Take Heed!

Good morning to all on this last Sunday in October 2013. Waine and I are in Hawkinsville this weekend and just chillin'. Its been couple of months and God saw us through it! I am often reminded that when God gives you a VISION, He also provides PROVISION which is what I kept remembering when times were tough or my vision was not clear. ZOe had its Fall Festival at the Rock Ranch and I hope all of our patients has a GRAND TIME.

 

I am completing  my journey with Malachi chapter 4 verses 1-6, "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. Not a root or a branch will be left to them.  But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.  Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty. Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.

 

One of the marvelous and wonderful things about God is that He gives us warnings. He has been warning the world for more than 2000 years; since the beginning of the ages that the end would come. The end can be marked by our own lives; "its appointed until man to live and then to die...." Hebrews 9:27. It was marked by the Flood and then it will be marked by Christ coming to get His Church. The question all preachers ask is, "Are you ready?" Once we cross the "River Jordan" there is no coming back. There is no "give me another chance"...we will face our Maker and have to come to terms with the life we chose to lead. For some it will be a glorious Homecoming. We will finally meet the God of our dreams. The God of our hopes. The God of our tears and weary years. It will be that "Great Gettin' Up Morning". For others it will mark the first day of eternity without God. They will not have hope. They will know for eternity that they have missed the opportunity to live with their one source of fulfillment. I can't imagine the eternal hopelessness they will have.

 

Don't be fooled by the world. Don't be fooled by Satan. There is only one path to God. I didn't define it, He did. Man chose to break his relationship with God through sin and then God chose to create the Bridge over those troubled waters through the sacrifice of Christ. Our job as Christians is NOT TO CONVINCE--that would be the job of the Holy Spirit. Our job is to Spread the News with our lives and to show a commitment to the faith we profess. We are to let the world know that a life for Christ is full and abundant. There are no do's and don'ts. There is only love. To know Him is to Love Him. To love Him is to serve Him. To Serve Him is to Love you. If the world knew that Peace I hold they would flock to Him. The only reason they don't is because some Christians walk around defeat. What a shame! The grave was defeat by Christ. What do we have to be sad about????

 

Have a Great Day and a Great week. Speak truth to power over your lives and speak victory to yourself. He that is in you have overcome the world even unto death. Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.

Stephanie

 



You Are God's Treasured Possession!

Good morning to all from Atlanta, GA. Waine and I get to visit our Atlanta house this weekend and will be headed back to Thomaston this evening. The flu has hit our little hamlet so we have been quite busy in the practice. Our nurse practitioner has been sick for 4 days so please pray for her recovery. When you start working with sick children they can "get you" until you build your immunity. Those little rug rats have gotten me on more than 1 occasion. Its officially fall in Georgia. The nights get down to about mid-50's and the days in the 70's. We are blessed as a family and God is good.

 

I am continuing my journey in Malachi, chapter 3 verses 1 - 18  "I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the Messenger of the Covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,  and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.  Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. But you ask, ‘How are we to return? Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?' In tithes and offerings.  You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me.  Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.  I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. You have spoken arrogantly against me, says the Lord. Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you? You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty?  But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it. Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored His name. On the day when I act, says the Lord Almighty, they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him.  And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not." Amen and may the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.

 

