Go now, a child of God. Choose well the road you take,
And the decisions you make. Keep in mind always that The God you serve continues to call to you, making you more and more every day into the faithful one God wants you to be.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Three

Today I started off with a thankful heart. Things I am thankful for: (in no particular order)
1. Waking up this morning at home.
2. Love
3. Baby Girl
4. Friends
5. Clean clothes
6. Telephones
7. Eggs for breakfast
8. Asthma Inhalers
9. Running
10. Prayer
Of course this list could go on, and it will in the days to come. Today I am thinking about a single word, rejection. At some time of our lives every one of us has been rejected by something. Maybe it was an application for employment, or an invitation for a date didn’t happen, or a spouse decided they didn’t want to spend the rest of their life with you; your credit card might have been rejected due to lack of payment. In my extraordinary life I will not always like rejection, but I will try my best to seek God and his wisdom in why I was rejected.
This morning I am going to attend Logos Church with Pastor David Anderson. Pastor Anderson had experienced a big rejection a few weeks ago at Southside Baptist Church. I had been visiting there. Southside Baptist was the church I attended when I first moved back to Dothan. They had a wonderful singles group under the direction of June Kilgore.
I grew in that singles group, and they were my support group. I am not divorced, so joining the singles group was not what I intended, I just wanted to be in a place that felt like home. Home for me is where there are people who love you. I needed some love so I went to visit Jesus, in his house and that house at the time was Southside Baptist Church. I have a membership with another church, but I woke up late and I wouldn’t have made it to the church where I have a membership and so instead I pulled into the parking lot at Southside and I sang praises to the Lord, I read bible passages with a congregation (the same passages I had been reading alone in the book of Psalms) I
visited with friends I have not seen in a long time. I head the pastor, David Anderson give a message and I experienced God not rejecting me while I was there. Over the next few weeks I returned for services.
Two Sundays ago I went to Southside and there was not a choir, there was not a pastor, there was not an assistant pastor, in fact the bulletin printed did not have a single staff member listed. I looked into the congregation for some of the familiar faces that had been in the choir, and many were missing. Service only lasted about 30 minutes.

Remember I was only visiting, but during the time we greet one another, I was informed that Pastor Anderson was voted out of the church as pastor. The whole staff resigned.
Extraordinary

Monday morning I got on Facebook (the social networking website) and sent a message to Trent, (he and his wife Robyn had been in the choir) He replied and told me where they has service and the times for the next meeting.
A pastor rejected? I know pastors come and go through churches, but to be voted out by the congregation is scandalous.

Rejection. I have been experiencing rejection in my personal life with my daughter and my husband. I too, relocated; I too am seeking that place of higher ground. Sometimes God is the one that put that big “rejection” stamp on some area of our lives.
1 Peter 2:11
“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.”

1 John 5:4 “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even in our faith.” God is working in my life to put me a trust in me for me to go where he is pointing. Can God use this pain from rejection? Yes, this pain will be something I will never forget, I think that God won’t let me forget it, life will not be pain free, but when you are removed from a person or circumstance that pain is there for a reason. It is to keep us from being tempted to go back.
I’m not saying that relationships can’t be repaired; I am saying that God wants whatever happened for the rejection to happen is what God wants to change.
I am seeking God for knowledge I admit I am displaced in my life right now. A pastor and a whole group of people that chose to follow him are displaced. I am going to be a part of that group of people.
Psalm 40:8 “ I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
Pastor Anderson preached last Sunday about his direction for the new Logos church to be a New Testament church. He said the whole New Testament in the bible is about Faith.
The book of Romans has a lot of guidelines about faith.
Romans 10:17
“Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
I am going to hear Pastor Anderson preach the word this morning. I need to be in bible study. I am going to follow God’s call to witness. Jesus Christ wants us to confess.
Eph. 6: 19-20
“Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. For which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”

