Father, help us to understand your will concerning our relationships with the people in our lives. Specifically, how to approach parent/teen, friend/friend, and guy/girl relationships. You designed them all, you have a process in mind that will lead us to healthy relationships in each of these areas, guide us in it. Help us to not take any relationship for granted, help us to not put any relationship above our relationship with you.

Help us to not enter into flippant relationships that carry inevitable potential to cause harm and to leave everyone involved wounded in the end. Help us, teens and adults, to walk in the way that you have planned for each of us. Help us in that search to find that person to complete us, it is your design Lord that we be joined to a helpmate. Lead us in that search. Keep us from sin and temptation. Protect us from being distracted and from entering into wrong relationships based on anything other than the perfect will and plan of our God.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

You can call it a million things… dating, courting, scoping our the prospects… whatever… but there is a transition that is necessary to go from that time of learning/growth (concerning purity) to that time of choosing a husband/wife. Purity isn’t just about virginity… it’s also about sex in a Godly marriage. That pure and holy relationship between only one man and one woman. Zero sex with anyone before. Zero sex with anyone else after. I wish it was as easy as saying, Mr. Right will suddenly appear, but that’s rarely the case. Wisdom involves measuring the cost of the materials needed to build a house before starting the project (Luke 14:28). That means you need to consider the things that make up a good spouse, a marriage that will last, a guy/girl bond that will forever thrill you (not one that will flash and burn you)… You need to know, really know, the things that God says make up Godly character… you know, stuff like honesty, communication, being quick to repent, being quick to forgive, all that stuff listed in I Corinthians 13.

It’s not about finding that perfect person, only Christ is perfect. But you should be looking for that person that has a right heart before God. Is their passion to hear from God and to obey to the best of their ability? To correct their behavior willingly when they fail in it (cause we all have our areas and we all fall flat on our face at times, see 1 John 1:5-10) -- to be and act and do whatever God teaches them as he transforms them into his image. Someone that will have a heart to see that same work performed in the lives of every person around them.

Skip looking at the outside appearance and behaviors, pay attention to the heart and the character of a person. What are they like in those down times, those personal moments, when no one is looking. Is their integrity consistent? What’s coming out of their mouth and out of their heart? Are they strong and courageous in setting boundaries for themselves? Are they concerned about protecting you and the people in their life, as much as they are concerned about protecting themselves? Do you see Christ in them? Do they reflect his standards, do you reflect his standards in your relationship with them? Do they spur you on to be more like Christ? Are they a truly good friend? The foundation of every relationship worth having is a solid friendship:

As iron sharpens iron, So a man (woman) sharpens the countenance of his friend.

(Proverbs 27:17)

Personally, I think that time of learning self-control/purity goes from birth thru 17 years of age for most people. I’m not gonna set a bold line in the sand, but I just think dating before that time is a bad idea. If a person can’t keep themselves in check physically and emotionally to that point, they are not mature enough to start searching out that helpmate. And that’s what the dating process is all about. For Christians, it’s not about sticking a label of ownership on someone just so you can say you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Relationships based on that will almost always end badly unless God intervenes. They’re fun, they serve you for a while, but there are messy things waiting down the road. I know you hate to hear that, but I’d rather tell you before than after. Even if it means making people that I love mad at me. It’s not about being popular, it’s about loving people. And I love you.

Be careful about entering a commitment, a contract, a relationship that gives your devotion and future away like a fast-food burger wrapper. A relationship that wraps your heart and your purity loosely, making you vulnerable to being dirtied. It slips off and falls opens so easily and unexpectedly in the hustle and bustle of life and interaction with people. That’s never the intention, you want clean food… but a cheap wrapper (a cheap relationship/investment) puts you at increased risk for food poisoning physically and spiritually. Stupid analogy I know, but you get what I’m saying.

Invest in something that’s gonna last, that has Godly potential, that will bless the future of everyone involved, that you don’t have to rush into, that you can build on a foundation based on Godly principles. Ur not just gonna jump from being a non-dating virgin, into a perfect marriage. But don’t let that transition time be an excuse for bad choices. Otherwise be ready to wind up in the porta-potty suffering the consequences of that gas-bomb you pigged out on. Relationships feed your spirit. It’s important to be educated, have a plan, and to dine according to the healthy standards that God has set in place. He’s a spiritual health inspector, but he’s not gonna cram it down your throat. You gotta decide what you’re gonna pick up and eat. If he says it’s gonna rot your guts, stay away from it.  There are a lot of people that love you, and we’ll wait outside the porta potty door to help you back to camp and nurse you back to health… but the agony in that stinky box is your personal business. Don’t put yourself thru it.