Do you feel treasured? Do you feel valued? Do you feel like you are SPECIAL? God says you are! He created us and hoped against hope that we would  not yield to temptation and sin and even when we did He had a ram in the bush. He had all the bases covered. There are those that say "if he really loved us why did He tempt us?"--God didn't temp us Satan did and I for one believe that we (Eve and Adam) resisted Satan for a while and then Gave In. Its true today.  Most of us can resist "up to a point" and then we give in. The secret to not giving in, is to rebuke the evil one and his lies. When we are weak, the evil one will come to destroy what little peace you have and then begin to work on your thinking. He fills your mind with  negative thinking and despondency--he makes you think that the God of the Ages, the God of Abram, the God of your promises, does not remember you. He will tempt you, as he did Job; he will want you to believe that the calamity you are in or see around you is because God has abandoned you. This is the point that you need to rebuke Satan as God commands. This is the point that you look Satan right in the face and claim the victory that God died for you while you were yet  in sin and that He never, no never leaves us or forsakes us. That is the point at which you grow and conquer to fight the Good Fight another day. God never withholds His love, mercy or grace. He is always there, we need only to turn to Him to see His face. We should just  get out of our own way. We are to be obedient to His commandments; not because we get punished if we don't. We should keep His commandments out of our Love for Him. He commands us to Love Him and make Him the Center of our lives. He then commands us to love one another, sacrificially. He also commands us to give 10% of our earnings back to Him. This is also a commandment for your own prosperity. God doesn't need our money. He needs our obedience! There are probably a thousand reasons why you can't give 10%, you have this bill or that bill. Forget the bills they will get paid. Give God your 10% and see. The 10% is a small measure of your faithfulness.

 

If you think you lack abundance in your life then you need only open your heart and CELEBRATE TODAY. Celebrate reading this blog. Celebrate the breath in your  lungs. Celebrate the life you lead. Celebrate the laughter of your children and grandchildren. Celebrate that the sun came up this morning. Celebrate the roof over your head. Celebrate that people love you and that they can receive your love. If you have not forgiven someone do so today--that's loving them. If you love someone who has harmed you that's loving God. Be happy today and embrace your life with God. You may be saying, "if only she knew what I am going through she would know I can't celebrate". My answer is that God is bigger than what you are going through and He is definitely bigger than anything I am going through. He is the Great I AM. He is all that I need! There have been times of trial when all I could do is put one foot in front of the other. There have been times when the only thing I could do is quote God's promises. There have been times when I just rebuked the devil a million times a day because he is a liar. Each step I took the cloud lifted more and I could see it was not me walking but God who was carrying me. God was always there, I had to change my vision!

 

To know God is to love Him. To Love Him is to serve Him. To serve Him is to love you. Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.

 

Stephanie



So that My Convenant Continue

Good day to all on this GLORIOUS Sunday in October. Waine and I are in Thomaston and just as the kids say "chillin'". Aleron is a Board Certified Internist--Praise God! We found out last week that he passed his Internal Medicine Boards. God is good all the time and His GRACE and MERCY abound. Waine and I are so very proud of him. We are now praying that God will bring a Christian woman into his life so that we can enjoy his children much like we enjoy our other grandchildren. Please continue to keep Waine and I in your prayers.

 

I am continuing my journey in Malachi 2 verses 1 - 17, "And now, you priests, this warning is for you. If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor My Name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me. Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue, says the Lord Almighty. “My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.  “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord Almighty. So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law. Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?  Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to the Lord Almighty.  Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.  Has not the one God made you? You belong to Him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.  “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,”says the Lord Almighty.  So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.  You have wearied the Lord with your words.  "How have we wearied Him?” you ask.  By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?” Amen and may the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.

 

Clearly the Lord is not happy with these priests. Instead of preaching the Word of God these guys are busy pumping themselves up and spreading false doctrine. They were preaching untrue doctrine and causing the Jews to stumble. Instead of preaching the Truth of God, they instead were preaching their own brand of truth. God was so upset He cursed the lot of them and their descendants but DID NOT break His covenant with the people of Israel. God always keeps His covenants--He is the one thing you can count on and as you exercise your faith by acting on His promises the Blessings come down, press down and multiplied. Not because of any ACTS that we might do. God doesn't look at our behavior--He looks a our hearts. He doesn't banish us from the Kingdom because we fail. Our failures can actually exalt Him because it is usually though our failure that we realize the Love of God in a very real and personal sense.

