Flint Rocks

Flint Rocks

When I was a little kid I used to love to go without shoes. We lived on a farm and had a big yard, so most of the time going shoeless was not a problem. Of course, eventually I would have to cross the gravel driveway and it never failed, I would step on a flint rock. If you don’t know much about flint rocks, then you might not know that they have some pretty sharp edges and they can be really painful on bare feet! 

Our sins can be kind of like these flint rocks. As humans we tend to bury our sins deep inside. There are times when we have committed such a life-altering, heart-wrenching, satan-driven sin that it tears our insides up – especially if we keep it hidden from the world. Keeping it hidden and thinking that we are able to deal with it can make the cuts from the edges of this “flint rock” of sin that much deeper. There comes a time when we all have to face our sin, ask the Lord’s forgiveness, and move on from it. Sometimes, that is easier said than done! Actually pulling the rock out and looking at it, addressing that it exists, is the most difficult part of all. We may have been living in denial for years and not wanting to even admit that we have committed the sin in the first place. Yes, it will hurt to pull those sharp edges out from deep inside, but turning to the Lord and allowing Him to take the “rock” from us and throw it away from us – as far as the East is from the West – will finally allow the healing process to begin. Then we can walk away with the freedom that only the Lord can give us!

You want to know something kind of awesome about flint rocks? They can start a fire! Once you have felt the amazing grace given freely from the Lord, especially if you have felt the scars that the sharp edges were leaving, then you’ll know what being on fire for the Lord is all about. The Lord might just start a fire inside of you with that flint rock!!

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:8

Remodeling

Remodeling

HGTV is one of my favorite stations of all time. I really enjoy watching all of the remodeling shows. Of course, in the beginning of each of these shows, the house is usually totally disgusting and filthy. Then after they get the house cleaned out, the true work begins. Most of the time, the designers have to completely gut the inside of the house before they can make repairs.

Finding Christ and allowing Him inside our hearts is a lot like a complete remodel. First, we have to clean out all of the dirt. Basically, we have to gut the inside of our hearts and put all that junk in the dumpster! Only then can we allow the Lord to rebuild and redesign what’s on the inside. 

It’s not a simple process, though. Have you ever lived in a house while it was being remodeled? It’s not so much fun when it is all torn up, is it? Thinking that it will be easy and these changes will happen overnight is not realistic. We are all just a work in progress, really. Luckily, the Lord is the VERY BEST designer. No matter how messed up the inside is, He can fix it. He is the only one who can. If we turn to Him and allow Him to transform us, then the end result will be amazing. In order to experience the amazing part, though, we must be willing to give up the junk. We can’t hold on to the old stuff and truly enjoy the new.

Imagine a completely remodeled home that still has the stained and tattered 1970’s carpet on the floor. That wouldn’t make any sense, would it? What if we completely furnish the home with all new appliances and then go to the dumpster and dig out our old, nonworking refrigerator and swap it for the new one. We definitely would never see that on HGTV! In our spiritual life we might equate that to accepting Christ and then going back to our sinful lifestyle. So, we must allow ourselves to truly be a living sacrifice by giving all that we are and all that we have to Him.- allowing Him to completely change us from the inside out. 

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

Romans 12:1

Weary

Weary

Doing good is not always easy. It seems that no matter what we do there will always be people that won’t understand why you are doing good. Maybe they have never set out to just intentionally do something good for someone else. Maybe they are the receiver of the good that you are doing, and they have never been on the receiving end of a deed such as this. No matter what others may think, do not grow weary! Continue to do these good deeds and spread the Lord’s love to all of those around you. 

You may sometimes question your own sanity at continuing these acts of love and kindness when you just keep getting dumped on and badmouthed by those who don’t understand. Just because the world may think that you have some kind of ulterior motive and you can’t possibly just love the Lord so much that you want to spread His word and His love, doesn’t mean that the Lord doesn’t understand. Jesus sees you and He knows you. He knows your heart and He knows those that are His TRUE FOLLOWERS. He knows the difference between those that love Him and those that just say they are His.

It is easy to grow weary. Earlier this year, I had the awesome opportunity to take a mission trip to Haiti. Before you start to think that I am going to gloat about being in the mission field, I want to clue you in that this is about my own failings! After what seemed like a never-ending ride in the back of a dump truck and visualizing the true poverty of this country, I was weary and just kept thinking, “This place is beyond help.” I was seriously asking myself (and my husband), “Why are we here?” “What good can we do?”

The very next morning, we went to breakfast and the pastor shared a devotional with us. The first words out of his mouth were: “Do not grow weary in doing good.” I was so moved that tears came to my eyes! It was as if God was speaking directly to me. As the week went on, I realized in so many ways that God was speaking to me. So many amazing and wonderful things happened that week. God was there in that place! His presence was so strong that when the last day came, I didn’t want to leave. 