Father, help us in our relationships. Lead us, and give us the courage to battle those desires inside of us that would try to move us away from your wisdom and the place of blessing that you have prepared for us and the people in our lives. Help us to keep our relationships clean and pure and healthy on every level, teens and adults alike, those that have never been in the potty, and those who have made their way out and need to cleaned up and healed. Your kindness and gentleness leads us to repentance. Your loving discipline keeps us in that healthy place of blessing. Your mercy and acceptance keeps us from condemnation and shame and regret. Pour your goodness out upon each of us. Lead us, right now, in the next step we take, where ever we are and where ever we need to move to… get us to that place of peace and zeal and joy in our relationships.

Whether we are to walk in that place of transition, that process of being joined to someone that you have planned for us, or whether we are to wait and to grow stronger in self-control and in guarding our purity before entering that place of transition… confirm it to our hearts as only you can. Keep us from deception and temptation and error. We need you so desperately. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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There is so much confusion and almost too much information about fasting out there. Simply put, fasting is an internal alarm clock that reminds us to pray consistently and wholeheartedly. I often fast from my favorite snacks or gum or sometimes food altogether. Cookies are my ultimate challenge cuz they are my favorite (much harder than skipping a meal). So that’s what I chose for my fast as I prayed for some teens that went on a youth encounter recently.

Fasting from cookies seems like such a small thing, but it is hugely effective for me. I crave them thru the day and they are mentioned by every voice speaking around me without fail. And every time I hear someone talk about them, the craving starts. I begin to pray for whatever I am focused on praying about… like the teens at Cornerstone. I begin by telling God that I want him to bless you guys way more than I want that cookie that I’m dreaming about and drooling over. Sounds goofy, but have you ever ripped your bedroom/kitchen apart in the middle of the night, trying to find some morsel of chocolate or some munchies. It kinda eats at your insides when you crave something like that, it effects your thoughts and your actions. It gets your complete attention. That’s the purpose of fasting. To get your full attention, body, mind, and spirit. Then it’s up to you to focus that complete attention on God and whatever you’re needing to talk to him about. It’s about self-discipline and taking control of our flesh and our cravings. Putting them in their place beneath that of our will, and putting our will beneath the will of God. It’s a power struggle with ourselves, our passion for God going up against the weak areas (the easily distracted areas) of our walk.

You give your full attention to someone that really cares about you, and they are gonna know it. Not only that, they are gonna return that same focus and attention back to you, and it will drive them to go beyond the norm to help you out. There’s a passage that talks about things being given back to you according to how you measure it out (Luke 6:38). I believe that that’s true even with our prayer life, and with our relationship with God as well. The Bible says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). Fasting helps us to seek him like that.

It adds a power to our prayer.
A skill to our warring in heavenly places.

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So I went to an amazing conference with our youth group recently, BIG STUF. I had heard people try to describe it, and they always seemed to find themselves at a loss for words but it was always described as a spiritual encounter that changes your life. I'd heard similar descriptions of other events (having been involved with teens and youth ministry for 20 years now)... but the people explaining it -- all had a similar look in the their eyes, a Light, as they recalled the encounters from the past. It was evident that something was different about this one. Not just a one time, or one person experience, but a consistent STONE OF REMEMBRANCE for EVERY person that has attended it.

I'm not even going to try to describe it, you can check out their website, but it really is something that you must experience. Just arriving and setting foot on the conference grounds is like stepping into a pool of anointing. Everything around you looks very normal and the expected routine to the physical eye... but something in your spirit begins to stir. It's like your spirit is breathing different air, refreshing air, something it has craved and didn't know that it had craved... and yes, it was life-changing, it was truly a spiritual encounter. If you ever have the chance to go or to send a teen, you should do it without hesitation.

So I was given a BIG STUF devotion to read thru and to meditate on at one point of the week. It was written from the perspective as though God were speaking and he was describing what his church is not, and what it is. The line that jumped out at me is something that seemed so normal, and I had heard a million times, but this time I saw it in a new light, a deeper understanding...

