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More and more I hear from the people of God about how they are suffering and
going through some type trial and tribulation in their lives. I understood
and sympathized because I’m fighting the good fight of faith myself. But
isn’t that what it really is – a fight of faith? Satan would love to steal
our faith. There are four scriptures that state that the just shall live by
faith: Habakkuk 2:1-5; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:10-11 and Hebrews 10:38.
Knowing that, we then have to look at Romans 12:3, which says, God has given
to every man the measure of faith. We as saints have the measure we need to
fight this fight. Paul said he was fighting the good fight of faith, 1
Timothy 6:12. Faith simply says F-forsaking A-all I-I T-trust H-Him. You
must trust and believe God.
Faith saves us. Faith keeps us. Faith allows Christ to live in us. Faith
vindicates, justifies and is made genuine in us as we go through the trials
and tribulations and yes, the suffering. Faith teaches us to wait with
great expectation. Faith gives us the VICTORY! Why not fight it? Why not
allow your faith to give substance to what you are believing God for? 1
John 5:4 says, Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Remember
beloved, we are in the world but we are not of it. We have to fight and
believe the world is not the way for us.
So in the face of seeming defeat, when faith seems weak and victory lost,
fight the good fight of faith! Hebrews 11:1 says, Faith is the substance of
things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Let your faith give
substance to things you hope for. Speak things that be not as though they
were. Use the power and authority God has given you in the name of Jesus!!
Faith says God is working out His perfect will and plan in my life, and I
can wait, endure, and suffer. Why? Because faith does not make anything
easy, but it makes all things possible. Hallaleujah!
Voracious Bible study readers, women purchase Bible studies more than do men by a ratio of five-to-one–and Gallup reports that 14 percent of Americans belong to a Bible-study group. This summer, David C Cook will release two new books in the Fresh Life series, their easy-to-use series of Bible studies for women and about women.
Perfect for every age, appropriate for groups or individual study, and intended for today’s on-the-go woman, the Fresh Life series, written by Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose, requires just 20 minutes a day for a meaningful contemplation of God’s Word. The latest two books in the series, Live Relationally and Live Deeply, follow Live Intimately and Live Fearlessly, released last summer.
Live Relationally offers a fresh look at the important women of Genesis. Though women in the Bible are sometimes overlooked or downplayed, this fascinating Bible study curriculum reminds readers that women are central to God’s story–and His plan. Genesis alone is peopled with women who experience death, marriage, divorce, rape, and family tragedy. And if that sounds like something out of Desperate Housewives, it just goes to show that the Bible has a message for women–today.
With probing questions, insightful sidebars, and meaningful life-application exercises, Live Relationally offers the vivid lessons and rich wisdom of Israel’s founding mothers. From the complicated Tamar to the often oversimplified Eve, they are wives and mothers, slaves and owners, sinners and saints … and each woman’s story will touch hearts for God.
Live Deeply is for anyone who has ever read one of Jesus’ parables and asked, “What is He talking about?” Now women–alone or with a small group– can dig deeper into the meaning of these parables to uncover their important meaning for their walks with Christ. Designed with today’s busy woman in mind, each lesson can be completed in as little as 20 minutes per day, but will leave her with a lifetime of valuable insights.
Continue reading Bible Study Series for Women on the Go
Isabella
By Pastor Troy Brewer
Open Door Ministries
Joshua, TX
Her name is Isabella. I saw her for the first time several years ago. We will both be forty-two this winter. Past that, there’s not much in common. Though we grew up on the same planet, during the same time, we have lived in two completely different worlds.
When I was eighteen, I drove a 1971, Ford truck named “Ned Pepper” after the bad guy from True grit. It was a shinning time for me, full of music, friends, high school graduations and hope for the future. That same year, when Isabella was eighteen, her family sold her to the trash dump in Matamoros Mexico.
Across the river
The search for a better life had brought Isabella’s family to the border. They had heard there were jobs that couldn’t be found in the mountains of Southern Mexico. They didn’t find jobs but found hardship and predators that prey on desperate people. After spending some time without a home, they were offered a piece of property with no money down, where they could build some kind of a house from things found at the nearby dump. What seemed like a good opportunity was actually a trap. Because they didn’t understand how interest works, it wasn’t long before they couldn’t make the payment.
The terrible ultimatum demanded by these Mafioso loan sharks is that your wife and daughters can either sell their bodies as prostitutes or the whole family can work in the trash dump. Of course they are promised they will be able to pay off the debt, and of course they are never able to. Years go by, people loose hope and slavery goes on within a few hours drive of where you are reading this now.
Continue reading Isabella
Please, Listen to Me: Tips for Becoming a Better ListenerENUMCLAW, Wash., July 29 /Christian Newswire/ — How would you rate your listening skills? Superior? Fair-to-middlin’? Mediocre?
“Few people listen as well as they think they do,” explains Dick Fetzer, a professor of elementary education at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania. “But relationships can be enhanced, improved–even salvaged–through reflective listening.”
In reflective listening, the listener “reflects back” to the speaker what he thought he heard, and awaits confirmation or correction. Anyone can learn the skill, asserts Fetzer. In his book, “Please Listen to Me!: A Christian’s Guide to Reflective Listening” (Pleasant Word, 2008). Fetzer addresses the ten most common stumbling blocks to effective communication.
Continue reading Please, Listen to Me: Tips for Becoming a Better Listener
You know sometimes I have to go into my personal life (not yours), but mine. My husband doesn’t always move on things and situations as quick as I like him to. So, I always attempt to help him, and it makes him strongly disagreeable against the help I think he needs. The real deal is that he knows what to do and never worries about it. On the other hand, I do. After much gnashing of teeth and a strong cease and desist order, I back off. I’ve learned to just to sat and wait patiently for him to do what he needs to do.
