Armor up!

Ezekiel is pretty heavy. Essentially God is angry over Israel seeking idols and committing abominations (sounds intense and awful because it is) against God. And if you believe that is just the past, think again.***************************** EZ 6:9: in part says ‘...How I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols….’ **************************** Idols can be anything that leads you from God and into a world of your own making. It is sad really, even after all that mankind has endured, due to our own arrogance and ignorance, suffering the wrath of God and the wrath of natural consequences for our own stupidity and greed, we continue to rebel. We fail to understand. We never, some of us, make the connection. ******************************* Since sin entered the world, God doesn’t need to send plagues and horrible consequences to earth, though I believe that He still does. We do that to ourselves in the form of natural consequences for our actions or inactions. ****************************** Separating yourself from God or what is right, isn’t a great bolt of black lightening out of the sky that hits you and leads you astray. Most times it is tiny steps to do things your own way and in secret that cause you to become lost in darkness. ************************ Imagine that someone is trying to own you through blackmail and they have all manner of technology at their disposal. Let’s call him ‘Shark’ and those in cahoots with him ‘sharks’. They will watch your every move in person, on the internet on the phone, in private… your accounts, your private communications. They watch, record and wait. Then, when it becomes evident what your weaknesses are, they set the bait. Is it vanity? Laziness? Is it power over others? Is it lust of the flesh? Is it alcohol? Drugs? Greed? *********************** On the sidelines, they watch to see if by bringing you down they can indirectly cause the fall of others. Therefore, if you have people who respect you, love you, ‘follow’ you in faith, you are worth more ‘points’ to them. It would be like a domino affect, really. They take you down and many others either follow or turn away from their faith in God or in life because of who you are. So it isn’t just a straight shot game for all of what YOU value. It is a pyramid scheme to involve everyone that you know. ************************ For Christians, someone else is always watching either to emulate or learn about faith. One Christian, over their lifetime, can have a positive or negative ripple affect on the world. Active Christians save souls and provide counsel and help others learn about Christ, who in turn help others and so forth. If the sharks take one out, they remove the flow of love and guidance from hundreds of others. As well, if parents are removed, their children and their children for generations are affected. ************************* James 3:1: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” ****************************** The shark doesn’t always come at you directly. He gets to you through others who are connected to you or others who could tempt you or even still others who speak out of both sides of their mouths but are not of God. They wear the robes of righteousness but it is just an outfit to gain favor with those that they will bring down. *************************** The sneakiest way is to convince the world there are no threats out there, no sharks, no plot, no evil one. The other way is to slowly… very slowly, put obstacles in your way that keep you from staying armored up. It is my number one concern with vulnerable individuals who live in the world. “How do you intend on staying armored up?” ************************** Andy Stanley has a daily mantra I find helpful: ********************* 1) Surrender our will ****************** 2) Monitor your heart **************** 3) Open your hands to His will *************** But I need to add the most important one: 4) Stay armored up **************** 4) Stay armored up means:********************** • Stay in the Word for clarification and direction ***************** • Get connected to a church for further understanding ******************** • Get connected with other Christians-Strength in numbers ****************** Eph 6:10-18: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ... “ ****************************** Heb 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” ***************************** If you have already fallen, get up! Fix it! Ask forgiveness and stay right. If you are starting to become complacent and step away from your armor, stop it! Get right! Get to it! It isn’t just your life that you are affecting! It is others in the wings that you cannot see!