"My church is excited about me and about each other," God.

We all work diligently to keep that excitement in our relationship with God, but do we truly work to keep that same excitement in our relationship with each other. We often over emphasize fellowship when we hang out, but is the focus of that fellowship how much it pets our SELF nature? We often rate those times according to how much fun we had, or how loud and full of activity it was, or how creative the program or the programmer was. That kind of excitement has a place, a measure of necessity... but those times of fellowship should be more about our excitement about each other. God is always first. I'm not suggesting that we put people before him... I'm saying our love and excitement for God FIRST is a given.

But the emphasis in Scripture is always LOVE GOD, LOVE PEOPLE.

We may be doing the first, but are we truly doing the second part of that? Sincerely? Not as an afterthought or as a trickle-down theory, thinking that as we love God and as we focus completely on OUR RELATIONSHIP with him that that will automatically drop crumbs of affection down on the people around us? Or are we truly making an effort to love them and be excited about them just as much as Christ has demonstrated such affection for us? That was his command after all, that we be like him, that we tell the world about him, not just with words but with action... demonstrating and owning God's love and excitement over every person, every soul, inside the church and outside the church. Here are the notes straight from my journal as I thought on these things...

-----

Are we as people, truly excited about God and each other? When we have opportunity to see one another or serve one another does our heart race? Not thinking about the attention we may get (thankful for the encouragement/affirmation they freely hand to us as they serve the same God, humbled by it)... but not motivated by the possibility of it?

Does our heart race just to sit in the same room with the people of God and to hang out, to talk, to work on projects together, to be bored together, WITH EACH OTHER? Afterall, isn't that the heart of the Good News... that GOD IS WITH US? If our desire is to be like him, are we full of excitement at every opportunity to be with those that he has sacrificed all to be with? Or are we basking in our comfort zone, mingling in fellowship to feed our self, complaining about what is or what isn't -- simply because our focus is how much fun we're having instead of being WITH EACH OTHER as Christ is with us...

Are we excited about each other so that we crave the company of each other, genuinely, so that we crave our next meeting together with God and with those around us that we call our family and our friends in Christ? Are we the center of our focus or is God and Family the center? Is how much fun we're having rooted in our love and excitement over God and people rather than our love of self?

It is a dangerous day in these last days of the church...

1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

-----

As I sat there on the beach meditating on these things, the Lord brought the gulls to my attention. They would soar thru the sky and suddenly fall straight down to the ground. There was a slight rise that blocked my view to the beach, so that I couldn't actually see them hit the ground. Some might think that there was something wrong with them, as though they were falling out of the sky after being shot or hit with a rock or injured in some way. But they were actually, dropping to the shoreline to feed, to hunt, to get to the source of food and nourishment that kept them alive.

from my journal...

Gulls fall. It appears that they are wounded/weak, but they are merely landing to be fed/watered. They choose to withhold their ability to fly for a moment, because God has shown them a place of refreshing and nourishment and strengthening. It appears a negative thing to see them suddenly fall in mid-flight, why not SOAR all the time, push yourself, demonstrate your ability, focus on fun and the high times?....

because it is Life, and they want to Live.

It is wisdom. Some times you have to give stuff up. Some times you have to not SOAR even though you could, some times it is not the time for SOARING, some times it is right to withhold what you could do, what you want to do, what isn't really sin, what is good... some times it is the moment, the timing, that makes some thing wrong. Some times good things must be sacrificed or delayed, so that GOODNESS can prevail and fully dominate. Dominion doesn't always mean being on top of the dog pile. Sometimes it means resting in the middle or the bottom until everything coming against you wears itself down, so that you can emerge strong enough to carry those around you to the top with you.

There will be times to fly -- to SOAR, but there will also be times to keep your feet on the ground. Times that seem mundane, even boring and pointless... times that you choose to walk in wisdom, to press on with what you know is right, to take dominion over your feelings and your selfish desires, and God will have a place prepared for you to land. It may be a low spot, not elevated, off the radar, and out of the spotlight all together. But it will be a place of preparation, of strength, of training and equipping and empowering that will launch you -- PROPEL YOU -- to fly another day, and not just to fly but to fly higher... an appointed day, a right time, a perfect time.

