Wavering between Faith and Fear?

Psalm 56:3-10 (The Message)

 ^1-4 Take my side, God—I'm getting kicked around, stomped on every day.
   Not a day goes by
      but somebody beats me up;
   They make it their duty
      to beat me up.
   When I get really afraid
      I come to you in trust.
   I'm proud to praise God;
      fearless now, I trust in God.
      What can mere mortals do?

We are tempted everyday to give up, feel like a failure and go and bury ourselves under the covers. Our biggest battle is our emotions. As this passage says we feel beat up, stomped on by people and circumstances. We get hurt, offended,disappointed, angry, depressed, anxious, prideful and joyful. The roller coaster of our emotions can feel unbearable at times, and hopeless!

So What do we do?

Psalms say Put our trust in God, Praise Him for what He has promised!

No person, sickness, pain or circumstance can rob us of our souls or our future beyond this life.

Instead, we should fear God who is in control of our next.

 

 

Even our deepest sorrow, God cares! We waver between faith and fear, when we feel so discouraged and we think no one understands, remember that God knows every problem and sees every tear.

 ⁸ You've kept track of my every toss and turn
      through the sleepless nights,
   Each tear entered in your ledger,
      each ache written in your book.

The enemy has us thinking we are weak Christians and have not had all God wanted for us. If we are not careful we will not!

Maybe its because we have not waited on Him to show up to empower us, and we are to involved in our pity party or we do too much in the power of our own!

When Jesus was being trailed, beaten and crucified, the physical agony was horrible, but even worse was the period of spiritual separation from God. Jesus suffered this double death so we would never have to experience eternal separation from God. the people and the leaders mocked him, gave him enough to believe that His God cant save Him, they told Him to come down from the cross.

But thank God He did not!

Jesus is the Son of God, who always obeys the will of the Father, he did not come down from the cross!

That night the curtain  separating the Holy place from the Most Holy place (which only the Most high were allowed to enter) was torn in two showing us that the barrier between God and us has been removed. Now we are all free to approach God because of Christ's sacrifice for our sins.

When we are feeling defeated remember this night that Victory is ours! Through the blood of Jesus we have been reedeemed and set free. We are free to go to the Throne and recieve the fullnes that God has for us!

His Mercy and His Grace are new everyday! They are His gifts and they are Free!

 

Happy Mother's Day

Matthew 11:28-30 

 ²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

As Mother's we serve endlessly and tired. Remember today to lay our cares down, focus on Jesus and enjoy our families. God gives us grace and peace.

I praythat you will have fun today, you will relax today, play today and connect with the ones you love.

I pray that you feel loved today and valued today.

We are not perfect moms but lets thank God that we are the perfect mom for the children He gave us!

Many blessing

Christine Kramer

My Garden

Recently my husband built this garden for me. I am so blessed to have a husband with a green thumb!

I sure don't have one, but I wanted a garden.

We did however go and pick vegetables together at Home Depot to put in the garden.

In the past Tim has planted things, hung beautiful flower baskets and given me all the plants and  flowers I wanted, which are not cheap!

They look so pretty when you first get them. Only to find that I did not water them and eventually they would wilt become brown and ugly and die! Yuck! Not so pretty anymore.

Isaiah 1:30 (New Living Translation)

 ³⁰ You will be like a great tree with withered leaves,
      like a garden without water.

Like a garden if we do not water ourselves with the Word of God which gives us life we will wither and burn. All things that we put in its place will run dry.

Isaiah 58:11 (Amplified Bible)

¹¹And the Lord shall guide you continually and satisfy you in drought and in dry places and make strong your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.

Faith and hope are our strength and when we run dry we can be confident that the Lord will water those areas that are dry.

 It is a daily requirement if we want to have life!

Are you feeling tired, confused and dry? Do you have a daily quiet time with God?

I challenge you today to spend 15 minutes with the Lord everyday and He will supply the water to freshen you!

Mark 4:32 (Amplified Bible)

³²Yet after it is sown, it grows up and becomes the greatest of all garden herbs and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air are able to make nests and dwell in its shade.

1 Corinthians 3:9 (Amplified Bible)

⁹For we are fellow workmen (joint promoters, laborers together) with and for God; you are God's garden and vineyard and field under cultivation, [you are] God's building.

     

You don't have to light up the whole world, but you do have to do your part!

Let No Man split apart.......

Matthew 19:4-12 (Amplified Bible)

⁴He replied, Have you never read that He Who made them from the beginning made them male and female,

    ⁵And said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be united firmly (joined inseparably) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

    ⁶So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder (separate).

God intended for marriage to be Indissoluble, permanent and instead of looking for ways out we should concetrate on how to stay together!

I have sat with many woman who are overcome with fear, anxiety, depression and uncontrollable emotions. Starting with me being one of them!

Inevitably those of us that are married focus on our husbands and look for them to meet our need.

Yes we can desire for our husbands to love us and show us affection, praise us and support us.

But ultimately we need to go to God to meet those needs and than when we do receive them from our spouse it is a blessing not an expectation!

I have spent many years waiting and manipulating my husband to love me and do what I wanted him to do. Only to cause myself much heartache, which lead to the anxiety and uncontrollable emotions.

It was when years later....( by my choice to wait that long because that is how long I tried to control) that God was in control. When I allowed God to change me, He in turn changed my husband.

When I learned to trust God, focus my eyes on Jesus, that is when He took care of the circumstances around me.

We have a present truth and a past truth. The past truth is based on experiences, hurts, failures and lies.

Where as our present truth is based on God's mercy and grace!

This past weekend our Pastor preached on this very thing.

Do we believe that Jesus is hyped on you?

He is madly in love with you. We need to believe what God believes about us

Change the past "I AM's" .....I am not worthy, I am unlovable, I am unforgivable.......

God says You are Worthy, I love you, I forgive you.

We are righteous through Christ and if we don't believe it we are only living half the truth!

Jesus came to give us life and give it abundantly!

Grace means we no longer have to work- it frees us to not have to fix me, or them or it!

Jesus does that. When we fix our eyes on Jesus we are free to go and serve others.

God takes away and makes new everyday, Every moment!

God believes you are His treasure, He searches for you and He desires you.

Today replace one "I AM" lie and line it up with the word of God and what He says about you!