very fine mist. It doesn’t have to be a huge explosion. I picture the sin as bubble letters describing the sin, and then I picture the letter popping and turning into a mist. What are you picturing? Are you able to see your sins turn to mist? Why are you struggling to forgive yourself? The Lord has redeemed you. You are no longer your si

Today’s witness is my brother-in-law Billy. On Thanksgiving, he did not show up at his mom’s house for dinner. His family was concerned. He lives right next door, so they went to check on him. He wasn’t there. When they still hadn’t heard from him after some time, they went to check if he was at a friend’s house down the street. This is where they found out that he had fallen down the stairs and hit his head.They called an ambulance, and he was rushed to the hospital. At the hospital, they found out that he had a brain bleed. He had surgery, and they were able to repair the bleeding. However, they said he had been lying there for at least 12 hours before he was found. They were unsure how much damage the bleed had done to his brain. Billy needed to be on a ventilator, and he was in a medically induced coma while the swelling went down. We instantly sent out a request for prayers from everyone we knew. They tried to wake him a few times from the coma, but it didn’t go too well.When I checked in with my sister on December 4th, she said Billy was not worse, but he wasn’t any better either. He was still on the vent. He was still heavily sedated. When the nurses would lighten up the sedation, Billy would respond to cues. They find out that he can move both of his legs and his arms. The next update I had was on December 10th. Billy was still in the coma and still not the vent. However, they were trying to wean him off the vent.The doctors were predicting that he would be in the hospital for at least a week and then he would be in a nursing home, then after the nursing home, when he was strong enough medically, he would need to go to Rehab to relearn how to walk, talk, possibly even have to relearn how to swallow and eat. The doctors were predicting his road to recovery would take at least 2-3 years, and even they couldn’t promise he would ever be able to leave the nursing home. They did not know how severe the damage was and if he would ever be able to do anything for himself.I went to the hospital with my sister on December 15th to pray over Billy for healing. When I was there he was awake, but had the breathing tube in, so he could not talk. He was definitely tracking you when you walked in the room. He seemed to be aware of what was going on. He seemed to react to things going on. For instance, the nurse was doing something, and you could tell he didn’t like it. He seemed to be doing better. However, he did look a bit like he was trapped in his body. His eyes seemed to be trying to communicate, but I am not sure what they were saying.Billy did finally wake up out of the coma, but he was still on the ventilator. The doctors wanted to take the ventilator tube out and put in a trach. My sister knew from previous talks with Billy over the years that he would not want a trach. She remembered sitting with him and looking at photos of people who had to get a trach because of cancer due to chewing tobacco, and he had said he wouldn’t want that. The doctors were really pushing for it as they said that it is not good to have the breathing tube in that long.As you can imagine, with any tragedy, the family did not all agree as to how they should proceed. My sister knew what Billy would want as they had been married for over 25 years at this point. However, others were worried that if he didn’t get the trach, he would die, and they, of course, were not ready for that. No one is ever ready for this. My sister was also worried that if they put the trach in, Billy would be alive but not be able to do anything. She did not want him stuck in his own body for the rest of his life; she knew Billy wouldn’t want this either, and the doctors couldn’t tell her the extent of the brain damage. At this point, they did not know if he would ever talk again, get out of bed again, or remember anything. They had no idea of the extent of the damage.The doctors told my sister they wanted to have a family meeting on December 20th to know whether they could put the trach in or not. My sister knew she didn’t want it and that the rest of the family did. She knew it was going to be a hard meeting and that she was going to be the enemy, the one everyone was mad at. However, she really felt like that is what Billy would want. I called her, and we prayed for clarity and for God to help me make the decision. We prayed for peace in the meeting and for everyone to get along for Billy’s sake. Before the meeting, tensions were high, and people were already fighting and being unkind before even going into the meeting.However, at the meeting, everyone was able to get along. Tensions were calmed, everyone apologized for the bad blood between them, and they all hugged and prayed at the end of the meeting. My sister agreed to taking the breathing tube out the next day and see if Billy could breathe on his own. If he couldn’t, she would allow him to put the trach in and then reevaluate how he was doing in three weeks. Everyone was on board with this plan.She wen

I Am Never Alone (Identity Series)Genesis 2:18 “Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”I wholeheartedly agree with this verse. We were not meant to be alone. This doesn’t mean that we all need to be married or have kids. It just means that we are all meant to have people we do life with. I often talk about how important community is to a fulfilling life. There are very few people who are meant to go through life alone. I know there are hermits out there who dedicate their whole lives to being secluded and spending all their time with God. Most of us are not called to this life. Actually, St. Catherine of Sienna wanted to live this life when she was just a little girl. She ran away from home to live alone in the caves outside her town. An angel appeared to her and told her she was meant to be a light in the world, not separate from it. The same is true for most of us.However, living in the world can be hard because it is often filled with heartache. How we deal with heartache is the key to our success. We need to turn to the Lord for help when we are struggling. It also helps to turn to our friends for support. They can build us up and speak truth and light into the lies and the darkness. However, instead of turning to our friends for support, we tend to separate ourselves from others. We tend to pull away because we don’t want to talk about it or we know others won’t understand.A while back, my heart was hurting for several struggling ladies I know. Actually, every time I look at Facebook, I see messages from people who are struggling. However, that week specifically, there were two ladies who did not know each other or live near each other who had 15-year-old children who had to go to court. There are two other women who are not able to spend the holidays with their children for one reason or another. Then, I saw a post about a friend who was really hurting because she could not see her oldest child graduate college. While thinking about all the people who are hurting right now, I wish everyone knew, like in the depths of their hearts, that they are never alone. So many of us think we shouldn’t talk about what is happening because no one will understand or no one else is going through the same thing. People think that they will be judged or deserve the bad thing happening to them. This is not true!There are 7 ½ billion people in this world. Whatever it is that you are going through, someone else is going through the same thing right now at this same time. There are also people who have gone through it already and can shine a light into your darkness. They can show you one way to get through your situation. They can also give you hope because if they got through it, you can too! Talking about the difficult things you are going through with people you know and trust can be so therapeutic. Sometimes, we don’t want to talk about our problems because we don’t want to bother people, especially if they have their own troubles. Our friends and loved ones want to help us. It is not a bother for them to hear how you are suffering. Sometimes, it can even help them with their troubles as well. You will be amazed how much stronger your relationships can get when you are able to open up and let people in to help. Another reason talking about your struggles can be helpful is that you may be further along in your journey than someone else who has the same struggles. You may be talking with someone with the same issue but are afraid to talk about it. Hearing you talk about it can show them that it is ok to talk about what they are going through. I have seen this happen in numerous Facebook groups. Someone is vulnerable and shares their story; then, someone else reads it and feels the courage to share it. I truly feel that it is the work of the enemy to make us feel so alone. He is there whispering in our ears all the reasons we should not talk about what is bothering us. He wants us to keep our troubles to ourselves because when we feel alone, we feel hopeless. I am unsure if you have read or seen Harry Potter, but there was a scene where the main character, Harry, was struggling with feeling alone. Every time Harry was with his friends, he would push them away. Harry would tell them they just didn’t understand. They wanted desperately to be there for him, but he would not let them. Harry then went for a walk and ran into another friend. He explained that he felt like he was alone and no one believed him. She said, “I don’t think that is true. Although, I suppose that is how he wants you to feel.” When Harry asked what she meant, she said, “Well, if it's just you all alone, then you aren’t that much of a threat.” I believe it is the same with our enemy. If we are alone and not talking with our family and friends about how we are feeling, then the only voices that we have are the enemy’s whispers. However, if we reach out and tell our story to those who

I Am Treasured (Identity Series)Exodus 19:3-6 "As Moses went up to meet God, God called down to him from the mountain: “Speak to the House of Jacob, tell the People of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to me. If you will listen obediently to what I say and keep my covenant, out of all peoples you’ll be my special treasure. The whole Earth is mine to choose from, but you’re special: a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”One of my friends sent this verse in a Facebook messenger chat. Her mother just had heart surgery, and she is in the hospital with her, waiting for her to recover. Her mom’s levels were all elevated, and she needed to go onto a breathing machine. I am sure my friend was worried for her mom, and I am sure the mom was worried too. I met this woman in my mentoring group. We went on a retreat together. Everyone in our mentoring group picks a word and mantra for the year. This is just a way to help keep us focused on where we want the year to go and help us remember what is important to us throughout the year when things get busy. Life can happen so quickly sometimes that we don’t live it intentionally; we just get swept up in it and almost go on autopilot. There can be so many people or things calling our time, and it can get hard to prioritize if you don’t have a focus and/or you don’t prioritize. This is why we pick a word and mantra and try to say it every day. I was going to say that we do say it every day, but I am sure we forget sometimes, or at least I know I do, especially on the weekends. However, even if I don’t say it everyday, I know I have one, I have it memorized and so when I have to make a decision about something I can think about that word and mantra in my head and then the decision is easy because usually only one aligns with my focus for the year. My friend chose the words “Be Still” this year. It’s funny how when we pick a word, God helps us grow into that word over the year. It’s the same with you, even if you didn’t pick a word. If you have a desire in your heart or have prayed for help to grow in a certain area, God will help you. When we pick a word, it not only reminds us of how we want to grow over the year but is also the filter with which we look at the year. Let me explain what I mean. If my friend’s word is Be Still, then her focus is on being still and how she can learn to grow in that. So, when she is reading her Bible in the hospital next to her mom, and she gets the Bible verse above, she then looks at this experience in the hospital as a reminder to be still. God is amazing! If we are looking, if our eyes and ears are open, he will give us little signs, and sometimes big signs, that He is right there with us in all of our situations or circumstances. This bible verse in the hospital was a little reminder from God to my friend just to Be Still and know that He was taking of it all for her. If you are aware that God does this, if you are on the lookout for this, you will see that He is doing the same for you. God is not just doing this for some of His children. He is sending us all signs that He is there with them. The problem is that if we don’t know that He is doing this, we don’t notice them when we see them. Let’s start being on the lookout for these messages from God, letting us know He is in it, all of it, with us!I love how today’s verse begins with God reminding us what He has done for us in the past. It says, “As Moses went up to meet God, God called down to him from the mountain: “Speak to the House of Jacob, tell the People of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to me.” This is a great reminder that God is a miracle worker. He saved the Israelites from Egypt in a miraculous way. Also, it wasn’t just one miracle. It was miracle after miracle. He did all those signs to convince Pharaoh to let them go. He parted the Red Sea so they could pass, then He rolled it back to destroy their enemy. He miraculously provided manna for food every single morning. He rained down quail on them when they complained about not having meat to eat. It was miracle after miracle. When we are struggling, we need to be reminded of all God can do. There are many times when we are in a situation and can’t see a way out. We have $500 worth of bills and $200 in our bank account. That math does not add up, and we know we will be unable to pay our bills. And yet the math also did not add up when Jesus only had five loaves of bread and two fish, and there were over 5,000 people to feed, and yet He fed them all with plenty to spare. When our loved one is in the hospital or on hospice and the doctors tell us there is nothing to do, we need God to remind us of what He has done in the past, so that we can have hope that we don’t have to worry because even if there is nothing the doctors can do, there is ALWAYS something our God can do. I love that God knows we need t