God's timing is perfect, and when we choose to walk in it no matter how difficult or challenging, it will always lead to those moments when we get to fly.

Courage and boldness coupled with self-control and restraint,
that's a wise combination when you submit yourself to God <3

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Sometimes, life gets crazy. Things happen that make no sense, especially when things happen to innocent people or even children. I got news last night of a heartbreaking situation involving some people I know and it crushed me... I found myself in tears again this morning just thinking about the children involved and the hurt and the confusion that has ended up being so far reaching.  They will never be the same. They are scarred and chaos consumes their lives at the moment.

I found myself somewhat discouraged in my heartache and asking God how such things happen among his people... in the midst of his children, the livingroom of his house. My thoughts wandered as to a reason why we should even care about trying to remain connected with Church per se'.  I didn't mean any of it... I was thinking in my humanity and my weakness and my heartache... my lack of faith and my sin actually.

 ... because I know the God whom I serve. I know better... I wasn't really dwelling on it, but it was rolling around in the back of my thoughts. Perhaps it is the enemy that tempts us to embrace such thoughts, to allow discouragement to take up residence and to weigh us down so that we tire in doing good. I was scrolling thru unexplored territory of the myccm site and ran across the myRSS page. I was scanning the topics, which were numerous tho I didn't really feel like it. Suddenly I saw several passages of Scripture at the end of the page and passed over them to scroll all the way back up to the top.

This will sound strange but I felt convicted to go back to them... actually convicted. And I felt as though the Lord spoke so clearly to my heart to go back and read them because there was something he wanted to say to me. I don't know if you have conversations with the Lord like that, but we often talk just as casually as I'm discussing/debating with my teens or my husband.

So I scrolled all the way back down to the verses and told the Lord that I just spent the entire morning praying online, and didn't really want to read all of them. But he continued to press me, and even said there is something buried (not in the beginning) that I have put there for you today. So I gave him my attention, with little zeal I must admit, and commenced reading the three verses posted. (I know, I know, three verses is nothing...).

Even as I was reading them, he was speaking right in my ear saying... "go on read, keep reading, even though I know you got nothing from those two I like your obedience... but change your attitude for me..." so I read on and rebuked my flesh and laziness... and wonder of wonders... the third and final verse, the very last one jumped from the screen straight into my heart...

“As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.” Psalm 18:30

God knew it would take a walk thru those first two verses because I was dragging my feet and my heart and hearing only the *wah wah wah* of Charlie Brown's teacher. He knew it would take me until the third verse before I changed my attitude and was really paying attention and hearing what he was saying. He wasn't speaking the first or second verse to me at that moment. He placed it third, because he knows me better than I know myself, and he is patient with me despite my ugliness and imperfections. Soooo many lessons to be learned in that, but for now I gotta go back to that verse.

“As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.” Psalm 18:30

yes, there is yuck and junk in this world and in the church. Yes, people are going to sin and horrible things will happen to good people, but that is not who God is. His people, his church represent him, but we are not God. Our ways are influenced and led by him... but our ways are still flawed even in that... like dragging yourself along when God is trying to take you somewhere and to help you with something you are struggling with (... I can't imagine anyone doing that *whistles nervously*)

God remains God. He is consistent in his ways. Everything he does and everything he says in his Word remains Truth and remains Good and should remain our goal. It doesn't matter what evil things the person in the foxhole is doing next to us. We can't throw down our weapon, climb out of that place of protection, and march our little pouty self (tho sometimes justified in our pouting and our tears and our anger) off somewhere else.

God said fight from the foxhole. He said as long as you fight from that place, you will remain in his Truth, his command, his plan to get to that place of victory. You jump up in the heat of the battle and your gonna end up with a bullet thru your helmet and firery darts pin-cushioning your back. There are people in the foxhole, sometimes faithful, sometimes committed... and sometimes not. But God remains faithful and right and wise. Don't give up on the plan, don't label it as unreliable, just because some choose to not follow it or to try and corrupt it. God will deal with them. Pray. Intercede so that the evil committed will be undone and so that all things will work together for good to them that love the Lord.

