Hard Things of Faith

It’s been several years since the Lord whispered these words to me for the first time.    It was a moment I will never forget.  I was in my car, headed to a women’s bible study group.  Now, please don’t be offended when I say that women's bible study can be a huge blessing, but it can also be a huge headache.  I was leading a class, so I had to go, but I was worn to the core and didn’t know if I had anything left to pour out.   If I am being really honest, when I get to that level of weariness, grace and kindness are not what pours out of me.  All it takes is for some unknowing person to say something or do something, and what comes out of me is more like salt & vinegar.  I remember driving and not being able to formulate words that could be construed as prayer. But God.... he knew exactly what I was saying.  Ever so gently, he whispered:  “Mercies & Manna” My heart was put to ease immediately. I love how the Lord does that!  He gives you something so simple and

  “I am a good person" “People are inherently good” “But they have such a good heart”     These statements break my heart.    They break my heart because they are untrue. This is blatant false teaching that has been widely accepted both in the church and outside of the church.  We have cherry-picked scripture to support our belief that we are naturally good people.  I have had so many conversations about this as of late.  People get really worked up when I tell them I am not good.  They get even more worked up when I tell them that they are not good either. This is not to point a finger; it is to point them to scripture.   The very first thing I hear people say about this is: “I am a good person because I haven’t murdered anyone.     I am not a thief, and I haven’t committed adultery.”     People automatically go back to the 10 Commandments, whether we realize it or not, even those who don't follow Christ.    We go back there because ultimately, we believe that the commandment

   Do you ever feel as though Jesus is not enough? I know I have.     I don’t know what your circumstances are, but I know that we all have circumstances that we believe are outside of the Lord’s reach.  Maybe you have lost a loved one and you feel the ache of death.  Maybe you have lost a relationship/ friendship with a person you just knew was the other half of you. Maybe you have lost a child, in the womb or after birth.  Maybe you are a single parent struggling to get through life on your own. There seem to be times when our hearts are so broken that we feel as though we will never be whole again.  I could go on and on about circumstances that leave us feeling alone and abandoned by the Lord My soul melts with sorrow;   strengthen me according to Your word.       Psalm   119:28   We hear that Jesus is all we need, but we struggle to believe it.  We try to find him but can’t seem to lay hands on him.  We cry out from the depths of our hearts, searching and needing to cling to someth

Friends, my confession to you is this:   To know who our Triune God will take more than a lifetime to learn. This series,  The Character of God ,  The Love of Christ ,  and The Power of The Holy Spirit is only a brief picture of our Triune God.  Our Godhead is far more than my words could ever describe to you.  My greatest hope in this is to give you an introduction, or a new perspective of who our Triune God is.  He is Father, He is Savior, He is Helper.    It is tempting to start out telling you about all the reasons I love the Holy Spirit.  This is not about me though; this is about Him and who he is.     Each person of the Godhead has a unique quality about them in regard to who they are, even though they are of one person.  The Holy Spirit is different than the Father and Jesus because He is Spirit that not only surrounds us but has the ability to live within us. Scripture tells us in several places that those who accept Christ will be given the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 8:11, 1 Corin

Jesus. There are so many facets of Jesus, it would take a lifetime to unpack them all.  Here are some of the ways that we know him though. He is the Son of God, the Bridegroom, Savior,  our Advocate, our High Priest.  We know him as the Author and Perfecter of our faith.  The thing I hear more than anything about Jesus is that he is love.  The part people sometimes do not understand is just how sacrificial his love is.  We should know how costly this sacrificial love is.  It is easy to say, "Jesus died for you", but how many people really know what that means and why that was necessary?  This certainly is not going to be one of those "feel good" posts that you are going to share as a way of encouraging others.  This is the smallest glimpse of the hard truth of sacrifice and why it was needed.  We will never understand the love of Christ until we understand the sacrifice of Christ.  Will you step back with me into the Old Testament and take a peek into what is going

It is one thing to believe in God, it is another thing altogether to know who God is.  Learning about the character of God has the potential to be a game-changer in our everyday life.  We are living in a time of great division and darkness that many people have never seen before.  The only thing of value that I have to share is my faith and my ever-growing understanding of who God is.  I hope in reading this and through the pages of scripture, you will find the One that is faithful and true.  He is my solid ground when the world around me seems to be falling apart.    A few months back, I was talking to a family member that had to leave her home church and she mentioned that she missed going to Bible study.  I was so excited that she wanted to be studying God’s word, I offered to help since she didn’t have a new church home yet.  When I asked her where she wanted to start, she said, “Genesis.”  Well, can I just tell you how less than excited I was at that?  I was hoping for something o

       Friends,  As things get darker and harder it is tempting to be consumed with what is happening and how we feel about it.  Whether you express how you feel publicly or keep it to your inner circle, it has been hard to watch what has been happening in our country and around the world.  It doesn't matter if you are like me and have a lot of emotion or you are the person who isn’t about the feelings, this is tough.     We are all so over Covid-19.  We are over having to wear the mask. (The division over the masks is a subject in and of itself!)  To say that we are weary of the social distancing would be a gross understatement.  As if this isn’t enough, we have had a presidential election that has shown our weakened state to every enemy we have. We have a racial division in our country with wounds so deep, I am not sure we will ever heal this side of Heaven.  Depression, abuse, addiction, these are things that just keep getting worse.   We just can’t seem to catch a break or even