 I’m so thankful for these words:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Galatians 6:9

What in the World?

What in the World?

In the book of Luke, we get to hear the teachings of Jesus. In Luke 5, He is being questioned by the Pharisees as to why He is associating with sinners. To this He replies:

“Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” Luke 5:32

As I thought of this verse this week, it made me reflect on myself. Recently in my life I have started trying harder to be the person that the Lord wants me to be. In the past, I wasn’t so good at this. I was a “sinner” for sure. Something I have to keep reminding myself of is that I am still a sinner. We are all sinners. When we stop viewing ourselves as sinners, this is where our problems begin. When we stop realizing that we all have sinned and fall short, we become like the Pharisees. When we start pointing out other people’s sins and forgetting our own, then we stop being able to love others. 

Have you ever stopped to examine this line in Luke? Jesus was basically saying to the Pharisees, “I didn’t come for you, because you are self-righteous and believe that you are sinless.” Was He saying to them that as long as they were standing in judgment of others, He would not save them? That’s pretty scary, isn’t it? Does that mean that those of us who are standing in self-righteous judgment pointing out others’ sins will not be saved by Jesus? That should make us stop and take a good, hard look at our lives, our thoughts, our words, and most definitely realize how we are judging others. 

Jesus has called us over and over and over again in the New Testament to love each other. Think about it. Are you living a life that shows only love to others, or are you gossiping, spreading hatred, disparaging others, and pointing a self-righteous finger toward those that you view as “less than”? This world tends to lead us toward the latter, doesn’t it? To be Christ followers, we must be different than the world. 

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Romans 12:2-3

Perfectly Complete

Perfectly Complete

 On my last birthday, I received a very nice gift from my husband. It was a Hebrew-Greek Study Bible that I had been wanting for a while. I just now started reading through it because I was on my second year of trying to read the Bible in a year. Yes, it took me TWO YEARS to finally complete that task. Slow and steady wins the race and all that….So, finally I’ve gotten around to starting the Hebrew-Greek Bible. It is a really cool, yet complicated, Bible. It has underlines of the words that have multiple meanings when translated, so you can look up the other possible translations. 


There has always been a line in the Bible that I have wondered about. In Genesis 17, God is speaking to Abram (soon to become Abraham), and He says this, “I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.” That word, perfect, has haunted many a Christian I’m sure. I know that it has haunted me. Perfect? How will I ever accomplish that?! Not to mention that we, as humans, are all sinners. There is no getting around it. So, I flipped to the back of my Hebrew-Greek Bible and hoped to dispel this myth of perfection! Thankfully, it helped me gain a new understanding for this verse.


The Hebrew-Greek word for this is tâyîm, which has many possible meanings – including without blemish, complete, full, sound, undefiled, upright, or whole. The words complete, full, and whole all made me really think about what was being said by God. Let’s replace the word perfect in the line with “complete”. 

“I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou complete.”

Now it takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it? Basically, He is saying to Abram that He will make Abram complete. In this context we see that it is not by anything Abram does or doesn’t do that he will be complete, but instead it is THROUGH GOD that Abram becomes complete and whole. By following God, obeying God, and loving God Abram becomes full, whole, complete, perfected. 


“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.”
Colossians 2:9-10

Mother Knows Best

Mother Knows Best

There is a quote by Mother Teresa, “If you judge people you have no time to love them.” It makes you stop and think about how many times you look at someone for the first time and automatically have a preconceived notion about them. Already we have something in our minds that is hindering us from loving someone else. We are humans with weaknesses and failings, but we can change our way of thinking and our viewpoint. How do we do this? By following what we’ve been taught in the Bible: Love one another. 

Mother Teresa, if you read through some of her quotes, obviously had a better understanding of what the Lord expects of us than most of us do. In many of her quotes that you find, she is speaking of loving each other. For the most part she talks about starting by loving those closest to you. We don’t have to do great things in order to make a great change in the world. By simply humbling ourselves to others, we can start to change the world around us. Instead of needing to be better than everyone else, we can change that to a need to serve those around us – to give up our own wants and needs so that others may have more than you. Yes, you heard that right – allow others to have MORE than you. This seems contradictory to the society we live in, doesn’t it?

When we look at others and allow ourselves to see Jesus in them, then we can serve them with hearts of love and not immediately judge them by what we view as their faults. Have you ever tried looking at every person you meet and seeing what Jesus would see in them instead of what the world would see? Within each and every human is an innocent child. Have you ever thought about that? We were all innocent children once - children without sin or evil in our hearts; until the world (and Satan) was allowed to influence us. Looking at those around us in this way forces us to offer love and not judgment at first glance. 

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40

Sinners...like me!

Sinners…like me!