He is our shield, our refuge... and he says that the church is our foxhole. So no matter how the war may rage, or how many mortars make their way into your position/domain remain faithful, remain committed, don't duck and run. Fight close quarters if necessary, but fight according to Ephesians 6, praying in the Spirit always... and don't give the enemy an inch. God says he can't have it. You've been called and assigned and empowered and placed there to tell him so.

Father hear our request and grant our prayers according to your wisdom and your mercy...

I bind every spirit of discouragement attacking the people of God in the name of Jesus. I render you powerless before God, in the midst of the congregation, and in every thing that God has given us authority over. All power belongs to Jesus Christ in heaven and in earth, and we have been sent to declare that Truth. We agree together that every spirit of hell must be silent among the strategic positions/domain of the true Church, we resist the chaos and sin and discouragement and every evil work that you are trying to plant. And we command you to flee from the people of God. In the name of Jesus.

We loose the Holy Spirit to work every good thing in our congregations, to restore holiness and the Truth of God, to convict the hearts and minds of every soul that enters into our midst, to draw all people to the love of God and to reflect his integrity and his character. Father, let holiness and kindness and boldness return to your church, in the name of Jesus. For your glory and none other. Thank you Father Son and Spirit. Amen.

 

 

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This drama will change your life. Family Force 5 sent out a link to this Godtube video. My husband interrupted a movie with my son, told me to push play on the computer screen, and then as I began to weep (not just cry)... but WEEP, he handed me tissues he had ready and waiting >3

Talk about cutting edge, about being relevant, about the Gospel story and the link between real life and what is seen written on the pages of Scripture... there are just not words to describe this glimpse into the love of God for every soul on the face of this earth....

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5

If you feel far from God, if life and sin and circumstance makes you feel lost and hopeless...
know that he is fighting for you... will you fight to get back to him?

He will never leave you, there's nothing you have done that he won't forgive, no mess you've made that he can't help you to clean up. This world may be a violent place, but Christ is violent in fighting for you. Don't give up. Cry out to him. Fight to get back to him. I love you <3

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So I have learned this afternoon that I should not wander into just any thread on the forums, cuz I can't keep my big mouth shut try as I may. Frankly... there is so much garrrrrrbage that calls itself Christian that it makes me want to vomit... and when I see the remnants of that filth still clinging to my walk and my life... it makes me even sicker. It's like having lice or something... you can't kill it... it itches and itches and irritates and you scratch and scratch and cause your own infection...

I will never love this world or anything in it more than God!!!

We have no righteousness of our own... we can't even receive a right spirit from God without eventually screwing it up (am I allowed to say that... oh well) like I was saying... we are filthy creatures no matter how hard we try to be like Christ.... it just brings my recent post back to mind even more vividly...

we gotta die daily and it's not like that makes us prettier people, it just makes us consistently stinky.... consequences... reputation... a name for ourselves... that rotting piece of flesh over there is the lie I told yesterday... and the thing drawing maggots on the floor is the condescending look I gave to that cynical college boy last week... it just piles up around us as we keep cutting off pieces of our self trying to be free of the yuck...

what was God talking about cutting stuff off of ourselves? Can it possibly be healthy to sit in the midst of the decay around us that we have rejected but that remains a stench in our lives?... I'm thinking out loud again obviously... i don't know why... it just hits me some days....

... but as I sit here thinking it thru with you and with the Lord it occurs to me that cutting the yuck off isn't really what we are told to do... we are told to sacrifice it. Sacrifice involves the killing, the death, the stench, but it involves something more as well... it involves the fire. But what exactly does that mean... what does such a fire look like. That cleansing flame that takes what we cut off, our sin, our yuck, our rotting stinkiness... and it burns it up so that the filth and the stench is once and for all GONE. It is no longer in existence. There is no lasting haunting disease ridden remains surrounding us and tormenting us...

We always have the image of that sweet smelling sacrifice as being the smoke rising upward... but what is it really that is rising upward to heaven that pleases God so much?... perhaps it is cleanliness, holiness, the reversal of the evil created by the only creatures created in the image of God, the only creatures able to create anything at all, perhaps we are not only full of the capacity to create good... but also with the capacity to create evil...

could being made in his image and his likeness mean that we have the capacity to create both... and yet the restraint and power to turn from such evil... to understand the stench it causes, the suffering and pain, the ugliness, the torment... perhaps that is the sweet savor that the Lord is so moved by as he sees us undo the evil that rests in our hands to breathe life into...

choice...

choosing to burn that bag of drugs in the flame, to give up the power we hold to make everything and everyone around us bow down to our lusts, knowing the thrill of the high -- and yet the misery contained in it... perhaps climbing up on that altar, that sacrifice, that painful cutting off of something that we love and want and desire, that stench of death, the ugliness of it all... is actually worth the opportunity to create goodness... to discard the pleasure it would have brought us... to avoid the evil it would have created...

