First of Creation

Today is my last post using the Droid App Bible verses.  It's been an interesting month and I'll probably do it again someday.  I have a couple of thing I would like you all to pray about.  First, my cousin, who is hearing-impaired and is a MRDD person has cancer and is having trouble understanding what is going on with himself.  It's very hard on his family, trying to help him understand.  His name is Eddie.

Secondly, tomorrow I am the featured blogger (writer) for Seeds of Faith.  I hope each of you will go the site and read what I put.  I pray that God will bless the site and will help my words be his words.  The site is http://www.seedsoffaithwomen.com.  I'm excited to be part of this group of Godly women.  I hope you get a chance to go see what all of write.

Okay, on with the show...

The funny thing about this being my last Droid App post is the verse that it gave me is Genesis 1:1!  The very first verse in the Bible.  God has such a sense of humor!  

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

 If he had not created the heaven and the earth, there would be no story.  There would have been no backdrop for anything.  How could we have a flood, earthquakes, armies fighting, angels falling from grace, Christ's birth and death or his resurrection?  Creation is one of those things most of us take for granted.  

I have a garden (if you go to http://cfoxes33.blogspot.com you can see some pictures of it).  Every year we grow different things.  We grow tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon, peppers, whatever floats our boat.  We try to mix it up.  This year our green peppers didn't come up.  But we had radishes that did pretty great.  God has given us a wet spring and humid summer, so the tomatoes are full, the  beans are plump.  But sometimes we expect those things.  But there is always something going on.  I hate to weed.  I usually don't do it until I realize that the weeds are choking the good plants.

Everything has to have a beginning.  Luckily, God stated our beginning simply.  This is one Bible verse we can all remember.  Are there other verses we want to remember?  Make it a goal to take a verse and remember it.  Why is it we can remember your social security number, but not 10 words together from the Bible?  Say them everyday.  Our minister is starting a study on the Bible.  He wants everyone to learn the books of the Bible in order.  I use to know them all.  I know about half of them, getting the minor prophets mixed up.  So that is my goal for August.  Make a goal and go for it.  Let me know what it is and I will try and hold you accountable to it.

Once in a while we are all creative too.  I am probably the least creative person I know.  My daughter is very creative, as is Mike.  I have good ideas, but can't seem to get them out.  I will admit I am creative when it comes to music, but only to sing it.  But, being created in God's image we all have some creative juice flowing through us.  Some just got a whole lot more than others!

So as I ramble on today, remember that everything has a beginning, everything has been created, and we are the image of God.  What a mess things could have been without this verse explaining it all to us! 

How Content Am I?

This month I've gone with an app on my Droid that gives me a Bible verse a day, and then do an impromptu devotion.

The verse that came up today is Hebrews 13:5.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

I also looked this verse up on the website BibleGateway.com.  Here is it's version.  

Let your manner of living be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have. For He hath said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee"; 21st Century King James Version.

The first version is easier to understand.  It's pretty straightforward.  I have tried to live my life being content with what I have.  I have a nice house, a great family, a job, clothes, food, etc.  I don't need the latest and greatest of things.  Lately we have been going to too many first run movies.  I also confess that I have been buying books more than borrowing them from the library.  But being content with "things" is just part of it.  Are you content with who you are?  Are you happy with everything in your life?

If I would say yes, I would be lying.  There are things in every aspect of my life that I am not content with.  I am not content with my looks, my thoughts, my attitude at times.  I try to be helpful, but end up making others upset.  I try to be content and most of the time I succeed.  But there are times that no matter how I try, I am not content.  I am not trying to change others, but am I trying to change myself? If I am truly content with what I have, then should I feel happy?

Happiness and contentment does not go hand in hand.  Being content means to be satisfied.  Some people are never satisfied.  They have to go, go, go.  Some people need the biggest and best.  Some need the newest and most improved.  In this society, we are advertised to get the newest, brightest and most improved items.  But if you have something that already works, then why do you need the newest or the most expensive?  Status?  What is that going to get you in heaven?  Do you really care what your neighbor thinks of your new "toy"?

No matter what your status here on earth, God is the judge to please.  And he promised to "never leave or forsake you." That is the thing I am most content with. 

Deciphering Paul

Galatians 2:20

I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

    

My first thought when I read this verse is, when Paul starts writing, sometimes it is hard to follow him.  He seems to write in circles.  This is one of those times.  So let me see if I can break this down in something I can understand.  Maybe you can too.

I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live;  That seems pretty easy to me.  When we are baptized, we go down in the watery grave, our sinful self dying to the world and raised in Christ.  He is now with us, dwelling in our hearts, even though we are still alive.

yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.  It is not me anymore.  It is not my sinful ways, my selfish pleasures, that should concern me, but I need to be led by Christ and live for him.

And the life which I now life in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, I think this means I should live in the world, but not of the world.  We can live as Christians in this world, but we need to keep ourselves separate from it.  We need to have the faith that God will help us with the temptations of this world.

who loved me and gave Himself for me.  Praise God for saving me from my sinful self!

I hope this clears up something of this verse.  It seems easier to understand if I break it down into pieces and think about each part, instead of trying to decipher what seems like Paul's round-about writings.