Paul didn’t ask for a change of circumstances, he asked to be used right where he was. I want to have a heart like Paul. I’m seeking God’s will to accomplish his plan in any and all circumstances of my extraordinary life.
I am to put myself in a position to trust God. Yesterday I spent the day with a friend that experienced rejection. I hope that I was there for her and we had some laughs about her rejection (she got stood up) She is in a lot of pain because of the relationship she is in. I pray for God to be at work in her life and that she can seek God and corner her faith.
Matthew 4 Jesus was in the desert. He was there to establish his stronghold to God.
It is times when the Devil is near taunting us that we follow Jesus’ example and when those crazy times of rejection, despair, temptation, defeat, and all those negative things that the devil can bring, that is when we look, seek and find God.

Mathew 4:10
Jesus said unto him, Away from me Satan! For it is written, “worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”

I am going to have a heart for thanksgiving today. I am going to Logos Baptist Church and worship with a group of rejected believers and hear the word of God.

I pray for Logos Baptist church, Pastor Anderson, my friend and others that have recently experienced rejection, I pray for them to feel a calling to the Lord and all of us can be on this journey of faith.

Is there some area that you are struggling with? Is there a problem you need resolved? Were you rejected and don’t know which direction to go in? Answers will not just appear, but if you and I were sitting together and I listened to your problem, as in the case of my friend I do not know how to change the circumstances of her situation, but if she was here right now, I would say to her, “I know of your circumstance, I am your friend, you asked for closure for the situation in your life that is causing you pain, and think we can believe God for that.”

Sometimes we cannot stay in that low place that rejection puts us.
Psalm 61:2
“From the ends of the Earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

Amen

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Two

State of Expectation

As I said yesterday, God had only one question for me and that question was, “Will I have faith?” I am living an extraordinary life. I am in a position to trust God. I am living alone and with only one income. I have to trust in God.

I am in a state of expectation. Luke 17:5 “ The apostles said unto the Lord, increase our faith.”

Amen.

Friday, August 28, 2009

One

“From the ends of the Earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” – Psalm 61:2

This Psalm was written by David when he was forced to escape during the days of Absalom’s rebellion or after he had narrowly escaped one of Saul’s efforts to kill him while hiding in the desert.

David had to be very lonely and scared when he wrote this. He was crying out to God to deliver him from his circumstance.

I am here trying to figure out what went wrong in my own life. I am struggling with a lot of heartbreak. During my time of depression I felt like I’d never be okay again. I felt like I really blew it, like what was done could not be fixed.

I am going to be really honest with my feelings and tell you what I am going through and if I can help someone going through the same thing then blessings can flow from what happened to me.

Almost three years ago my daughter went to live with her dad. Things were not so great between us at that time. I told her since she was living with her father, she would have to change schools, he lived in a different school district. Out of anger I said she could no longer use my address to remain in the school she was in. I reported it to the school and she was not allowed to stay enrolled. To make a long story short, she cried three weeks straight, and her dad had to move mountains to get her back into the school. Needless to say this was very damaging to her and my relationship. She decided that I was not someone she could count on. Truly our bond was broken.

I really didn’t mind her living with her father, sure it hurt, but he is her father. If there was any place she chose to live, I am grateful, thankful and blessed that it was her father’s house. When a child lives apart from a parent, something dies within that person especially if the parting was under difficult circumstances. The anger she had for me, made her not trust me. She wouldn’t invite me to anything that happened with her and school. That meant no football games, no award ceremonies, no meetings with her teacher, no taking her to school, no spending time with her on holidays, no picking her up if she was sick. She feared I would do the same thing and screw it all up again. I was not allowed to be a part of those things. If I came around she would ignore me and the time we did spend together, she made sure that we were never alone. If she came for the weekend, she would have a friend come with her, there was not a time she and I were alone, just the two of us for a long time. I had to respect that she was angry at me, and just be there if she needed me.

I was in a deep pit of depression because of losing her. The time we spend together is limited. She has a social life and is busy. So I count my blessings that she always answers the phone when I call and lets me be mom more and more. We are rebuilding our relationship.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6

I plan to make this year my best year!
First three questions:
What is my question for God this year?
What is His question for me?
Who will answer first?