I Am Loved (Identity Series)John 13:23 “One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,* was reclining at Jesus’ side.”This scripture verse was given at my prayer group, and the following words of prophecy were given: “You are also the one whom Jesus loves. So, your place is to be listening to his heartbeat when you pray. So, put your head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. Say I love you and be at peace.” Is there anything more calming than putting your head on someone’s chest and listening to their heartbeat? I pictured when I was little and if I was scared and I went to lie with my parents. Just putting my head on their chest and listening to their heartbeat would make me feel better. It seemed so rhythmic and soothing.“You are also the one whom Jesus loves.” How many of you believe this? Like truly in the depths of your heart believe this? You are also the one whom Jesus loves. Sometimes, it is easy to say that Jesus is love. It is easy to say that Jesus loves everyone. And yet, even as we are saying it, we are discounting ourselves from that love. We know He loves everyone and yet we don’t believe that he loves us? We don’t feel that love or even understand why He would love us. Who are we to be loved by Jesus?You are the son or daughter of the one true king. That is who you are. You were made in the likeness and image of God. You are deeply loved by Him. Why do you discount yourself from that love? Or maybe you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be worthy enough of God’s love. Maybe you think if you just do things perfectly, then God will love you. If you attend weekly mass and volunteer for every fundraiser, you will be worthy of God’s love. Are you constantly feeling like you are not good enough for God’s love?Guess what? None of us are. None of us are worthy of God’s love, yet he lavishes it freely anyway. You do not have to do anything to earn God’s love. Well, as I wrote that, what came to mind was we do have to accept it. God can tell us all day long that he loves us, but if we don’t accept it, then it doesn’t matter. Yesterday, I talked about abiding in God’s love and how abiding means acceptance. Can you accept God’s love? Can you accept that he loves you just as you are, with no strings attached?This is a new kind of love for so many. Some people have never had someone in their lives who loved them completely, with no strings attached. Unconditional love is not a thing they even new. If you are struggling to believe that Jesus loves you, just as you are, think about your childhood and your past relationships. What do you think of when you think about love? Did you have to earn love growing up? What did you feel you had to do to be loved? For instance, did you have to get good grades, be a certain weight, be quieter, etc? Did you feel like your parents' love was conditional on your behavior? If so, don’t worry. You are not alone. We live in a broken world and don’t know how to love each other unconditionally like our heavenly father does. I think everyone is doing the best they can. We can only love others to the extent that we are loved. If your parents do not know unconditional love, they can’t pass it on to you. The good news is, that you can learn to let Jesus’s love in. The good news is that Jesus does love us unconditionally. If we can learn to accept Jesus’s love, then we can learn to pass this love on to others, even if that is not the love we were raised with.If you struggle with accepting God’s love, I would love to give you some practical tips for how to begin to accept God’s love. I went online to see if others had already written about his subject. I found an article written by Kara J. Lovett called “5 Keys to Accepting God’s Love.” I would highly suggest you read this article. I will put a link for it in the description of this episode, but you can easily find it by googling 5 Keys to Accepting God’s Love. CLICK HERE for the article. In the article she goes into what God says about love and then a section on understanding God’s love. Her article mentions five was you can accept God’s love. They are as follows: Accepting God’s love with scripture, prayer, grace, and quietness & in unexpected places. Kara says in her article that “by digging deep into Scripture and spending time with God in prayer, I realized that I need to stop striving for love and instead strive to accept God’s love, which He has already graciously bestowed on me.” As I mentioned yesterday, reading the bible is a great way to get to know God’s love. You can see all sorts of examples of God’s love in the bible. 1 John 4:7-10 is a great example of love. It says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God

I realized after posting yesterday’s podcast episode that I missed Witness Wednesday. I was away for the weekend, and coming back on Monday must have thrown me off. However, I didn’t want you to miss out on Witness Wednesday, so I am just doing it a day late this week. Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose two testimonies from the Salvation Category. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. When we hear how God worked in their situation, it gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray when you hear these testimonies, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, also. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your situation, He can help. I hope you enjoy these testimonies.My name is Cyndi. My broken story started before I was even born. I was the last of my bio mom’s seven kids. Unfortunately, she was an alcoholic who drank during her pregnancy, so I have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.When I was born in 1971, I weighed about 3 lbs. I was adopted at age 1. Unfortunately, the family I was adopted into was dysfunctional. I suffered all manner of abuse, including sexual abuse. This hurt me so bad that I wanted to die for many years.I was diagnosed at twenty with Bipolar Disorder. But I didn’t take the medication because I just didn’t want to. I got pregnant at twenty-one. I literally had my son on my twenty second birthday. I married his dad four months later.But my husband was abusive, mentally, emotionally, and verbally. And because I had never dealt with my previous abuse, I believed his abuse was my fault. Not only did I stay with him and raise my son, but I also had another child, a daughter, when my son was six years old.Even though I thought our problems were my fault, I still knew how ridiculous that sounded because I knew I didn’t really want to live like that. I separated from him when my daughter was three and tried to take the kids.He used lies and insinuation to get them back. I ended up being divorced and having visitation with my kids. It wasn’t easy, but we managed to survive. You may wonder about my faith throughout all of this. Don’t worry, I’m getting there! I was raised Catholic but got into the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1996. I stayed that in that group until November of 2022, when I learned it wasn’t what I had been led to believe.I was a lost soul for a little while but came back to Christianity the next November and have been loving it since. I’m quite happy these days. I do take meds. I have two spectacular kids and a wonderful granddaughter. I’ve been through more therapy than I care to admit and I’m still in it. But I’ve learned that it’s okay to not be okay sometimes.Because I spent twenty-seven years not doing any holidays or birthdays, I take care to do them all and really celebrate them. I really appreciate and enjoy my friends and family. So, I guess I have a pretty good ending to my broken story.But it’s all because of Jesus. I do wish that my kids would love Jesus like I do, but they have to get to know him from a different perspective now. Just like I did.Ben: I grew up in a Christian home going to church every Sunday, being involved in AWANA and Youth Group, and going to Bible camps based on the Bible. The broken chapters of my life started before age 14. I was a Christian then. I believed hard on God, He was my Savior and He loved me. In 2017, when I was in the 6th grade, the garage of my house went up in flames. That was really tough for me and my whole family to go through. I hated God through that. It was about a year of moving around, and not being in my own neighborhood. Further into my life starting around age fourteen is when I fell apart from God. I got introduced into pornography. That was my biggest struggle. A lot of changes happened. I hated God and felt like I didn’t belong with Him. Satan took me over and I felt what he could do to me. Just to be living through that, though, is how I saw God. I became an addict to pornography and that was really harsh. Going though that, plus still going to church was a struggle. I believed that God didn’t want me and that He left me. I hated God for writing my life like this. And yet, I prayed almost every day for Him to bring me out of this hell, out of Satan’s world.Skipping forward in my life, I am now two months from my 16th birthday. In late February 2021, I moved from my hometown of Naperville, IL to South Nashville, TN. This was the biggest move of my entire life. I was confused and scared of moving so far away, but during this time I was doing bette

I Am Fearfully & Wonderfully Made (Identity Series)Psalm 139:14 “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”The I praise you part first stood out to me in this verse. Praise is one of my favorite things to talk about. I love praising the Lord. Also, I have read a lot of books, and so many of them point out that praising the Lord is a great way to increase your faith, get more answers to your prayers, have more strength when in a difficult situation, and have more joy in your life. I was all set to begin with talking about praise when something, I think the Holy Spirit, told me to pause and read the whole sentence. So I did. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” I did not see anything jump out at me. So, I decided to see what exactly that means.I was thinking maybe I wasn’t being moved by the sentence because I didn’t understand what was being said. I was right! That is a very powerful statement if you know what those two words mean. Let’s take the first word, fearfully, first. Fearfully, when translated from Hebrew, means with great reverence, heart-felt interest, and respect. I understand why we would have great reverence for God. He is our Father, and He created us. It makes total sense that we would have great reverence for Him. However, this is talking about us. This sentence is praising God for making us with great reverence, heart-felt interest, and respect. Did you know that’s how you were made? Did you know God put all those things into making you? Do you feel a little bit better about yourself now?Let's take the next word wonderfully. I bet we all think that we know what that word means. We may also be thinking that although it is a pretty word, it is used so often that when we hear it, we don’t necessarily feel wonderful. The word wonderful, when translated from Hebrew, means unique and set apart. I am sure that it has occurred to everyone before that we are all different from each other. But I wonder if it occurred to you that that means you are unique? You are one of a kind. So, the next time you are trying to judge or compare yourself to someone else, remember that you are unique. There is no one like you on this entire earth. There are people who are going through the same things as you, and there are people who have similar struggles as you, but there is no one exactly like you. You are not alone in your struggle, but you are one of a kind in how you were made. You are also set apart. I like the sound of that. Instead of being lumped in with everyone else, we are set apart. God set us apart from others. Does knowing this change the way you think about yourself? Does it help you fight off that voice inside of you that tells you that you are not enough or that you are not loved? Think about how amazing God must think you are to have made you with great reverence, heart-felt interest, and respect. Did you know that God had reverence for you? Did you know that He respected you? Maybe this is not news to you; maybe you knew this all along. This is the first time that I slowed down long enough with this passage to ask myself what that even means. This is one of the things that I love about doing this podcast. I am not reading whole chunks of the Bible at a time. I am reading a verse or two. When you break it down into bite-size pieces like this, you get to examine those pieces more carefully. I have also discovered that I am not the only person who does not know what those two words mean. I think sometimes we don’t ask questions because we assume that we are the only ones who don’t know the answer. Then we start to tell ourselves that if everyone else knows it, then there must be something wrong with us because we don’t, and then we don’t ask because we don’t want to feel stupid. Come on, you know you have done this before. I can’t be the only person this has happened to. Anyway, it turns out that the Bible's language is confusing for many people. In the course of writing the episodes for this podcast, I have searched for many answers, and I have always found them. If I were the only person who was confused, someone else wouldn’t have taken the time to research my question and put the answer on the internet. The internet is also an amazing thing. I am not sure how many of you use it to answer your questions, but I highly recommend it. First, you can ask it anything. You don’t have to remember where you can find something in the Bible because you can type it into the search bar, and the internet will find it for you. You can type part of a verse into the search bar, and the internet tells you where you can find it in the Bible. What I do is type my question exactly how I would ask a person, and I always come up with great answers. I don’t just put a word or two. I put the whole sentence in the search bar. Second, you don’t have to feel silly asking a question that you’re sure you are the only person who doesn’t know