Wednesday means iFellowship at Seeds of Faith

iFellowship was created by the team at Seeds Of Faith. We wanted Christian women to have a place to get to know each other and well, just fellowship! After all, as Christians we're called to fellowship with one another.

So, every Wednesday at 12:00 AM CST, there will be a linky tool provided for Christian women to post links to their blogs, twitter accounts, and facebook accounts.

The Prayer of Jabez

I Chronicles 4:10

Now Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not pain me!" And God granted him what he requested.

I feel so blessed today!  This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible.  This and Isaiah 40:31.  Jabez is one of the only men in the book of Chronicles that is talked about a little.  It talks about how he was born and that he prayed to God.  I have a book somewhere, maybe one of you have my book, that talks about how praying this prayer for you will increase your ...land, knowledge, whatever it is you want to increase.  I loved this verse so much that when we had the National Day of Prayer services one time, I asked Tom McRoberts, one of our ministers, to talk about this.  He did such a wonderful job. 

Jabez wanted God's blessings and asked God to be with him through everything.  He asked for his territory to grow bigger and that he would be kept from harm.  Those are all things that we ask for too, isn't it?  What person wouldn't want to be painless, and under God's protection?  Well, pain free we are not, but we are under God's protection.   He loves us and wants us to depend on him for everything.  I try, but it is hard because sometimes I want something done the way I think it should be.  And I usually make it worse and jumble things up more.

We just need to learn to trust God and wait on him to do what he wants from us.  John 16:23 says, " In that day you will not question Me about anything Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you."  I think that says it all.

Desires of Heaven

Welcome to all the new readers!  I hope you are blessed in someway by this devotion!  On Saturday, I will be doing a piece for Seeds of Faith (www.seedsoffaithwomen.com).  It's a wonderful site for Christian woman (but men are welcome to read it too!  I hope you will join me there!

I also hope you have enjoyed this month's devotions.  I have used an app on my Droid to lead us through different verses in the Bible so that God on can speak to us, not necessarily in a random way, but as a different way.  I also wanted to challenge myself to see if I could make a devotional piece out of something unexpected.  I think I did okay and I hope you thought so too!  Thanks for all the comments.  I love the feedback I am given.

Psalm 73:25
Whom have I in heaven but You?
         And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. 

Our Creator sits on a throne in heaven, looking down at his world.  How often, do we kneel before him, or as I used to do as a child, lay on my back in the yard, and look up at the sky?  I remember my sister and I would lay on the hill in our side yard and look up at the clouds and blue sky in the summer, trying to see what the passing clouds reminded us of.  Dragons, bears, spaceships, there was no end!  Did you ever look up and contemplate heaven?  

God is in heaven, and I desire to go there when it's my turn.  He is the one I want to please, the one I am serving, the one I live for.  There is nothing on this earth that I really desire.  I physically am in want or need of anything.  Praise God for that.  Emotionally, I want my family healthy and happy. Spiritually, I have the desire to be where Christians are.  But that is here on earth. 

I think the older you get, the "wiser" you get, and the more you realize the whole goal is heaven and eternal life.  As a young adult (I refuse to say I am anywhere in the middle), we want to experience family, kids, marriage, and all the other things that we can on earth.  We don't seem to have our mind set on heaven.  We know it's the goal, but it seems so far away.  Until it's not.  I was thinking last night how quickly it can go from life to death for us.  As children, there is no way we are close to dying.  As young adults, we are still too far away from that in our thinking, then we hit maybe a certain age, or illness hits us in the face, and there it is, heaven.  Where are we going?  Are we ready?  What's there?  All the questions loom and we start thinking about it.  The older we get, the more we desire heaven.  We have lived this life and know that there is more to it than what we've done here.  The older we get, the more we talk about death, eternal life, and heaven.  The more reassurance we need for the younger adults.  It's hard to contemplate heaven as a young person until you are faced with actually going there.  But, maybe it is something we do need to contemplate more than in passing.  We need to let our children know what we are here for.  What our reward is for living a life for Christ.  Then when a loved one passes, it will still hurt, but the reassurance of being with God may help ease the pain.

Patience is A Virtue

Psalms 40:1

 I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard me cry.

How patient  are you in waiting?  I actually am pretty calm when waiting, or so I thought.  Then, the other night when I noticed the missed call from camp, I was not patient.  I called the camp (no answer), I text my friend and dumped all my worries on her, I prayed, a lot, and when I'm nervous, my leg starts shaking.  I get so antsy.  Usually I am very patient.  When someone gets upset, I am usually calm, cool and collective.

When God wants something done, I know that I have to wait on him.  When I ask the Lord for something, I usually forget about it.  I know that the answer will come.  I accept the fact that God-time is not Cheryl-time.  If I knew God's schedule, then that would take all the fun out of life, huh?

The good and best news in this passage is that God heard my cry.  His mind was tuned into me, leaning toward me and he heard me when I called out to him with my worry.  Thankfulness spreads through me like drinking hot chocolate on a cool day.  I so appreciate that God is tuned in to me and that he leans toward me.  He wants to help when he can.

Everything with Son at camp has been taken care of and Son stayed all week.  Foxy and Gpa will go pick him tonight, so I am excited to see him!  I can't wait to hear his stories and especially to see how he is doing with that knee he hurt.  I am thankful that God made me patient and is patient with me, even when I'm not inclined to be as patient with others.