Acknowledge God and He will direct your path.
Isaiah 45:18
“For this is what the Lord says-
he who created the heavens,
he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it, he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited- he says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other…”

What is my question for God this year? I think I already asked God what my purpose is and he answered Ministry and Mission.
What is His question for me? Will I have faith? WOW.

Next consider the weight of what God is asking, he is asking for a commitment, this is serious. If I consent to “let go and let God” the process will begin and I will see things shift, shove, and rearrange to guide my path for what he has planned. He is not asking me for some weak faith, He is asking me for something larger- God is asking me for an ENDURING faith, a faith that will be here daily- for the next 365 days, and the next, and the next- until my mission and my ministry is done. WOW

How does one get this faith? “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” – Romans 10:17
Get in church and hear the word of God, spend time in the word, read your bible.
He is asking me to be fully devoted to God. God wants me to become someone who says YES to follow His will. It requires surrender. Life can be different.
There are three requirements:
1. Devotion – this is where the YES comes in. God is asking me to go public. He is asking me to reflect some gratitude for this extraordinary life he has given me. He is just asking me to give him some worship, commit to his work and reflect the wealth that comes from being a part of the kingdom of God.
2. Dependent –The things in my life would not be what they are without his influence. I serve a mighty God. He is in control. I feel I am not talented enough to do any of this, but God enables me. My responsibility is to do what I can. God is everywhere. Where ever he leads me, I will not be alone.
3. Direction- This is not something that God wants me to say "Whoa" to – instead he uses some other words that start with W- Word, witness, wisdom, and work.
He’s giving me direction, He has given me a living word – the bible, He has given me an extraordinary life to be a witness, He will give me wisdom, and everything will work according to His plan. God can open doors no one else can shut, and he will shut doors no one else can open.

This evening for my birthday, I invited my daughter out to dinner with me. She did not hesitate. Having her with me was the best gift I could have asked for. I know that all our pain has not passed, and between us there is still love.
That love comes from grace. “Grace is the action of God bringing to pass in our lives good things which we neither deserve nor can accomplish on our own.”- Dallas Willard.

This is day one of my extraordinary year!

Grace and peace be with you from God our Father.
Amen!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Extraordinary Life

Extraordinary Life

Before I was born God had decided I would have an extraordinary life. He selected my mother from the Philippines and my father from Oregon. Then he had my birth in the deep South in Alabama. I looked different and I talked different. I really did not feel like I fit in my surrounding or with people around me. My first memory of church was the Catholic Church. My mother is Catholic and she had me baptized in the Catholic Church when I was 4 or 5. When my parents divorced when I was six, it was during a time when divorce was a bad word and single parent families were looked down upon. It was hard for me to have friends. Divorce was not a word that people said out loud during that time it was a word that they whispered and hoped no one heard when they gossiped about you. My next experience at church was when our neighbor took me to a primitive Baptist Church. My dad did not know what to do with a girl and I didn’t know any better about how I should dress so when our neighbor would come to pick me up on Sunday morning, I was in my blue jeans and a t-shirt. That only happened one Sunday, the next Sunday she took me to her house and had a dress for me to change into. I really didn’t care if I wore jeans to church, or that dress, I just knew I liked going. When I was about thirteen, my dad joined a singles group at the First United Methodist Church. The singles met during Sunday school and I went to Sunday school too. The Methodist are big about having someone baptized before they joined the church, I remember they wanted us to be aware of other religions before we got baptized so for several Sundays we visited different denominational churches and one Saturday we even went to Temple at the Jewish Synagogue. I didn’t feel compelled to join the Episcopal Church or Temple or Church of Christ, Methodist was alright with me so I agreed to be baptized. Several years later I met my life long best friend, Stacie. Stacie’s grandfather had been a pastor, and so her mother was a God fearing woman and kept her kids in church each and every time the doors were open. If I wanted to be friends with Stacie, it required me to come along to the church each time the doors were open, too. I got to know Jesus and I accepted him as my personal savior at Mt. Enon Baptist Church and I was baptized for the third and last time.
Extraordinary.
I always did things just a little different, Stacie grew up doing bible drills and during that time I didn’t know my bible well enough to find a verse in the bible on the quick draw like the other youth, so instead of participating in bible drills, I was told I could share my testimony and compete as a speaker. So I worked hard and I had my testimony. At fifteen I was very aware of God in my life. Not many youth volunteered to give their testimonies, but I had already been living an extraordinary life and God was at work in it.
I was a sinner and I am still a sinner. During my teen-age years and into my twenties, I lived in the world. I met a 19 year old the other day that had a tattoo of three “X’s” on his chest. He said it meant that he was a straight edge. I’m twenty years older than him and I didn’t know what that meant, he told me a straight edge is a lifestyle choice to refrain from drinking alcohol, using tobacco and no premarital sex.
I’ll confess to you when I was in my teens; I was not a straight edge. I lived in the world and I wanted to fit in. I wasn’t as near to God during that time. I got married at 18 yrs old. I still had my faith, God was still near to me and I knew it. There had been times in my life I should have been someplace else, or doing something else or with someone else because I have been in some dangerous situations and I was delivered from the worst.