I Am Blessed (Identity Series)Ephesians 1:3-6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.What beautiful scripture verses! These definitely seem like good ones to write down and re-read any time we are having a bad day. God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place. I can’t even imagine how much blessing that is. God must really love us if he is blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place. Then, it goes on to say that He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world and that we should be holy and blameless before him. He chose us before the foundation of the world. That seems so crazy to me. It is crazy to me that God knew everything that was going to happen, and yet he still chose to create us. He made us to be holy and blameless in His sight and yet we have failed at this over and over again. Oftentimes, we say hindsight is 20/20. Meaning we can only see things perfectly when we are through them and looking back at them with he knowledge we gained through the experience. For instance, when we are going through a difficult time, we don’t really understand it, and we make our decisions based on the info that we have at the time. However, when we are through that difficult circumstance, and we know how things ended, then we realize we perhaps should have made a different decision. It is not the same for God. He knows everything. Nothing is a surprise to Him. I find it remarkable that even though He knew how often we would turn our backs on Him or do the exact opposite of what He wanted us to do, He still went ahead and created us. He not only decided to create us knowing all the times we would mess up, but He also kept forgiving us. Time and time again, we do the things we know we are not supposed to do; God keeps forgiving us. I wonder if we would do the same? Many people say that they learned a lot after going through something really difficult. However, I wonder, even knowing all that we learned or gained from the difficult experience, how many of us would choose to go through it all over again. Think about a really difficult time in your life. Think about how hard or how painful it was. Then, think about what you learned from it or gained from it.Everything that we go through teaches us something if we are open to seeing it. We can find a lesson in every experience. For instance, going through a really hard time in a relationship can teach you resilience, and/or how to be persistent and to work hard at something. It can also teach you to be stronger. If the relationship ends, it can be difficult, and you can learn something from that, too. It can teach you what to look for and what to avoid in your next relationship. Do you see how there is always something you can learn? However, even knowing all the benefits you have gained from this experience, I wonder how many of us would choose to do it again. What about a friendship that ended badly? Imagine you had a really good friend for several years, and then something happened, and that friendship ended. You felt really hurt when it was over. Do you wish that you had never met that person? If you could go back in time to when you met that person, would you go meet them? Would you spend all those years building up good memories if it meant that you had to go through the pain of losing that friendship again?I think that many of us would choose not to go through difficult times if we could. We would choose to stay in our comfort zone and not venture out of it. Not try new things because we could get hurt or we could fail. We would and often times we do tend to play it safe. The thing is, we do not grow when we are in our comfort zone. We do not grow without challenges. Do those challenges often bring difficult times? Yes. Do we grow immensely in those difficult times? Yes. Well, if we allow ourselves to grow, then we do. This is what God wants for us. He wants us to grow and become stronger. He wants us to lean into Him when things get hard and to be open to growth during these times. God chose to go through all the pain just for us. He knew all the things we would do, He knew all the ways that we would hurt Him, and yet He still chose us. He still chooses us every single day. Is that not incredible to you? I honestly find it difficult to believe some days with the way the world seems to be going. It seems as though the world as a whole is trying to remove God from more and more things. And yet, He keeps hanging in there. He keeps performing miracles and blessing His children. The next part of the verses

I Am Holy (Identity Series)Ephesians 1:3-4 “Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm has already been lavished upon us as a love gift from our wonderful heavenly father, the Father of our Lord Jesus—all because he sees us wrapped into Christ. This is why we celebrate him with all our hearts! And in love he chose us before he laid the foundation of the universe! Because of his great love, he ordained us, so that we would be seen as holy in his eyes with and unstained innocence.”When I read these two verses this morning, I thought they were so beautiful. They begin with “Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm has already been lavished upon us as a love gift from our wonderful heavenly father.” Isn’t that beautiful? Did you know that your heavenly Father is lavishing spiritual blessings on you? The word blessing in this verse is a translation of the Greek word eulogy, which means “to speak well of.” Since God is acting in this verse, we can say that God has spoken good things about us or pronounced good things for our benefit. The good things that God has decreed for us are probably beyond our ability to number.Can you imagine your heavenly Father showering you with blessings? Did you know that is what He is doing? I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like you are getting any blessings, but this might be because you are in the middle of a hard time. You might not be able to see the blessings because you are so focused on the hard thing that is happening. You might think there is no way God could be blessing you because of all you are going through.This isn’t true. God can bless us in the middle of a hard time. He can bless us whenever He wants to. You might be wondering what that may look like, what it would look like to have a blessing while in the middle of a hardship. That could look like someone you know checking on you to see if you need anything. It could look like your friends and family bringing you meals when they know you have no time to cook. It could look like you getting a job promotion right when you need it the most! Have any of these ever happened to you? What about when a stranger says something to you out of the blue and it is exactly what you needed to hear?God is not just blessing us, He is lavishing spiritual blessings upon us. This can go against our picture of God. We all have a picture of God in our head and for some of us, probably a lot of us, it is not a picture of a wonderful heavenly Father. Many of us picture the heavenly Father similar to our dad growing up. So if you had a loving Father growing up the idea that our heavenly Father is loving is easier to grasp. However, if our earthly Father was not outwardly loving and was hard on you, maybe expected a lot out of you, then this is how you might see our heavenly Father too. But God's love is beyond our earthly understanding, and He cherishes each and every one of us.I know a lot of people who picture the Lord as an old man with a white mustache and beard sitting up in heaven, looking down on us and judging us. They picture God as someone who is just waiting for them to screw up so He can punish them. They are sure they are disappointing Him all of the time. I think this is why I chose these verses and why I like these verses so much.The second verse for today dispels this myth that God is up in heaven just waiting for us to mess up. It says, “And in love he chose us before he laid the foundation of the universe! Because of his great love, he ordained us, so that we would be seen as holy in his eyes with and unstained innocence.” First, it says that God chose us before He laid the foundation of the Universe. God chose you. Let that sink in for a moment. God chose you before He even created the universe. Does that sound like the act of a Father that is sitting up in heaven waiting for you to screw up so He can punish you?Next it says, “Because of His great love, he ordained us, so that we would be seen as holy in his eyes with unstained innocence.” Listen to that last part again, “so that we would be seen as holy in his eyes with unstained innocence.” God doesn’t look at us as if we are a wreck waiting to happen. In His eyes, we have an unstained innocence about us. God doesn’t want us to mess up. He doesn’t want us to sin or to fall away from Him. He loves us. He chose us. He wants us to be right there with Him for all eternity.God loves us. He looks down upon us as a loving Father would. Once we realize this our relationship with the Heavenly Father will become so much closer. If we haven’t really experienced true love in this world, then it might be hard to understand how much our heavenly Father loves us. One thing I am finding that can help with this is to read the scriptures. Read the Psalms, read the New Testament. Last week I read Philippians and this week I am reading Ephesians and they are just beautiful. The Bible is a living document. It is not just a book of words that the Lord told His people back in the day

I Am Changed (Identity Series)Romans 3:23-24 “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins.”We have all done things in the past that we are not proud of, and sometimes, we get stuck thinking about those things. We replay them over and over again in our minds and think about how different our lives would be if we had not done them. Some of us think that the things we did were so bad that there is no way God could ever forgive us or love us. Regret is a terrible thing. It sucks the life out of the present moment if you let it. Our minds are powerful, and we will believe what they tell us. We may know in our hearts that God will always forgive us if we truly repent. We know in our hearts that God will always love us no matter what we do and that we do not have to earn his love. However, sometimes, that little voice inside of us will listen to the enemy, and our brain will believe the lies that he tells us. Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The evil one likes to take this phrase and use it to whisper things in our ears like, “See, no one is good enough,” or “No matter what you do, you will always fall short of God’s standards.” He tells us that we shouldn’t even bother because we are not enough. Do you ever feel that way, like you are not enough? What many of us may not know is what the very next verse, Romans 3:24, says, “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins.” Yes, we all sin, but God’s grace “makes us right in his sight.” Another way the enemy likes to get to us is to tell us that we will never change. That we are still the same person who did that thing we regret. If we strive to change, he tells us that we can’t change. He reminds us of the things we have done in the past and whispers that we will do it again. There is a song I heard for the first time on the Big Life Devotional, and it is “Slave to Nothing” by Zach Williams. In this song he says:You can tell me what I did You can show me who I was before Where I fell short Hang it over my head But I'm not the same anymore One thing's for sure The shackles have fallen So I'm showing shame to the door Make no mistake I'm a slave, to nothingIf you get a chance to listen to this song, I highly recommend it. click hereJust because you have acted a certain way in the past does not mean that you have to act that way forever. You can decide to repent and change your ways at any point in time, and God will be there to forgive you and welcome you in with open arms. Think about the many saints that have had beginnings that were not so great. One of the most illustrious saints, I think, is St. Augustine of Hippo. He was a man who was known for having not one but two mistresses. He ran around for years before having a change of heart and settling down at 31. St. Augustine went on to become a Doctor of the Church. Then there is also Saint Mary of Egypt, who ran away from home at 12 and spent a dozen years living on the street as a seductress. According to Craughwell in an article in Live Science, “Nothing made her happier than corrupting innocent young Christian men.” Saint Mary went to Jerusalem looking for young Christian boys to seduce. At the doors to the church, she felt a strange force repulsing her, and she immediately changed her ways. There was also Saint Camillus de Lellis, a priest from Italy that founded one of the first healthcare organizations for the needy. He started out as a cardsharp, con man, and mercenary. There are also lots of modern-day examples of people who had a rough start. Jennifer Aniston, who is one of the most famous actors because of her role in the sitcom Friends, had 4 failed sitcoms in a row before she landed the role on Friends. Tim Allen, who starred in Home Improvement, is now starring in Last Man Standing and was also the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story Movies. In 1979, he was caught with many illegal substances and went to jail for over 2 years. Then he got his life together and became the actor we know and love today. Oprah Winfrey grew up in poverty and did not have the best childhood. She was molested during her childhood and early teens and became pregnant at 14; her son was born too early and died in infancy. Can you imagine the things the enemy was trying to tell her? What was he trying to tell all of these people? What if these people would have believed the lies that they could not become anything different? If they believed that the version of themselves that was not enough or prone to sinning was all they could ever be? What if they stopped reaching for more because they believed they could never achieve more? What lies do you believe? How much more could you accomplish or become if you stopped believing the li