Old Wine Skins

Did you ever try to fit into a new pair of pants or shoes or even a whole new outfit and it just didn’t feel right? It seems to me that I have been doing that my whole life. It’s something that you don’t think too much about at first. I mean, you know it doesn’t suit you but you do it anyway. ################ We all have our reasons. Maybe it’s the new thing to do, maybe it’s the hip thing, maybe it’s expected because of your new friends, new school, new job, new church, new spouse, new next thing. Maybe it’s you. Maybe you need something new to fill a hold in your life so you are tying out different ways… ################### If you all read my other posts you know that I started out very poor and alone in a household full of people. I always felt that way; orphaned to some degree, and alone my whole life. “Home” less so to speak. But I wasn’t an orphan and I did have a family. My life took so many twists and turns that I could write a trilogy twice over. Each would read so vastly different for each stage of my life that you would swear that I was talking about a different person each time. But it was all me… various facets of me. ################### I tried on so many new ways of living and being that I lost who I was in the shuffle. At times, I was stretched so thin with expectations and holes in my armor and life that I truly never thought I would ever find “it”. That thing that made me stop feeling empty inside. That next new thing to fill that hole. #################### I hit my rock bottom in life, and, when you do that, you tend to give up. You ask yourself, ‘Why try to be what you are not? Why do what makes you miserable?’ You can even become bitter, selfish and guarded. You do unto others before they can do unto you because you wised up. You take what you want and justify how you are because life did you that way… or that is what you tell yourself. ################## You have hit so many walls, been left behind, been used and abused, beat down mentally, physically, emotionally, lied to, broken, betrayed, dismissed and all but destroyed. You don’t fit in or measure up. Someone’s always going to make sure you know it.################# But in the darkness that is this world, a tiny flicker of hope emerged. In fact, I recognized it because it would try to penetrate my life at various intervals...always niggling in the back of my mind. Sometimes I would swat it away in irritation and distrust. Sometimes I’d stand still and let it come but then yank my heart away like I burnt it on a stove. Sometimes I’d try it on, just as I was, but I always felt unsure, inadequate, like it just wasn’t mine. It didn’t fit. Sometimes I would soak in it like the warmth of the sun and let it filter into the crevices of my broken life like a soothing ointment. But it was never ‘mine’. It was like wearing someone else’s clothes to church because yours just weren’t good enough. ##################### But over time, decades truly, that hole in my life, that something missing, all of that brokenness and damage… all of the old things that I let define me… the light was like trying to put a new patch on old jeans. It was just one more thing that didn’t fit. One more thing that would clarify my unworthiness. ################## But you see, that light had followed me since I was a little girl laying in the grass talking to the stars. That light was there for me at times when I thought there was no one. That light illuminated dark corners to protect me. It let me discern things that I wasn’t smart enough to see on my own. Even at my worst, even in my sin, even in my brokenness and rebellion, that light surrounded me, brought people to me, guided me, warmed me, softened my heart and through all of these things and far, far more… it was I who become new. ######################## All that time… struggling against the grain; trying to put on a new patch to old jeans; trying to pour new wine into dirty glasses (so to speak)… and He was trying to do a work IN me. In fact, He still is… every single day, every minute of the day. ################ But let me tell you this: I didn’t even realize over all those wasted years of having it my way and just dipping my toes in so that I didn’t have to commit… oh, the peace, the love, the joy that emanates from my soul because I surrender every day. I would have dived right in head first, decades ago, had I known. He’d have had to save me from drowning if I had only knew the blessings of feeling whole.#################### Sweetheart, are YOU feeling it, too? Is that Light creeping in and you know that it is for you but you aren’t sure of it? Does it keep coming into your life in different ways and it’s getting harder to ignore? #################### Are there trials in life? Yep. Is that light gonna give you a stress free life? Naw. We have sin and death in the world and it won’t disappear. People are still people after all. But trust me, don’t wait til you are dying or your life is in total chaos to dive right in. Nothing frees you from your darkness, your demons, your guilt and shame, your chains, like the fact that He is chasing you because He sees who you are meant to be and not who you are in this moment. And sometimes our own mama’s can’t see that! He loves us that much. He already died for all our bad choices and lame excuses. He loves you that much that He took on your sin and death so that you wouldn’t have to. So why waste time? ############### It is us, you see. It’s always us. We stand in our own way. We choose what we want to see. We can be so traumatized by life that it’s hard to believe in good-but it’s there. I’m just sorry it took me so long. ################## Why do ya think they say, “God is Love”? THEY know it like I know it because we dove right in!! ######################## If you are feeling it, you are chosen and loved. He is waiting. Dive right in the water is fine, love! ################## See you in the Living water!!! ############### Matthew 9: 16-17

God Prepared a Fish book by Darvis McCoy

This book is a series of short stories, snapshots of someone's life, that take you from outragious and sometimes illegal adventures to how God uses people's skills, regardless of how they developed them, to spread the word to third world countries. The stories remind me of my own husband who also has always been a man's man. Adrenaline junkie and always doing something exciting. I wasn't sure the book was really for me, but I read it with fascination wondering how it would get to God. Then as the stories progress and he comes to faith, I was riveted by the harrowing smuggling trips,waiting wide eyed to see if he would make it, then remembering... 'duh, he wrote a book, so clearly he made it out.' The last chapter really sums it up. When you experience that kind of faith, life-risking, war torn, death defying faith, it makes you think a lot harder about our own. Great read for men and women alike! https://www.godpreparedafish.com/photo-journal

Living with yourself-Andy Stanley Parts 1-3

These are so goood. He is sooo gifted Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0SlqqOAfy4 Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW4M3Krs9sQ Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXe81aYNU3I

The Fundamental List part 8-Andy stanley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSSyiyIUz6w Sorry, I mislabeled the one from last week. This is a tough one to follow folks but stick to it til the end. It makes sense.