When we die to self, it is not enough to just climb on that altar and kill our flesh piece by piece. It is the fire that is the real key. It is the complete obliteration of sin and self and sickness and disease. And what is that fire symbolic of... the Holy Spirit. That is our power, that is the key to holiness and to living daily under the authority of the Goodness of God. He comes along side of us to help us... and as we sacrifice what belongs to us -- our SELF, he chucks it in the fire of God and burns it up. We offer our SELF to him piece by piece, chunk by chunk, day by day... and God removes the very existence of evil as well as it's power over us.

You thought putting a porn lock on your computer was a small thing, you thought deciding to not cheat on your spouse was only the right thing to do, you thought not stretching the truth to hide your own mistake was merely an inconvenience....

no.

It was so much more. It was the reversal of the tide, the handing over of SELF and SIN to God. You had the power and capacity to increase the evil in this world but you chose to guard what is good instead. It was no small thing. It is never a small thing to do what is right and good and Godly. People may never know about it, they may never see the test you passed, they may never understand the complexity of it all or the intensity of the heat you faced... but God does. He records it and will bring it up again one day. He is a rewarder, a proud papa. He will give honor to whom honor is due.

Humility does stink.

But God walks beside us and burns up the yuck as we hand it over to him on that altar.
As we lay there and die and we let the flames (as painful as they are) free us from our sin, as we make the choice to lay down our power and capacity to do evil, and we breathe life into what is good and full of blessing. That is the moment that we truly reflect our God, when we take on his image and we fill the heart of our Daddy with overwhelming Joy. Just imagine what it is like... to overwhelm the Almighty God with Joy... every time you have resisted the temptation to do evil, you have pleased Him, you have moved the heart of God.

It is a flame and a fire that will never be quenched. God (Holy Spirit) is there to aid us every step of the way thru this world full of yuck, thru the entire process of ridding ourselves of self daily. And it is the cross of Christ that fuels that flame. He is our source, our courage to face the pain, our strength to persevere and not grow weary in choosing to do good... He is our GREEN energy and power, the only One worthy enough or able to burn in the flame with us as our example, as our enabler, leading us to the holiness and wholeness that he has perfected and called us to. He came to be with us, to show us how to do what God's holiness requires of us, to show us what it looks like to die daily, to sacrifice our SELF, to die so that others may live, to fill the world with goodness and to rid it of evil. Christ became one of us to make a way for us to get back to what is Good... back to the throne of God...

a way out of the yuck -- and that way is thru the fire...
it's just a matter of following him into the flames to get there.
It can be scary, it can seem impossible, and there is some pain involved

but He will never leave your side, and there's no question that He will get you there
if ur willing to follow Him <3

Hope this makes sense. I just now sat down and typed it out just as it sits here on this screen, minus a few typos. haha.
Thanks for thinking it thru with me. I'm sure there is much that I have not addressed or even thought of, but perhaps it will inspire you to finish this conversation with the Lord one to one.

:o)

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So I keep trying to write positive things but the negative just seems more prevalent and needing to be addressed... so does that make me a negative person?... maybe, but what can I do but write about the things that God speaks to me day to day. Should I shun the things he seems to be saying simply because it's not politically correct to talk of anything except puppies and flowers and sunshine... singing polly-waddle-doodle all the day?...

Would Lamentations have ever been written if political correctness dominated the day then, like it does in the modern day church?...
(and the parallels between the prophecies then and America's rebellion against God today are frightening btw).

so anyway, here's what came to mind as I sat with the Lord today and chatted over coffee...

HUMILITY STINKS

Life teaches that people are to be second. They are not to be first or third, they are to be second. It is a truth that God ordains, and yet so many so quickly manipulate that truth when their selfish desires are threatened.