I Am Victorious (Identity Series)Ephesians 6:13 “Because of this, you must wear all the armor that God provides so you're protected as you confront the slander, for you are destined for all things and will rise victorious.I looked at several different scriptures for this morning's devotional. There are so many good ones in Ephesians. I don’t know why I never saw them before. Or maybe I did, and the Lord is just showing me them again in a different light. I am not sure, but I love it! I saw this verse first this morning, and then I went back and forth on a few others, but my eyes kept being drawn back to this one. I know a lot of you are going through some really hard things right now, and what I felt when I kept being drawn back to this verse was that God wants you to know that you will rise victorious!He wants you to know that this thing you are going through, the situation you are in, will not take you down. This illness will not be the end. These financial matters won’t be the end. Your estranged loved ones, this is not the end. You will be victorious. You will be healed. Your loved one will be healed. The Lord will provide for you to pay your bills. You won’t be estranged from your loved one forever. Whatever it is you are struggling with this morning, I feel the Lord wants me to tell you you will rise victorious.The last part of this verse made me think of a song I saw in a movie called Pitch Perfect 2. The song was sung by a group of Germans who were competing in an a cappella singing competition. This song came into my mind because their performance was so powerful. They projected such strength when they performed this song. This is what we must do when we are dealing with the enemy.The verse says that we must put on the armor that God provides us so that we are protected when we confront the slander. Make no mistake, the slander is the devil. Of course, he won’t look like the devil. He will look like someone who cut you off in the traffic. He will look like the person spreading lies about you. He will look like your co-worker or your boss. He might look like your children or your siblings. Whoever is causing strife in your life, the enemy is working through them. I want to read you the words to the song that popped into my mind, as I know it is not a coincidence that when I read this verse, this song came to mind. If you want to see the video on YouTube, you can type in Das Sound Machine Car Show, and it should come up. Here are the lyrics:They will not control us. We will be victorious[Verse 1]Paranoia is in bloomThe PR transmissions will resumeThey try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed downAnd hope that we will never see the truths aroundCome On![Verse 2]Another promise, another seedAnother packaged lie to keep us trapped in greedAnd all the green belts wrapped around our mindsAnd endless red tape to keep the truth confinedCome On![Chorus]They will not force usThey will stop degrading usThey will not control usWe will be victoriousAt first, these lyrics might not seem to make much sense. However, if you think about them in terms of what the enemy is trying to do to us, they make much more sense. The first line goes perfectly with the verse. They will not control us; we will be victorious. The enemy and his evil henchmen will not control us. We are God’s children, and we are protected. However, we must put on our armor of protection. We must call on the Lord. We need to give Him permission to protect us. We need to read the scriptures so we know when the enemy is lying to us. We must stand in truth.The next verse in the song says Paranoia is in bloom. The PR transmissions will resume. They try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down. And hope that we will never see the truth around. Come On! This may not fit perfectly, but when we really think about it, we can see that the enemy is trying to make us feel paranoid. All we have to do is listen to the news for a few minutes, and we can see all the craziness going on in the world today. Also, it says they try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down. And hope that we will never see the truth around us. How many of us know someone who has struggled with drug or alcohol abuse? We know it is all around us, yet do we know that the enemy is the one who is pushing it on us. Do we know he is trying to keep us on drugs so we don’t see the truth all around us? When we use drugs, when we drink, it alters our state, and we don’t see things as they really are.The next verse of the song says, “Another promise, another seed, another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed. And all the green belts wrapped around our minds. And endless red tape to keep the truth confined. Come On!” How many people in our lives have promised us promise after promise and yet not kept them? How many times have people in the government, or in any authoritative power, promised something, and yet it never happened? I like how it says, “another packaged lie to keep us trapped in gr

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose two testimonies from the Healing Category. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. When we hear how God worked in their situation, it gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray when you hear these testimonies, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, also. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your situation, He can help. I hope you enjoy these testimonies.Karen: In 2004 my mom suffered kidney failure and started dialysis at 75. It was very hard on her while my older sister tested to be a donor and was ruled out. Then my older brother tested and was unable to donate. It’s important to note that they are both biological children and I was adopted. I was also a single mom raising two kids at 37, so needless to say I was scared to donate, but I prayed and my growth group prayed with me. Come to find out, a man sitting beside me had donated his kidney to his daughter and was doing great 18 years later. I also kept seeing signs to remind me that “greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for another,” so I stepped up and was deemed acceptable but had to lose 40 pounds to do so.Mom was getting more drained by the day. I lost the weight in 8 weeks and surgery was scheduled for October, but mom suffered a hematoma and surgery was put off till February for her healing. The waiting was tough. It made me second guess but I still did it. In February 2005, she was able to stop dialysis after I donated my kidney to her and my prayer was that God would take care of us. It’s because of seeing the toll mom and my grandma went through on dialysis I knew I could never do that. Lesson learned. Never tell God what you can’t do!Fast forward 14 years. I got kidney cancer and had a partial nephrectomy in September of 2019. Unfortunately surgery had complications and I had a collapsed lung, respiratory distress, and internal bleeding that resulted in a 34 day hospital stay including a medically induced coma for 2 weeks. My family was unsure if I would make it or not. I remember asking God to take me as I was on a ventilator and unconscious, but He said it wasn’t my time yet, He had great plans for me. My kids still needed me so I asked Him to heal me. Within 2 days I was awake, and the next day the ventilator came out. A few days after that I left ICU for a regular room. That only lasted 2 days before being discharged to rehab for 2 weeks where I learned how to walk again.Unfortunately, my kidney never woke up after that surgery even though I still had 78% left, but they think the medications they gave me for the coma were too strong and could have damaged it further. Thus began my time on dialysis and boy was it miserable. Three times a week I would go in and be hooked up to a life-saving machine for 3 hours, then be exhausted after with muscle cramps, nausea, high blood pressure, headaches, and overall feeling miserable. I had numerous surgeries for peritoneal dialysis but it never worked. I had numerous hospital stays for high blood pressure, headaches, abdominal pain, and bowel obstructions. It was the roughest 33 months of my life.I was finally approved for a transplant in April of 2022 and on Mother’s Day May 8, 2022 I got a new kidney! Praise God for only He could schedule that! After giving my mom a kidney in 2005, He gave me one on Mother’s Day- amazing! It’s now several months later and although it hasn’t been a picnic I am so thankful to be on the road to health and healing. Blessed be the name of the Lord!We celebrated my parents 69th wedding anniversary this past Sunday and I’m so thankful for all that God has done and continues to do on a daily basis for me! To God be the glory!Emily: Hello, I’m Emily. I’m a 10 time Breast Cancer Survivor. Yes, you read that right, ….TEN.It all began with a stomach ache in 2008. As I went to my doctor for a routine exam, she found the Cancer! Of course, I had to go through an ultrasound and mammogram first, but my doctor had saved my life by detecting this early, I thought.I was 33, had 3 kids, (ages 6, 2, and 8 months) and a full-time job teaching 1st graders at a public school. Cancer? Who has time for Cancer? I was told it is an aggressive form and difficult to treat, because doctors don’t know much about it. I have Triple Negative Breast Cancer. I fought with everything I had through chemo, radiation and a lumpectomy.God and I spent a lot of time talking about how I was going to win this battle and with His help, I did, for 4 1/2 years.The Demon itself

I Am Anointed (Identity Series)Psalm 23:5-6 “You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.”There is a lot to like about this verse. First, it starts out by saying that God will prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. I don’t have to be worried about my enemies as God has got me. He is my shield and my refuge. Now he is saying we will prepare a feast for me. When someone is preparing a meal for us, they are not usually stressed out about it. They don’t worry about all the things going on around them. Picture this: there is chaos all around you, and yet in front of you is this beautifully set up dining room table. You have a seat, and God is bringing you a feast, one course at a time. He is not concerned with your enemies because He knows they can’t touch you. You are not concerned either because you just feel so at home, so taken care of. Isn’t that a beautifully relaxing image? Next, the verse says that God honors us by anointing our heads with oil. Did you know that you have an anointing in your life? We all do. Did you know through your baptism you were anointed to be priest, prophet, and king? It’s true, just as Christ was all three of these, you are also anointed to be these three things to your community. What does that mean for us? Let’s start with the priest. Drawing on the priesthood of the Old Testament, a priest is one who offers sacrifices (see Genesis 14:18; Exodus 29:38- 42; Leviticus 23:6,8). Some sacrifices are personal, and some are on behalf of others. These sacrifices will look different for each one of us, depending on our circumstances. However, sacrifice, to some degree, should be a part of our everyday life. I have tried to embrace this a little more this year, so I am fasting from one thing each month. I will switch it up each month, but there will always be something I am fasting from. I think this will help me to appreciate things more and it will also show me that I am not a slave to that thing. For instance, if I feel like I just can’t stop eating chocolate, then I will fast from that for a month. By the end of the year, I will have shown God and myself that I do not need these things. I will have also made a small sacrifice each month for 12 months.Next, we have a prophet. A prophet is a spokesperson for God or one who speaks on God’s behalf (see Exodus 4:30; Deuteronomy 18:18; Isaiah 42:19). In the Old and New Testaments, prophets called people to a different way of life. Can we be a spokesperson for God by how we live our lives? Can we live in a way that when people see us, they think to themselves, “I want what they have?” Can we call others to a different way of life, not necessarily with our words, but with our love? Can we love others as Jesus did? Can we speak love and light into the world, into people’s lives? Can we be prophets?Lastly, we are anointed as kings. What are kings called to do? Usually rule over others. We are called to rule over ourselves first and foremost. We are all responsible for making sure we are living our lives according to God’s laws. Most kings are called to rule over others; however, as Christians, we are called to servant leadership. A servant leader leads by serving others. In other words, servant leaders place the interests and needs of their followers ahead of their own self-interests and needs. Generally, they value the development of their followers, building their communities, acting authentically, and sharing power.Now that we know what each one of these means, hopefully, we can apply this to our everyday life. God has anointed us in our everyday tasks, too. For instance, I was anointed to be a mother and a wife. That was where God called me, and that is what He set me apart to do. Maybe you are anointed to be a doctor, a lawyer, a pharmacy tech, a garbage collector, a grandmother, a teacher, whatever it is, God has anointed you to do it. Your baptismal anointing is not meant to replace any of those other calls on your life. You are anointed to be a priest, prophet, and king in the life you are already living. Think about your day-to-day life; how can you incorporate sacrifice into your days? How can you be more of a prophet spreading the Lord’s Word in your daily lives? How can you be more of a servant leader right now, right where you are?The verse then goes on to say my cup overflows with blessings. This is also great imagery. I love to picture a teacup as we grew up drinking tea in my family. Although I don’t picture a regular tea cup, the image I am getting is an English fancy tea cup from a china set. The tea is being poured into it with a steady stream, and the cup is overflowing and running all over the table and even onto the floor. This is how many blessings God has for you. He wants to rain down ble