God has a way of drawing you near to him if you belong to him. For me he made me asthmatic. I am thankful to God for each breath I take. I have had attacks so bad I would pray for my last breath, but God would say not yet, it is not your time, and he would deliver me and make my lungs normal again.

In my present life I am reconciling with God. Over the past few years He went about removing things from my life, some of these things were people, my parents both live in Florida, it takes 8-10 hours to drive to see either of them, my brother is in jail, my daughter lives with her father, and me and my husband live in separate homes. When you are separated from the most important people in your life you grieve. I spent a long time in grief, several years. I went through a deep depression. It showed in my life. I gained a lot of weight, I hardly ever left the house except for work, and I alienated myself from my friends and even my husband. I could give a whole other testimony about grief, but I’m not going to do that today.

A turning point for me was when I got serious about God and prayer. This turning point was this past February. I got serious about loosing weight. My father gave me a treadmill and I spent some weeks fasting for God to remove from me my desires for food. I prayed when I was hungry, I prayed when I hurt from being on the treadmill, I prayed thankful for each meal when I ended the fasting, and I still do. God gets all the Glory for my 40 lbs. of weight loss in the past six months.

I find myself in prayer numerous times of the day. God put a noisy neighbor in the apartment above me that stays up all night long and sleeps at 5 am. I wake up almost every other hour during the night and when I am awake my first thought is to ask God why am I up? Then I pray. I share my confusion, my feelings and my hope with God. I cry a lot. I have my head bowed down but it is during that time that I hear God. I spend a lot of alone time with God. I asked my husband to pray for me last week and he asked what should he pray for, and I simply said for God to draw me closer to Him. The HIM is God. Since asking for that prayer, I have heard God tell me three times this week what my purpose is, it is to live an extraordinary life.
To achieve my purpose He has asked only two things from me- ministry and mission.
1 Corinthians 1: 4-9 Paul said:
“I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way- in all your speaking and in all your knowledge- because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.”

Ministry of reconciliation. – My Testimony
Mission in the world- To tell the good news of Jesus Christ, the way to eternal life.
Every believer has a ministry and a mission.
God put me on Earth to live an extraordinary life to have a ministry and a mission.
God desires every one to be saved and come to know the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
God wants you to live an extraordinary life, too. All it takes is knowing Jesus as your personal savior. There is no salvation from eternal hell except for personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. So today take the time to ask Jesus into your heart it's very simple, just honestly say, "Jesus is Lord" and if you believe with all your heart that God raised him being (Jesus) from the dead. God will accept you and save you today. Following God's way and heeding his wisdom we are promised an extraordinary life on Earth and Eternal life in Heaven.