Love covers a multitude…..

I watched Andy Stanley’s “Living With Yourself-part 1” and am reminded of something that someone, whom I love dearly, said to me years ago when she was a teenager. She is now 22 and has lived in the street life for years. Back in the before times, we talked a lot about drugs and alcohol, partying and bad choices. When discussing the examples of how far people would go to stay high and in the dark, she said, “But Nana, I would never do that. I’m not that bad.” But, in a very short while, she was exactly that person and more. Even now she is in darkness and unable to break free. ************************************* Every single day, we think of her and pray for her. And not a day goes by that I don’t push the thoughts out of my head about what she has to do to keep herself in drugs, because we know what that looks like and have, sadly, had occasion to see it first hand. ************************ 1 Cor 13: 1-13: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.******* Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” ************************************ It is a mental exercise to love, pray for and think about someone who lives in darkness. Because, initially, your vision of them is as they were, as they could truly be in the world. But that image is involuntarily replaced with the images of ‘what if’ or ‘what is’ and all that darkness entails. Her images, which are far and few between the ghosting of our messages to her, become fractured by the reality of addiction. Like with all sin, her physical appearance and demeanor changes to suit her environment. Her complexion, her weight, her health, her behavior and her words are withered and worn down by self-abuse and the constant abuse of such a lifestyle. She is in survival mode and that means being anything that is necessary in the moment to survive her ordeal.*************************** 1 Cor 13:7: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” ***************** That lifestyle, a life in darkness or hidden sin, is brutal on the soul. Addicts often become the slaves of the trade, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes by force, to repay a debt for their sin. A debt, I might add, that Christ already paid a million times over. Men and women alike end up in servitude to others. Brutally raped, abused, enslaved, robbed, beaten, prostituted for the sake of a fix or drink. We know this to be true and thus, we have to try to replace that image with the distant past’s image of our loved ones because it is easier to live with. ******************** We are helpless to change it. Only unconditional love and endless loving words, regardless of ghosting, will prove that we will always be here when they are ready… until the life decision is made by the nature of their own choices. Until they cease to be in our world any longer. ******************** 1 John 3:16: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” *************** And in the years past, we lost our much loved and lovable son-in-law to his addiction. In that moment, all that we could think besides the deep sorrow for loss, is our girl could be next… Years, almost a life time in the making, he, too, struggled to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord but did not have the strength to see it through. He, too, was one of the most loving, empathetic people I have ever known. This man loved his wife and children with all he had. I know without a doubt that he suffered guilt and shame every moment for being enslaved by the drugs his body would not live without. Though he brought in a six digit income with a very prestigious job, he spent it all and had to steal from his own family to feed his habit. Years and years of financial debt, rehabs, heartbreak and starting over… to end up in his car, in his early 30’s, a whole long loving life cut short... not by choice, but by the nature of how he lived… in his mind, to survive his addiction, his chains, his enslavement. ***************** The brokenness, loss, pain and potential ruin that this brought or could have brought to his family is horrendous. To this day, more than three years later, every occasion is marked by the absence of their husband, father. Every occasion is marked with tears and remembering. Every day is a gaping wound, an absence of someone who filled their hearts with love, but now loss. *********************** We do not, often, remember those that we love as they were in their darkness but the good in their souls and the person they could have been. Love does that. Love paints over the darkness with bright and hopeful images of how it could be, how it could have been.******************** No matter what the poison or darkness, never stop loving others… not just your loved ones, but the nameless faces whose story you may never know. Pray for others lost in darkness. Be kind and gentle with those who lost their way. Jesus did not come for saints but for sinners. He gave His life for them so that they could be free and have eternal life. **************************** We are meant to shine for others, the Light given to us, not be selfish and hide it in our own hearts. It requires constant care and rekindling with the love and Word to stay strong against the storms that will come into our lives. Those forces that wish to prevent us from saving others from the darkness… but Christ overcame death for our sake’s so that we may live and share His light.************************** James 5: 20: “Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

Has Christianity done more harm than good Dr John Dickson-Andy Stanley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liBLmGOQ_VQ