I Am Not A MistakePsalm 139:13 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”God created everything about us. I like this verse, though, because it reminds us that He created even our inmost being. I like the visual of God knitting me together. One stitch at a time. I am not someone who knits, but I have family and friends that do. When you are knitting something you can make it look however you want to. If you are the person doing it, you get to pick the colors, you get to pick the pattern, and you even get to pick which stitch or combination of stitches you are going to use. You are the creator of whatever you are knitting. Now, imagine that God is knitting you together. He chose all the specifics about you. He got to choose what color hair you have and what color eyes you have. Do you ever take time to think about this, to think about the fact that God created everything about you? I was at a personal development conference this week, so that may be why it is on my mind more than usual. I love attending these conferences because it is so great to be gathered in a room with like-minded people. I don’t mean that we all think the same way or even believe the same things, but in this instance, we were all there because we knew God had a bigger plan for our lives, and we wanted to figure out what that plan was. It was an amazing weekend, and I learned so much. This happened to be a women’s conference, and there were so many women gathered together, all wanting to improve themselves in some way or another. This is a beautiful thing. One of the things that usually comes up when you have so many women gathered together is the idea of insecurities. Insecurities are something that I believe everyone has. We don’t all have them about the same things or to the same extent, but I do think we are all insecure about something. We all have that one thing, or some of us have more than one thing that we wish we could change about ourselves. That thing that we really don’t like about ourselves. Some of these things affect our lives in a big way, and some do not.When you look at yourself and your life, what are your insecurities? What are the things about you that you don’t like that may be getting in your way of living your best life? Maybe you are struggling because you are living the life that everyone around you wants you to live, but inside, you feel like it's not right for you. For instance, you have a really good job, and you are making good money, but in your heart, you really want to be doing something else. Maybe you have insecurities based on your appearance. This is a big one with women. We feel too tall, too short, too thin, too fat. Or we feel our hair is too long, too short, too light, too dark. It seems like no one is happy in their own skin these days. I wonder why this is. I wonder if people throughout the ages have always felt like this or if this is new. I don’t think it is new that people don’t like something about themselves. I am sure that has always probably been a thing. However, I wonder if it was as widespread and commonplace as it is today. I am not sure if I know a single woman who is so happy with her appearance that she wouldn’t change anything if you asked. I wonder if all this unhappiness has to do with social media and marketing. Once upon a time, before TV, magazines, movies, etc., you didn’t have so much access to everything. You could compare yourself to those who lived around you, and maybe those in paintings or in books. However, you didn’t have the kind of access you have today. Today, you could spend five minutes online and you could scroll through hundreds of images of whatever you want to look at. Also, if you have social media, you can just scroll down your feed, and you will see plenty of posts from people. The internet can be a very dangerous place for those who have insecurities and are looking for proof that those insecurities are real. If you think you are too heavy and then you search for proof of that online, you will find it. That is how the internet works. You ask a question and it searches all the data and gives you an answer to the question that you just asked it. Your brain is the same. If you have an insecurity and you ask your brain to find proof of it, your brain will. The awesome thing about your brain is that the opposite is also true. If you ask your brain to prove to you that your insecurity is not true, it will do that as well. For instance, if you ask your brain why no one at work likes you, it will search all your memories and come up with reasons why your co-workers don’t like you. However, if you ask your brain to prove to you that people at your work do like you, your brain will come up with an answer to that question as well. If you do not like the answers you are coming up with then you need only ask better questions. The main speaker at the conference said something this weekend, and I think it would be great if everyone in

I Am A Child of God (Identity Series)1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”This verse is so powerful. What great love the Father has lavished on us, isn’t that powerful? Can’t you just picture the Father lavishing us with Love? Or maybe you can’t. Maybe you struggle to believe that you are a child of God. Maybe you struggle to believe that the Lord loves you, and the thought that He lavishes love on you is something that you just can’t wrap your head around. If this is you, you are not alone. Love in this world is so complicated, and a lot of things can get in the way of us loving and feeling loved. There is a song by Matthew West called “Hello, My Name Is.” This song has the beginning line of the verse above in the lyrics, along with some reasons why we can’t feel this love. I want to go over some of those lyrics with you. Also, there is a link to the song in the show notes if you want to listen to it.The song starts out by saying:Hello, my name is RegretI'm pretty sure we have metEvery single day of your lifeI'm the whisper insideThat won't let you forgetThis is true for so many of us. We struggle to feel God’s love because we have so many regrets. Regrets over things we have done or things we have said; regrets over things we didn’t do and didn’t say. When we have regrets, the enemy takes those, and he whispers them to us over and over again so that we feel like we aren’t worthy of God’s love. The enemy doesn’t let us forget about them.Next, the song goes on to say:Hello, my name is defeatI know you recognize meJust when you think you can winI'll drag you right back down againTill you've lost all beliefDoes this sound familiar? Things are going well and then we start to get a voice in our head telling us that things will go wrong. Sure, it seems like all is going well, but things always get messed up in the end. Things have gone wrong so many times in the past that you start to think you don’t deserve to win. You don’t deserve the happiness or the love that God has planned for you. When this happens, we can start to self-sabotage. We don’t even know we are doing it. The enemy just keeps telling us that we have failed in the past, so we will fail again. He drags us back down over and over again until we have lost all belief in ourselves and sometimes in God.Then the song goes on to say:Oh, these are the voices; oh these are the liesAnd I have believed them, for the very last timeHello, my name is child of the One True KingI've been saved, I've been changed, I have been set freeAmazing Grace is the song I singHello, my name is child of the One True KingThis is a verse that we may want to write down and read often. I know I say this about a lot of verses from scripture, and you may have a lot of Post-it notes or index cards. I really think this one could help us all when we are feeling defeated or when the enemy is telling us lies. As much as we want to believe that God loves us and that we are His children, sometimes, the things of this world get in our way. Sometimes, we let the enemy's lies get to us and convince us that we are not worthy, that we are not loved, that we are unlovable, and so many other things that are not true. For me, when I heard this song, I loved it. I have listened to it a million times or so. Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but I have listened to it a lot. And guess what? Now I hear this chorus run through my head when I need it to. When I start to feel down on myself, I literally tell myself, “Catherine, you are a child of the one true king!” When I hear this, I can’t help but smile. When I start to doubt myself, when I start to have regret, or when I feel any of the enemy’s tactics, I tell him, sorry, but I am a child of the one true king. You’ve got nothing on my God; He is my one true king. I have even started saying this to my friends when they are struggling. When they are feeling down and also when they are feeling attacked, I remind them who they are and who they are. They are a child of God, the one true King, and He won’t let the enemy hurt them. He won’t let the enemy win.The song goes on to say:I am no longer definedBy all the wreckage behindThe One who makes all things newHas proven it's trueJust take a look at my lifeWe all have things in our past that we are not proud of. We have all said and done things that weren’t great. Whether we did them on purpose or not, none of us are perfect. We live in a broken world, and this means that we hurt people sometimes. Regardless of what you have done in your past, you do not have to be defined by it. I think it is good to reflect on any areas that you are not proud of. If there are things you regret in your past, then take stalk of them and hand them over to the Lord. Ask Him to help you forgive yourself. Ask Him to help you move past them. We can not change the

I Am Protected (Identity Series)Psalm 18:32 “God gives me strength for the battle. He keeps my way secure.” This verse came to me from a challenge that we received in Big Life mentoring this past week. Pamela Crim gave us a list of 14 Bible verses that tell us who God says we are. Our job was to read one verse each day and to pray with it. Read it out loud and really think about what it says. She encouraged us to go online to look up the verse in many different translations. Have you done that before? Have you taken a verse and then checked the other translations to see what words they use? I do this often, and I am always surprised by the words the various translations use. I know they are all saying the same thing, and yet some just hit me more than others. If you haven’t tried this before, or you haven’t done it often, might I suggest you give it a try? I think you will find you like reading the various translations. The website I use to do this is Biblegateway.com. However, there are several different ones you could use.Today’s verse tells us that we are protected. It begins with the sentence, “God gives me strength for the battle.” This is important to know, as God does give us strength for our battles. Sometimes, we look at the fight we have ahead of us, and we are sure that we don’t have the strength to fight it. We might be looking at a really long custody battle, divorce proceedings, a long medical journey, whatever it may be, and we know we aren’t strong enough for it. Have you ever felt like this, like the road ahead is too hard, too long, too steep, too painful, and that you just don’t have the strength for it? I get it. Life is hard. I know so many who are struggling right now. So many who have way more to handle than any one person ever should. The important thing to keep in mind is that we are not in this alone. You are probably right. Your situation is more than you can handle on your own, which is why you are lucky that you are not on your own. You have your heavenly Father, who is providing you with the strength you need each day. I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like He is giving you enough strength. Sometimes, it doesn’t feel like you have enough to keep fighting, and yet with each new day comes a renewed strength. He is constantly filling you up so that you can fight your battles. You might not feel as if you are full of strength, and yet you do keep going; you do keep fighting so you can see He is giving you strength.He keeps my way secure. I think this means that God always makes sure there is a way. God is a way maker and so we don’t have to worry about coming to a point where we are stuck at a dead end where there is no way out. I know it feels like we get to this point sometimes. I know we can reach a point where we can’t see a way out. The way out is not always one that we can see or that we can understand. God can make a way where there isn’t one. This can happen in several different ways. I read about a person who was getting sued because he did not read the contract carefully, and he was going to lose everything. He knew he didn’t really have a leg to stand on as he did sign the contract and yet he prayed for God to intervene anyway. The lawsuit just went away. It was like it never happened and he never heard anything more about it. There have been people who have been told they or their family members were going to die. They had some illness, like cancer, and there was nothing else the doctors could do for them. Their family members prayed anyway, and God healed them. He took away their illness completely. That is a way forward that we didn’t see ahead of time and we might not have even believed it before seeing it. I have heard many stories of people who were stuck in a situation and couldn’t see any way out of it. There have been numerous times when my parents were in situations where they couldn’t see a way out, and yet they trusted that God had one, and he never let them down. One time I remember my dad telling me about when God protected him was when a neighbor wanted to fight him. My dad had invited a neighborhood friend to church with our family. She came to church with us, and she was touched by the Lord. She started going regularly and decided she wanted to change her whole life to be in alignment with God.At the time, she was living with a guy that she was dating, and she no longer felt comfortable with the relationship as it was. She didn’t want to be living with someone she wasn’t married to. I am not sure if she broke up with him or just moved out until they were married or what the exact situation was. I do know that her boyfriend blamed my dad and was really upset with him. We lived in the projects at the time, and so everyone lived very close together, and everyone knew everything about everything. My mom called my dad at work to let him know she heard that this guy was going to fight my dad when he got home from work. My dad got home at the same time every day