Arrogance rises up so easily in us. We are in constant need of Christ. We walk in denial about so much, reading and hearing how we are to die daily. Yet, we fail to do it. We fail to do it because in our arrogance, we have convinced ourselves that we have died once and it is enough. We assume to be God, rather than to be like Christ...

We forget that the enemy leaves us and waits for a more opportune time. He knows that self will eventually rise up again, full of life and vigor. Scripture cautions us to be wise, to be ready to crawl up on that altar each day and to die. Instead, we remember that time in our past that we resisted temptation, and in our arrogance we deny our weakness and our sin. We convince ourselves that it was and is enough, causing self and arrogance to live on and to grow fat.

We become Pharisee.

We become full of Self, full of arrogance, manipulating all to keep from being made to die daily -- or more than we think is necessary (despite the wisdom and the word of God). We contradict what He has said without blinking an eye, we trump the will of God, thinking we have justified our rebellion with words of our own. We hear and we talk but we so seldom do the will of God. His will is for us to be ready and willing to die daily... not just in conversation or for a show... but in our heart and in our actions...

People talk of being humble as though it is a choice to be such. Humility is not a choice, it is a consequence of sacrifice and death. It is when someone strips you, robs you, violates you, and leaves you bloody on the ground for dead... because of their own selfishness. Humility is asking God to forgive them as you die. Only then is a person truly humble, only then does the fragrance of humility rise from us, from our dead and rotting flesh. Only then does self die on any particular day.

So many ppl today think that being humble is a walk thru a flower garden responding softly to anyone who speaks to you... never raising your voice and caressing the flowers as you float by them

*insert puking smilie*

Humility is a stench, not a cologne to be sprinkled over our weighty arrogance. We can write the word on a blinging badge and flash it around to make ourselves appear holy and sweet and yummier than those around us... but Walter could wear Shananay's tag just as easily.... He might fool strangers or ppl that just want their shoes shined, but the people that know him, that have to work with him... they're gonna know that he is Walter. And the nametag will become a tag of counterfeit, of an impostor, rather than an identity worth honoring. The result will be a stench of the vomit of God, rather than the stench of the rotting flesh of Self,

... the stench of hypocrisy, rather than humility.

We stink.

being humble will never change that fact
but being like Christ will make it a stench worthy of honor, pleasing to God, bringing him glory and not ourselves. We need to stop trying to be pretty, and we need to return to being people of integrity <3

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A Specific Kind of Man

so I've been discussing love and relationships with some writer friends and fellow bloggers. Working on some love poetry and writing. Here are some comments about a question I was asked... Interesting cuz I wouldn't have been able to answer such a question had I not first found such a man (my husband).
It's easier to describe the one you fall in love with, rather than to create a list of requirements to search for. I don't think anyone knows what that special person will truly be like or what specific things about them you will fall in love with. I think real love is a spiritual attraction that God ordains, and then the physical attraction (while always there) intensifies -- as who they are in character and in Christ is revealed to you.

Some people settle for physical attraction, and never really know what love is... that physical and spiritual connection that truly makes you one in every sense of the word. The physical is merely the sweet-smelling wrapper that protects what's inside... though it is hugely important and must be kept clean... the spiritual is the real treat, the spiritual is the candy ^_^

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Q: What Specific Kind of Man Attracts You?

Selah: genuinely kind but not a push-over, and not for a show, a kindness that just comes naturally and almost unnoticed to bystanders.

cares about his appearance but isn't obsessed with it, can spill something on himself at dinner, clean it as best as he can, be bummed but not freak out about it.

Must love music, preferably plays drums or guitar. Appreciates beautiful things on a deep level, but doesn't have to cry over a breath-taking painting. Sensitive in a sexy and casual kind of way, not as an eccentric.

Loves a quiet empty afternoon, but can switch gears in a moment and plunge into something exciting.

Appreciates sport cars, may even own one in his life time, but doesn't have to have one. Doesn't find his identity in image or stuff. Sees people rather than what they have or don't have... really sees them.
Values what's important.

Gentle, strong, patient, challenging, forgiving, willing to listen, willing to teach, not crowding or pressuring me constantly, giving me room to fail or to change, sensual, physical, spiritual, leading those that are weaker, following right authority, having integrity, honest, truthful, faithful, protector, provider, companion, friend, lover, stranger... like Christ <3

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