 

To all of us Teachers of the Word. We are held to a higher standard. If you feel like you have the anointing to teach the Word of God, pay special attention to your heart and motivation. If there is no forgiveness in you; if you have false pride; if you are puffed up in your own aggrandizement this particular passage is for you. We are to be humble and let the love of God shine through so that others may come to know Him and to experience His love for them. We are to minimize ourselves and glorify the God of the Ages. The God that made a covenant with mankind and has kept that covenant even when we sinned. To know Him is to Love Him. To love Him is to Serve Him. To serve Him is to love you.

 

Have a Great week. Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine on you and be gracious to you. May he Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.

 

Stephanie

Broken Cookies

Good morning to all on this 1st Sunday of October! The mornings are crisp and clean here in Georgia and we are able to take advantage of the warm afternoon sun. The rains from the tropical storm have not hit us yet. Waine and I are in Thomaston this weekend enjoying old friends. We were supposed to be in Jamaica and God kept us here.  It was a pretty intense week and God saw us through it as He always does. On any particular day there are a million things that Satan would have me worry and obsess about and that's when I remember that God loves me just the way I am; warts and all. He loved me even when I was a sinner and now that I have been saved by grace, I am free to live the abundant life that He puts in my path daily. Continue to lift me up in your prayers. Lift my family up in your prayers as I do you.

 

We have finished Peter and I am lead to read Malachi, the messenger. Malachi 1 verses 1 - 14, "An oracle: The Word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. "I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?' "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals." Edom may say, "Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins." But this is what the LORD Almighty says: "They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the LORD. You will see it with your own eyes and say, 'Great is the LORD--even beyond the borders of Israel!' "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?" says the LORD Almighty. "It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. "But you ask, 'How have we shown contempt for your name?'"You place defiled food on my altar. "But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' "By saying that the LORD's table is contemptible. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the LORD Almighty.  "Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will He accept you?"--says the LORD Almighty. "Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will accept no offering from your hands.  My Name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my Name, because my Name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty. "But you profane it by saying of the Lord's table, 'It is defiled,' and of its food, 'It is contemptible.'   And you say, 'What a burden!' and you sniff at it contemptuously," says the LORD Almighty. "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?" says the LORD.  "Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king," says the LORD Almighty, "and my name is to be feared among the nations. Amen! May the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.

 

My husband often tells the story that when his family would have guests, the best and unbroken cookies would be offered to the guests. The family would then eat the broken cookies. This is what God is asking us in this chapter--why do we give Him our broken cookies? God never gives us "Broken Cookies". God always give us His BEST--starting with His Love and the sacrifice of His only Begotten Son Jesus. ^{We were created out of and through LOVE}       We were created out of pure LOVE--God's motivation was to have an object (us) that He could bestow all the LOVE He possessed. He walked with Adam and Eve; He delighted in their company and they in His. They communed together and boy what conversations they must have had. There was neither strife or contention. There was no hunger or anxiety. There was no hurt of disappointment. Just LOVE. Then we let sin enter the picture and God still doesn't give up on us. He asked "Adam where are you?" not because God didn't know where Adam and Eve were physical or spiritually. He wanted Adam and Eve to reflect where they would be without the love and protection of their Maker. God gave Adam His best and in return Adam gave God "Broken Cookies".

 

I am challenged daily not to give God my broken cookies. Not to just come to Him when I am tired and scared, but to give Him my first fruits of the day. To offer myself daily when I am clear thinking and have lots of energy. To praise Him when all is "going" right and to praise Him when calamity walks into my life. To praise Him when the way is crystal clear and when there are forks and bends in the road. To offer on His alter myself daily knowing that there is always a "ram in the bush". That is the Faith God wants from us. God knows that as we mature, we will stop giving Him our broken cookies and instead we will offer up ourselves daily. When we do that He only sees the "Best Cookies", hallelujah! He loves us through all of our imperfections and looks on our hearts. Praise God. To know Him is to Love Him. To love Him is to serve Him. To serve Him is to serve you.

 

Now may the LORD bless you and keep you. May the LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.  May the LORD turn His face toward you and give you peace.

 

Stephanie