But isn’t that how we do God? 1 Peter 5:7 says, Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you (KJV). Now, I know God sees the time limit. I know God knows exactly what to do. But, I sat there and worry about it anyway. God said He’s never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread, Proverbs 37:25b (KJV). If God has never seen it, it can’t happen to me! Now that’s a powerful statement. After all He’s an All-Knowing and All-Sufficient God who also is called Jehovah-jireh, our Provider. Okay, in ending, repeat after me: God cares about me and He knows more than I do. Now, don’t you feel better? I know I do. Just keep saying that to your spirit and mind. No situation or trouble or issue can ever change what He is to you and His promise toward you. Author, Bayless Conley, stated in his article, How You Can Live Victorious Over Worry, and I quote, ‘Worry doesn’t empty tomorrow of it’s sorrows, it just empties today of it’s strengths’.
Food For Your Soul
Tonight I had the pleasure of looking at a show on the television with Bishop Brown. One of his favorite shows is ‘The Big Idea’ with Ronnie Dorsch (this spelling could be wrong, but it isn’t him that I’m talking about anyway).
He interviews people with their inventions and business ideas and he calls them ‘A Million Dollar Idea’. Tonight he focused on a young woman who resigned as a stock broker in New York. Her million dollar idea was cookies that she called ‘Food for The Soul’.
Now, that was a great idea, for the body (hmmmm, cookies), but what about food for your soul?
The soulish realm of your mind, will, and particularly emotions. Can you really say you have fed your emotions with the word of God or are they running a-muck.
The bible says in Romans 14:17-18, For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.
Continue reading Food For Your Soul
Romans 12:2 says, ‘Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.’ (NIV)
When I asked the question is transformation necessary?, I think about the cartoon called the Transformers. These were cars that turned into huge monsters made of a mass of metal. The thing about it is that they always had a reason for turning into this giant, tall, and powerful weapon ready to do battle.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the believer took that same authority and did battle with principalities, wickedness in high places, and evil rulers in the unseen world. Clearly transform means to change form, nature, character or disposition. It says to be something different. I say to my son all of the time, if you want a change from the results or outcome you get doing something, then you have to change the way you do it. Renew your thinking toward it. Think the way the Lord thinks. Let the mind of Christ be in you in everything you do.
As a Christian, when we become a new creature, a new saved person in Christ, the old way is done away with and everything we do will be new to us. It won’t be considered the norm anymore. As a matter of fact, people will call you crazy because you’ve change the way you see and do things. Why? because we are doing things God’s way. We are coming out of conformity. We are coming out of agreement with the world’s way and the old way. Not doing what mama them always did it. Transformation means breaking out of the box. You begin to pray and ask God to make you usable and not just use you. Break all the molds, thoughts, and ideas we were accustomed to before salvation. Make us more and more like Jesus and then and only then can we be usable. It won’t be just with our mouths but with the heart and spirit. We are no longer bound by the box, but we are transformed and blood-bought children of God. Ready to be transformed by the power of God into whatever He wants us to be. I say yes! Transformation is necessary.
‘Every day’s a blessing’: Four weeks after she was declared brain dead, Minnesota woman continues ‘miraculous’ recovery
By ANDREW WALLMEYER
awallmeyer@acnpapers.com
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Gazette photo by Andrew Wallmeyer
Alan and Raleane “Rae” Kupferschmidt in the living room of their Lake Elmo home Sunday afternoon. Rae was pronounced brain dead on Jan. 17 but has since mounted a “miraculous” recovery and could return home from the hospital this week. |
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LAKE ELMO, Mn. - Four weeks ago, Alan Kupferschmidt was planning his wife’s funeral. Today, he is planning her homecoming party.
Doctors pronounced Raleane “Rae” Kupferschmidt brain dead on Jan. 17, two days after a massive cerebral hemorrhage put the 65-year-old into a coma. In her living will, she told her family she did not want to live the last years of her life as a vegetable, so after saying their tearful goodbyes they reluctantly told doctors to remove her breathing tube and waited for her to die.
“Family was all around her. The minister from the church was there, and we had a small prayer service. We had already begun the grieving process – my mom was gone,” Lisa Sturm recalled Sunday.
Continue reading Prayer Works: Brain Dead Woman Continues ‘Miraculous’ Recovery
I found this today online and I thought that it was so appropriate. We all have seasons when what we are praying for seems so distant. Many times one of the reasons is our own living and lifestyle.
Take a look at this and leave your comment. Love you much
- Pastor Linda
Sin, a Hindrance to Answered Prayer
By Carlos Garcia
Have you ever found that the prayers you have before God have gone unanswered? Have you ever wondered what it could be that is holding back the answer to your petition? After spending some time in fasting in prayer the Lord revealed to me five hindrances to receiving prayers answered, they are the following: sin, fear, self, time and disorder. Today, I’ll be discussing the first point, sin.
God’s word says that without obedience there is no blessing. Disobedience to God’s word is sin. We may be faithful in tithing and church attendance, but if we are not walking according to God’s word, we are in disobedience and sin.
We may want to become angry with God for not answering our prayer, but if we walking in disobedience to God then we are hindering ourselves from receiving a blessing.
Sin seems to develop in stages, A) Thoughts, B) Words, and C) Action. The Scriptures state, “as a man *THINKS in his heart, so is he.” If the thoughts of your heart are angry, lustful, jealous, and the like, then it is an indication of whom we are, even if it is not whom we want or claim to be. (cf. II Co 10:3-5)
Continue reading Sin, a Hindrance to Answered Prayer
The Benefits of Obedience
By Pastor Linda Brown
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