Today’s Witness is from a very dear friend of mine. It is her testimony of how she forgave someone who did the unthinkable to her. She is a wonderful woman who has such a strong love for Jesus. She is a mother of two kids and a wife. She is a photographer, a karate champion, and so much more! You can hear in her voice just how excited she is for this breakthrough. God is so good! We have all seen God working in our lives. However, we might not all be aware it is God working in our lives. This is why it is so important we start talking about it more. The more we share our experiences, the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us. If you would be willing to share any experience of how God has worked or is working in your life, please email me at [email protected] or click here. It won’t take up much of your time, and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today. Prayerfully consider sharing. Everyone has a story, and the world needs to hear them. Music:"Adding the Sun"fine us. It is not fun, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com CLICK HERE TO DONATE CLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emails CLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily life CLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

I Am Made New (Identity Series)2 Corinthians 5:16-18 “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh; even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”When I read this verse, I really liked it. I love how it says we regard no one according to the flesh. The verse acknowledges, “ok, we know, we did this with Jesus,” but we learned our lesson, and we don’t do that any longer. I really like reading the message translation because it puts these verses in terms we would use today, and sometimes, I think it helps me understand the passage more or gives me a different understanding of the verse. It helps me to think of it in a way I might not have thought of on my own. It’s kind of like these podcasts. It takes the Word of God and then it shows how it applies to us in our everyday life. Sometimes, it is hard, with some of the language in the Bible, to understand what exactly they mean. If I have a verse that I don’t quite understand, I will usually go to the message translation and see what that says. That is usually enough to help me understand it. I want to read today’s verse from the message translation. “Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start and is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.”First, I want to say I wish this first sentence were true. I truly wish people didn’t judge others by what they have or how they look. How great would it be to live in a world where we don’t have to worry about what we have or how we look? How great would it be to know others weren’t judging us? Also, how great would it be to be able not to judge others or compare yourself to others? I have heard the quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I know this to be true. I know so many people who are feeling great, and then they hop on social media and see how well everyone else is doing, and they start to feel bad about themselves. They are judging others based on the small snapshot of their life they post on social media. When they compare their life to the lives of others, they decide they can’t measure up. They decide their life isn’t nearly as good as everyone else. As much as I know this first sentence isn’t true for the majority of people in this world, what if we made it true for us? What if we stopped judging people by what they have and how they look? What if we started to be the change we want to see in the world? What if we prayed and asked God to work on us from the inside out? What if we asked God to help us stop judging others? When we read this verse, we see this is what God is calling us to. He is calling us to no longer judge people according to the flesh. It goes on to say, “Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. When Jesus was alive, he was judged by this world’s standards. He was mocked for his claim to be a king because He didn’t look like a king. However, He is no longer judged in this way. We now look at Jesus for who He truly is. The verse goes on to say, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” I love the way the message translation says, “Anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges!” How many of us have felt that at some time in our lives? How many of us have felt we just needed a fresh start? This is possible through Christ. We don’t have to be the same people we always were. We don’t have to do the same things we have always done. We can start again. We can recreate ourselves. We might think this is a one-time thing. We found Jesus and now we get to start fresh. I don’t think this is true. I think we can choose at any point to start new, to say goodbye to our old life, our old ways and say hello to the new life that is made possible through Christ. What things in your life need to go so you can ha

I Am Known (Identity Series)Psalm 139:1-4 "O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.”I read a post on Facebook yesterday that pointed me to Psalm 139. It was about different verse in the psalm, but when I read the whole thing I realized it was a really good one. They all probably are great. I have heard if you are going to start reading the Bible for the first time you should start with the Gospels, or with the Psalms. That must mean they are pretty good. These verses stood out to me in particular because they talk about how well God knows us. Being Known is one of the six stages of Attachment developed by psychologist Gordon Neufeld. His model presents six stages of attachment that create the foundations for virtually every relationship your children will ever have. Since we are God’s children, This is important to us as well. I will list the six stages and then will focus on Being Known. The stages are Proximity, Sameness, Belonging or Loyalty, Significance, Love & Being Known.Reading through those I think this verse may touch on more than one of them. However, let’s begin with Being Known and go from there. Every single one of us longs to be known. This is why we get upset when our loved ones get us a gift we don’t like. It is not necessarily the gift that upsets us, it is the fact that they didn’t know us well enough to know we wouldn’t like it. God isn’t like that. God is omniscient, which means he has infinite awareness, understanding, and insight. Another definition is that He possesses universal or complete knowledge. God knows everything about you. He can read your thoughts, he knows your actions and He also knows your heart behind your actions. God knows why you did all the things you did. This can be scary for some people because they feel they don’t want God to know everything about them. They feel they are not worthy of being known. Some people might worry that God knows all they have done because they have done some things they are not proud of. This is all of us actually. I am sure there is not a single person who has gone through their whole life without doing some things they are not proud of. We all say the wrong thing sometimes. We all do the wrong thing sometimes. We all hurt people intentionally or unintentionally. The thing to remember is that God is not surprised by our behavior. He has searched us and He knows us. This means He knows all of us. He doesn’t just look at the things we did that we wish we hadn’t done. He looks at everything we have done. He knows our motives behind all we have done. He looks straight into our heart. This is a good thing because He sees what we can’t see. He knows that when we acted out and yelled that we hated our parents, we didn’t really hate them. He knows that when we yelled at our spouse or our friend it was really because we were hurting inside, or because we had an awful day at work and needed a safe space to let off steam. He knows that when we yelled at our children when we caught them doing drugs or something else dangerous it was because we were really scared. He knows that when we were unkind to the person in line it was because of all the stress and pressure at work. God Knows Everything! He gets it. He understands that our actions aren’t who we are. He knows that, but do we know that? Do we give ourselves the grace of examining our behavior after the fact? Do we allow ourselves forgiveness when we factor in our motives? I am not saying the things I listed above are good reasons to do those things. I don’t think we should take our frustrations out on our spouse, friends, or kids. I am not excusing the behaviors, I am explaining them though. If your friend was super stressed at work and then you called and asked a question and they yelled at you, would you be angry with them? Would you want to stop being friends with that person? Would you realize that was out of character and try to find out what was wrong with your friend? We tend to have so much grace for other people and yet not very much for ourselves. I would love it if we could change that. I would love it if we could all start to see ourselves a little more through the Lord’s eyes. The next line says, “You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.” God knows all your ways. He knows that you are grumpy before coffee in the morning. He knows you don’t like change. He knows you don’t like to stay up late. He knows you are irritable if you get hungry. He also knows you are a great mom, dad, friend. He knows you are a great employee, He knows you are a great spouse or partner. He knows the good, the bad and the ugly and you know what, He still loves you. He loves

I am Guided (Identity Series)Isaiah 30:21 “And your ears shall hear a word behind you: “This is the way; walk in it,” when you would turn to the right or the left.”This is a great verse because it explains that we are guided throughout our lives. However, it can also be misleading. Unfortunately, we can’t really take this verse literally. We do not have someone whispering into our ears each step of the way. Although that would be pretty cool. Imagine if you didn’t have to wonder if you were taking the right steps. Imagine if you didn’t have to worry about making the wrong decision because you had the Lord whispering in your ear telling you whether you were to turn left or right.Although we don’t have someone behind us whispering in our ear at each turn, the Lord will lead us in the right direction if we take the time to ask Him and then listen to what He has to say. This can be tricky because many times, we will be good about asking God what we should do but then not take the time to listen to His answer. Other times, we are so excited about one of the choices that we jump in and choose that one without even pausing to ask God what He thinks. When we do either of these things, we are not giving the Lord a chance to guide us into the life He has planned for us. Hearing the word of God is something we can all do. We just have to know how to do it. In my Encounter Ministries class last night they went over the various ways that you might “hear” God’s word. There are four ways:See it: Sometimes people see visions, and that is how they get their answers. Sometimes, you might see a word above someone's head. You might see something that is not actually there in the natural world. I know when learning inner healing our teachers told us sometimes God may ask us to do a prophetic act. You might be praying over someone for inner healing, and while praying, you see that they have a spear through their heart. You might feel as though God is asking you to take it out. You are likely the only person who sees this spear. That doesn’t make it any less real. When you are looking for an answer from the Lord, ask Him the question and then close your eyes and see if He wants to reveal anything to you through your sight.Hear it: Usually, when we hear God, it is not God’s voice. My teacher last night said she had heard the voice of God once, so that is pretty cool. However, I think it is rare that you hear the actual voice of God. In my experience, when I hear the voice of God, He sounds just like my voice. It is that “still small voice” in your head or in your heart that helps you know what you should do. I am sure you have heard this voice before. However, you might not have known that it was God talking to you. When you are seeking answers from the Lord, ask your questions and then sit quietly and listen to see what He has to say. If you ask, He will answer. Feel it: Sometimes, the Lord speaks to us with our feelings. There is a woman in our prayer group who feels things from the Lord very frequently. She will get a word of prophecy and then will go on to say that she is getting this strong feeling from the Lord that He is sad and wants us to turn to Him more or that He has this deep longing. Last night, at the Encounter Summer Intensive, we were doing a guided meditation using the parable of the prodigal son, and she said she could just feel this overwhelming love that the Father has for us. She said she had never felt a love like this before. It was such a strong feeling. When you are looking for answers from the Lord, they may come in the form of a feeling, so pay attention to how you are feeling when asking the Lord what He thinks.Think it: This is when a thought just pops into your head. Sometimes, it can be when you are sitting trying to listen to the Lord, and other times, it can just be out of the blue. Have you ever been going about your day, and all of a sudden, you get this thought to reach out to an old friend? Yep, me too! This is the Lord prompting you. A lot of times, we ignore these thoughts. However, when we obey and reach out to the person we find out that was exactly what they needed. I had been thinking about reaching out to someone I had met on retreat for several months and I just never did. I am not sure why I didn’t, but eventually, she reached out to me, and she was having a rough time. I bet she would have really appreciated it if I had reached out when the Lord first told me to. Last night, this woman was walking out the door to come to the summer intensive, and she got the thought to bring this specific prayer card with her, so she threw it in her purse. The prayer card was a prayer about entrusting your children to God and not worrying if they will come back to the church. Then, at the Summer Intensive, one of the ladies shared that she was worried about her kids never coming back to the church, so the woman gave her this prayer card. God has a plan, and sometimes, He will put thoughts in our head