The first time I read through the Bible, several years ago, I remember realizing how imperfect David was. I was amazed that the Lord could use someone with so many flaws to reach others, especially after reading the book of Psalms. Now I totally get it. God never does anything without a purpose. He often chooses flawed people to carry His word to others. 

In recent years I’ve felt the Lord’s urging toward helping others. At first I couldn’t wrap my mind around the things He was calling me to. A mission trip to Haiti, for example, was never something I felt even worthy to do. For many years of my life I didn’t feel like I deserved to represent Christ because of all of the mistakes in my past. The Lord, if you let Him, will completely change your way of thinking, though. Once we realize that He reaches out to sinners, just like me, and uses our faults and scars to reach others, anything seems possible. 

Most of us, when we are still in our sin, don’t really want to hear what Christians have to say. We don’t want to talk to someone who seems perfect, or that makes us feel “less than” because of our sins. Isn’t that why the Lord chooses to use those who aren’t perfect? Those of us who lost our way but finally found God’s roadmap can see from another’s point of view. We can see what they are going through, help them find forgiveness, and lead them down the path that finally got us to God. 

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 5:31-32

Don't Get Zapped

Don’t Get Zapped!

A few months ago I managed to get myself zapped by some exposed wires in an electrical cord. Talk about a painful experience – it is not one I’d like to relive! Inside of an electrical cord there is a positive wire and a negative wire. If you happen to be holding on to both the positive and the negative at the same time, the electrical current uses you as the ground and the electrical current travels through you and you get “zapped”. 

There are times in our lives when we continue to hold on to the negatives in our lives while still believing that we can continue to hold on to Jesus at the same time. I’ve learned in my own life that I can’t continue to do that. There comes a time when we have to take a step back and truly look at ourselves and make a decision if we want to be one of His or if we want to be with the “world.” To be one of His we must give up the negative and hold onto the positive. 

 What is the negative?

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” Ephesians 4:31

If we delve into this piece of scripture we realize that anger, bitterness, hatred, gossip, and pretty much anything that isn’t love is going to get you zapped! If we take the time to talk to the Lord MORE than we gossip about others, and show love toward those that we feel are making bad decisions or offending us, then we are holding on to the positive and loving the way Jesus loves. 

Throughout the Bible, Jesus shows us the way that He loves. He chooses people that everyone else has shunned or the ones that people like to sit in judgment of, such as the woman at the well. In John 4, Jesus sends a powerful message that He wants us to hear today. He chose a woman who others viewed as “sinful”, (as they sat in judgment of her) and decided to reveal His love, grace, mercy, and truth to her. 

What is the positive that we should hold onto?

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

Galatians 5:22-23

God Spelled Backward

God Spelled Backward

What does a dog have to do to earn your love? Absolutely nothing. Isn’t that right? Many of us own a dog and the only thing we really want from them is for them to be there, looking up at us with adoration when we get home from work. We don’t expect them to get up and walk on their hind legs or dance around every time we pull in the driveway. Nope. We just want them to love us and be near us.

This thought struck me tonight as my dog came to my side wanting to be petted. That is all that God wants from us, too. He doesn’t expect us to do tricks for Him – He only wants us to love Him and be near Him! For those of us who feel the need to constantly be “doing” something, this is a profound thought. He loves us even when we aren’t out doing things to further the kingdom. 

Remember the last time your dog got into the trash? This might have been frustrating for you, but you still loved your dog, right? That’s kind of the way I imagine God is with us. He surely gets frustrated with us when we make mistakes and sin against Him, but He still loves us and wants us to come to Him and ask forgiveness. He’s a pretty amazing God to offer forgiveness so freely. Once we go to Him and ask forgiveness, He removes our sins from us and forgets them!

"For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us."

Psalm 103:11-12

Take A Knee

Take A Knee

Football season has begun and I’m sure that anyone who has any interest in the game has heard the phrase “take a knee.” No, I’m not referring to or even beginning a discussion about the National Anthem. I’m actually talking about the quarterback kneeling to keep from losing possession of the ball when the game is at stake. 

What about you, have you taken a knee lately? This is kind of a tough question, isn’t it? I consider myself a prayerful person, but looking back over recent days, I can’t say that I have taken a knee lately. Today in church, as we discussed a verse in Nehemiah, it really struck home with me. Am I reverent enough? Do I fall on the ground and worship? Yes, there are times that my needs are so great that I am on my knees, but not the way they fell to the ground on their faces and WORSHIPPED! They prayed for hours, spent hours on their knees truly worshipping God. 

Are you in the same place? Are you giving enough time to the Lord, truly worshipping and giving thanks to the Lord? When is the last time you “took a knee” for the Lord? In today’s world it is hard to find the time to give to the Lord, isn’t it? We let life get in the way and never take the time to kneel. Reading through the Bible is very humbling. To see the difference between their prayer and fasting and our fast prayer brings our lives in perspective!

“Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”
Nehemiah 8:6