I Am Strong (Identity Series)Philippians 4:13 “ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” This is truly one of my all-time favorite verses. I keep a list of all the verses I used as the central point of each episode as there are 31,102 verses in the Bible and I want to make sure that I am not always speaking about the same few that we all already know. I try not to repeat a verse I have used already as the main verse of the episode. However, sometimes if I learn something new about a verse or something fascinating I will repeat a verse. I am sure I have used this verse several times before within the episode, so I was surprised to see I hadn’t used it as a main verse. We will finish the “I Am What God Says I Am” series this week. If you haven’t listened in a while we have already done: I am protected, I am forgiven, I am courageous, and I am His. This week we will cover I am strong, I am guided, I am healed, and I am whole.I love this verse because I think if we all embraced it, life would get easier. If we all accepted this, and let it settle into our hearts, we wouldn’t struggle so much. It is also a great reminder that we can do anything if we are doing it with the strength we get from Christ. This verse came from Paul in a letter to the Philippians. Paul has an amazing story. He has lots of amazing stories. The way He became a believer in Jesus was amazing. God wanted Him and one encounter with Jesus changed his whole life. Paul did not have an easy life, especially after He started traveling around and preaching about Jesus. Sometimes we can think we are supposed to have an easy life. We believe in God and God will protect us so we get to just sit back and relax on easy street. That is not what God promised us. God promised He would be with us. He promised He would send an advocate to guide us, but He never promised our life would be easy. Actually, He said the opposite. In Matthew 16:24, “Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” He is calling us to take up our own cross. Our crosses will look very different from Jesus’ cross, thank goodness. Your cross will look different from my cross. Just because our crosses look different, doesn’t mean we don’t have crosses. Paul was the Pope at one point. We might think if He is that close to the Lord, then his life was easy. Sometimes, oftentimes, the closer we get to the Lord the harder our life seems. The enemy hates when we get close to the Lord, so he will try to block you every chance he gets. The devil will make your life a living hell, and then try to convince you it is God’s fault, or if God loved you, why would He let this stuff happen to you? The enemy can be really convincing too. He can sound like He knows what he is talking about because He might through some scripture in there, or he will include just enough truth in his lies so that they seem credible. This is a trick, don’t fall for it. God is not the reason you are suffering and yet He can be the reason you make it through all that suffering.Paul says right before the verse above in Philippians 4:10-13, “I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last, you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”The word that jumps out to me first is the word content. Many of us struggle to be content. If we are struggling financially, we wish we had more money. If we are successful then we still strive for more, or we feel lonely at the top. We live in a society that wants more and more. I rarely talk with someone who is content with where they are in life. Paul said he learned to be content in whatever the circumstances. You might think this was easy for Paul because He was the Pope. It was not, here are a few things Paul went through in his lifetime since turning his life over to God. Here is a list from 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 about all that Paul went through: “Are they ministers of Christ? (I am talking like an insane person.) I am still more, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and numerous brushes with death. Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunge

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I Am His (Identity Series)Isaiah 43:1-2 “But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”When I was looking at the sheet of verses titled “I Am Who God Says I Am,” I saw that it said Isaiah 43:1 for today, which makes sense. I am His is what God is saying when He Says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name, you are mine.” We are the Lord’s. There are several places in the Bible where it talks about how we are His people, He formed us in our mother’s womb, He knew us before we existed, and so on. That might even make a great Bible study, just looking at all the places where God says that we are His. However, when I was reading that verse this morning I decided to read the verses that come after this verse as well.What I realized is that the very next verse tells us not to fear, which I found interesting since that is what we talked about yesterday. I didn’t want to talk about verse 1 without also talking about verse 2 because I think they go hand and hand. I think verse 2 explains what verse 1 means for us. In verse one, God is telling us that we are His. He is saying that he has redeemed us and summoned us by name and that we are His. Let’s stay there for a moment. First, God says that He has redeemed us. Redeemed in the Bible means having been saved or delivered from sin or its consequences. I wonder if we understand what that means. I wonder if we are even capable of grasping the vastness of that statement. God has redeemed us. This means that the mistake that you made, the one that you keep beating yourself up for, God has already redeemed it. This means that those sins that you have committed, you have been delivered from them. All those negative things the enemy keeps whispering in our ears about ourselves, the Lord has already redeemed them; he has redeemed us, all of us. He has delivered us from ourselves, from our sinful nature.The next part says He summoned us by name, in other words, He called us. Do you know what this means? It means that God knows our name. He knows your name, and He knows my name. He is calling us, not as a group, not as a whole, He is calling each one of us, by name, to Him. Almost every week in Prayer Group, we get at least one word of prophecy that says, “Come closer my children, again I say, come closer my children.” God is calling us to be close to Him. He is calling us to sit with Him daily and have a conversation, pray with Him, and tell Him what is going on in our lives. He is calling us to Him because He wishes to have a relationship with us. Earlier I said I think verse 2 explains what verse 1 means to us. What I meant by this is that verse 2 tells us all the ways God will protect us because we are His. He gives us an idea of the lengths He will go to so that He can protect His children. That is what you are, you are a child of God. The second verse starts by saying, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” This tells us that God is with us always. Even when we are passing through waters, He will be there. He will not only be there but He will protect us from these waters. He will make sure they do not sweep over us. I think this is important to remember because how many times in life have you felt like you were treading water? How many times have you felt like you were going to drown? This verse is meant to reassure us. It is telling us no matter how high those waters get, we won’t drown. We belong to God and He is here protecting us always. We heard all those words of prophecy yesterday telling us not to fear anything because God is right there with us. Now, today, we hear the same thing. I get the feeling some of us are fearful about something now. I am not sure what you are going through or what you might be afraid of, and yet I know that God is trying to reassure you that whatever it is, He is right there with you and that you don’t ever have to be afraid because He will never leave your side.The last sentence in this verse is an even more dramatic statement of God’s love for us, His people. The verse ends with, “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” This is a pretty vivid picture and yet I think we can all think of a time in our lives when we felt like we were walking through fire. God is reassuring us that although we may feel like we are in a fire, we may feel the heat of the flames all around us, He will not let the flames set us ablaze. I am sure we hear this, and we take it figuratively. We think about the things going on in our lives and how it feels like we ar

I Am Chosen (Identity Series)John 15:16 “God has chosen you and has set you aside for a special purpose.”God has chosen you, yes, you! Sometimes, it is hard to believe that statement. We can clearly see why God chose some people, but cannot see why he would choose us. We are broken, we’re not worthy, and we are not enough. We believe that the saints were extraordinary people, and so, of course, God chose them. We see movie stars, musicians and speakers and think that they have an incredible life because that is just how they were made. Something I am constantly hearing in the personal development world is that you should not compare your beginning to someone else’s ending. This means that you should not compare where you are at in your journey to someone else who is further along in his or her journey. If you look at the beginning of some of the saint’s lives I think you would be surprised where they started. I have been watching a series on YouTube lately that is called “The Chosen.” It is a portrayal of Jesus’s life during his three years of ministry. You get to see the apostles in their lives before they were called to follow Jesus. It is amazing to me to see the apostles as regular people, people like you and I. I believe we tend to put famous people up on a pedestal. We think that we could never be like them. But the thing is, they were not always like they are now. They made a choice to say yes and to follow Jesus. Jesus is the one who transformed them into who they are now.While watching the series, I saw Simon, who was a fisherman, argue with his wife, try to cheat his in-laws in a fight, and turn in fellow Jews who were fishing on Shabbat, and he was very behind on his taxes. He did not seem like the type of person that one would pick to be the leader of God’s Kingdom on earth. Jesus saw Simon and Andrew fishing and asked them to come and follow him. Matthew 4:19 “And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” What I like best about watching this on screen is that you get to see how the apostles reacted. Both Andrew & Simon looked at each other and then followed Him. They did not think for more than a minute before they left all that they knew to follow this man they had just met. Later, they are retelling the story, and they admit that they have no idea what it even means to be fishers of men, yet they are all in. There are many different translations of this verse, but they all have the phrase “I will make you…” I think this is important to note because it reminds us that the apostles did not become changed men on their own. They made the choice to follow Jesus, and then, through him, they were changed. I know some of you may be thinking that whatever the apostles or saints did before they became saints could not be as bad as some of the things you have done. I mean, they are holy people, so how bad could they have been? Whenever I think like this, I am reminded of Paul. There are 13 books in the New Testament that are attributed to Paul. Not to mention, he was one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age. But do you know the story of Paul? I find it an amazing story of how God can choose anyone to do his work. Paul was originally named Saul. The story of his conversion is found in Acts 9:1-19. If you don’t know the story, you may want to read it. Saul was not nice to Jews who were calling on Jesus. He was actually on his way to Damascus to bring back in chains any men or women he found that might belong to Christ. On his journey, he was struck by a light and a voice asking him, “Why are you persecuting me?” Jesus told Saul what he must do. When Saul got up, he could not see, and for three days, he remained this way. Then, the Lord sent Ananias to go and restore Saul’s sight. “So Ananias went and entered the house; laying his hands on him, he said, ‘Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately, things like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized, and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength.” Saul was not looking for Jesus. Actually, he was actively persecuting him and everyone that believed in him. If God can take Saul and make him into a man who is known worldwide as one of the greatest Christian missionaries, then just think what he can do with you. Every single one of us has a past, and there is not a single thing you may have done or had done to you in your past that is too great for God to overcome. He chooses you! He gave you the same invitation that he gave to Andrew & Simon. Come and follow me. All you have to say is, “Yes, I will follow you,” and then hold on, and God will take you on an amazing ride.Dear heavenly Father, I ask that you bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask that you help us to say yes to following you. We ask that you help us to see ourselves

I Am Healed (Identity Series)Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole; by his wounds, we were healed.” I love talking about the Lord’s healing. I love talking about it because it is so amazing and also because I am not sure people believe He is still healing today. I was at the Encounter Ministries Boston Campus’ summer intensive Tuesday night. That night, the topic was the Prophetic Word. Wednesday night was going to be all about physical healing. I was talking with a friend from the prayer group at this event and her neck was really bothering her. She mentioned she would have to have the girls from the prayer group pray over her the next night at the healing service. I told her we didn’t have to wait until tomorrow, let's do it now. Just then, one of our teachers came up to us, so she joined in as well. We prayed a few times with little change. Then my teacher asked my friend if she believed Jesus could heal her right now. My friend said absolutely! My teacher said, “Pain be gone now!” We were praying quietly for a minute and my friend said, “Wait a minute,” and she tried to move her neck all around in circles and side to side. She said the pain was all gone! Praise God. God is still healing people today. He is miraculously healing people quickly and He is also miraculously healing people over time. For instance, someone Tony works with had a stroke and was not expected to recover. Now, 2-3 months later, he is leaving rehab and going home. Is he 100% healed yet? No, but I truly believe he will get there. Not every healing God does is instantaneous and also He does not heal everyone that we ask Him to heal. I am not sure why this is. When I ask Him He always tells me, “His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts higher than my thoughts.” We aren’t meant to understand everything He does in this world. Aside from physical healing, what I feel the Lord wants me to remind you of today is that he heals us from our sins and our brokenness. Because of original sin, we had a brokenness about us. We live in a very broken world, and yet we don’t have to be broken. God died for our sins so that we could be healed. God wants us to live in that light. He wants us to realize our identity in Christ and not continue to live with this idea that we are broken. Yes, the world is a broken place. There are many broken people, but we don't have to be one of those broken people. We know Christ, and we can be in a relationship with Him. The verse above is very graphic. “But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole; by his wounds, we were healed.” He was pierced for our sins. Take a minute and think about that. Picture the Roman soldiers hammering nails into his hands. Think about how much that must have hurt. Then it says He was crushed for our iniquity. Take a moment to think about the scourging. Think about how much that must have hurt. How much He must have wanted to scream out in pain. I wonder if he wanted to say, “But it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it?” He was not being scourged because of anything He did. He took on our sins and our broken relationship with the Father and died on that cross so we could be free. What just came to my mind was that there is no way to repay Jesus for what He did for us. There is no way to repay the debt that He paid for our sins, and He doesn’t want us to. Jesus has forgiven that debt to Him. He saved us, knowing we would still sin. He saved us, knowing we would turn away probably 100 times before we got it right. I don’t think this bothers Him as much as it does when we don’t accept His forgiveness. When we don’t live in the freedom that He sacrificed to gain for us. Jesus died so you could be healed. You, yes, You! You, who are going through an abusive relationship right now. You, who are living with or dealing with an addict right now, You who are getting a divorce, You who can’t have children, You who are struggling to parent the children you do have. Jesus died for each one of us, and He wants us to live in that freedom. He is there to help us through our circumstances. He is there to lift us up when we need Him too. All we need to do is to lean into Him.He died to heal us, but we are the ones that need to accept that healing. It’s kinda like if we had an illness and there was a medicine that could cure our illness, and yet we refused to take the medicine. The medicine is sitting right there on the counter, right next to the water, and yet we refuse to take it because we don’t believe it will help. We believe that our illness is worse than the doctor said it was. We know that medicine can’t possibly help us because our case is too severe. Does that sound silly to you? Are you rolling your eyes and wondering why I think I know more than the doctor does? The same is true for us and our forgiveness of sins. Jesus died so our sins could be forgiven, so we could

I Am Courageous (Identity Series)Joshua 1:9 “I command you: be strong and steadfast! Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord, your God, is with you wherever you go.”Today is another verse that tells us who God created us to be. God created us to be strong and steadfast. Do you know what steadfast means? Steadfast means resolutely firm and unwavering. This verse is telling us that we can be courageous because God is with us wherever we go. God is telling us in this verse that we don’t have to fear anything and we don’t have to be dismayed. God tells us not to fear quite often in the Bible. The phrase “fear not” is in the Bible 365 times. That is one time for each day of the year. I think this is something that God wants us to get and yet we still all struggle with it. I can’t think of a single person who is not afraid of something. I think if we took the bravest person we know we would still discover they were afraid of something. There are people who are afraid of everything, there are people who are afraid of almost nothing and then there are those in between. Even if someone says they aren’t afraid of anything I bet if you asked them if they were afraid something might happen to their children, their pets, or any of their loved ones, I bet most would say yes. If you asked them if they were afraid of not being able to provide for their family I bet most would say yes. We are all afraid of something. I think this is why the Lord has said “fear not” so many times in the Bible. He is still saying it to His people today. He is saying it to you and me. We are constantly getting words of prophecy at prayer group that tell us not to be afraid and that God is with us. Here are several words that we have received, and these all came within the same month. I would love for you to listen to these words as if your heavenly Father was saying them to you personally. Also, if any of them stand out to you or you feel like they are speaking to you pause the episode and write them down. I pray that God speaks to each one of you through these words. I pray that He highlights at least one of these for each individual person listening. All of these either speak to us not being afraid or they explain how and why we know God is with us. I just got the feeling that we don't need to fear because He is the one that is in charge and He will make things happen in whatever way that He wants. He keeps telling us we're not God He is God. He is saying He can use whoever He wants. Whoever is willing to be used he can use.You are the anointing I send to the world my children. Smile that I send you. I send each of you. Be not afraid I am with you. My spirit will speak through you the words that I wish you to say. Just be the anointing I wish you to be. All can be. When I say you can, don't tell me you can't. Praise me, praise me, praise me, my children. Smile that today I send you.I watch over you, my children. All of you are my children. I break the sword of the enemy who would come against you. You have nothing to fear for I am there for each and every one of you in each and every trial. I will never forsake my children or leave my children. I will defend you in battle. I have sent you the power of the Spirit and He will give you all that you need to do what you have been called to do.My children take my hand. Realize that I am with you. Go into the world without fear. I am holding onto your hand. There is no need to fear I am your God. I will protect you, I will defend you. Smile that you are mine. Smile my children. I am with you till the end of time. Come closer my children, come closer so that I can reveal my mysteries to you so you in turn can share them with the world. I am your Lord, I am your God and I am all-powerful. I hold onto your hand. Move forward, move forward with joy for you are mine.My children you are like little sheep. You wander off for that next patch of juicy grass and I call you back. You wander over the top of the hill and you get caught in the briars and I find you. I know where your traps are. I will always search for you. I will always find you and I will always bring you back. But I ask you frequently, many times, to look over your shoulder and check on me to make sure you are near me. Often during the day look at me, listen for me, watch me. Stay near me and you will grow strong and healthy and you'll be my cherished one and you will do my will.This verse came to mind as we are praying and all I could see is the real fullness of God's glory. He doesn't give us dim glory, He gives us blazing glory. He doesn't give us a weak Spirit, He gives us a courageous Spirit. He doesn't give us a dim light, He gives us a blazing light to bring to this world that God is so great and so full and he shares ALL of his fullness with us. With Him there's plenteous redemption so let's not just expect little let's expect a lot, more than our minds can possibly comprehend because He is big.And my children, my darlings you think

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose two testimonies from the God Stories Category. Often, we can hear our own story in someone else’s story. When we listen to others tell their story, it helps us see that we are not alone. When we hear how God worked in their situation, it gives us hope that He will work in ours, too! I pray when you hear these testimonies, you get the faith and hope to believe that miracles can happen in your situation, also. I pray you know that God is there with you, and if you invite Him into your situation, He can help. I hope you enjoy these testimonies.Brande: I have been dealing with back problems for a while and couldn’t figure out what was going on. I was overweight so I thought that maybe that was the problem. But the more weight I lost the worse my pain became.In April of this year, I had an MRI done and found out I have Degenerative Disc Disease, Arthritis and Spinal Stenosis. I also have a tear in one of my discs and my L5 is pushing on my S1.So, in July I had an injection, and it didn’t work. I went back to the doctor in August, and he had set up another injection for Sept 20th. But a week before, the doctor office called and said that my insurance would not approve another injection until I see the nurse practitioner. After I hung up the phone that day, I was upset. We were busy at work, and I was in a lot of pain. After work, I sat in my car and cried, feeling defeated. I wanted to give up.Then, as I was driving home from work, “Don’t Stop Praying” come on and I started bawling. I knew that was God telling me not to stop praying.I shared this at church, and someone there works for SSDI. She called me and helped me start the process of filling for that assistance.I know this is all an answer to my prayers. That song means more to me than anyone could ever imagine not just for this situation but others as well.My name is Suzie, and this is my testimony of God’s strength.Three months ago, I was faced with a dark season. This is a season I never asked for and never thought in a million years I would ever have to go through. I was lied to, and almost broken. My heart was shattered, and I felt numb to everything. I had no clue how this could happen. How could someone who is supposed to be my life partner do something like this?Being a recovering alcoholic, I could have easily fallen back to drinking to forget everything that was happening. But instead, I choose to turn to God, my Bible, and my pastor. You could say I choose the high road instead of the lonely, dead-end road. I thought I was doing well, and I was trying my hardest to keep my head up and be as strong as I could. Yet, it hurt, and I was emotionally tired. In reality, I was spiraling and not doing well at all. I felt like I was in tunnel vision and couldn’t get out. I then took the first step in healing by admitting to myself I needed help and reached out to talk with a counselor. Admitting out loud that I needed help emotionally and mentally and that I was not ok, was a huge step in getting through this. In all thisI was getting signs that I needed to let go of everything I was holding onto. Which I really thought I had done. But in truth I was not listening to what God was saying to me. Until one Saturday morning. I got a message from a friend checking in on me to see how I was doing. After talking with her I felt God telling me I need to let go of everything I am holding on to so I could start to really heal. So, I said a simple prayer that morning before getting ready for the day. After saying the prayer, God started working in my heart. During different times throughout the day, I wanted to leave where I was. But God said “No, you need to stay put. You need to be with others around you.” I soon realized I was right where I need to be, and I am stronger than I realized. I also realized that I was truly holding onto some parts, and I needed to let go and let God work through me to heal.I am blessed beyond words that I have an awesome support system that knows when I am having a rough time or trying to fake it. I realize that I don’t have to be strong all the time. It’s ok for me to show my emotions and show that I am human. And it’s “ok” to not be “ok” and most importantly it’s “ok” to have bad days.I am thankful to God and His guidance and the love He has shown me. He has put people in my path through all of this storm for one reason or another. I am grateful for the little reminders He is showing me to keep my head up. I know my path of healing is going to be a long journey and it is not going to be easy. There are going to be tough days and easy days. If it was meant to be easy, then it wouldn’t be called a