New Blog NEW NEWS!

I have a new blog:  A City Shining In Romania

Big news has been announced!  Check it out!

http://shininginro.blogspot.com/

Big News Is On Its Way!

Can't wait to share all that the Lord is doing!  
Stay tuned....I have BIG announcement to make soon!

Live.

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Philippians 1:21

I feel like this verse is becoming more and more real in my life....am super grateful, blessed and humbled by His love for me.

But you were washed...

"And such were some of you. 

But you were washed, 

but you were sanctified, 

but you were justified 

in the name of the Lord Jesus 

and by the Spirit of our God."  

1 Corinthians 6:11

If We Really Believed

Ever feel like the Lord is calling you to something and as excited as you might be about it, there is still that voice in the back of your mind that reminds you of all the reasons why you are not qualified to do whatever it is He is calling you to?  Maybe it's just me, and my perfectionism, but I have really been going through that this past week.  

Then on my birthday I read the devotional entry from My Utmost for His Highest and it of course, was a gift from the Lord for me.  I have been re-reading it all week, just for encouragement and reminding. So I thought I would share it.  Maybe it will bless and encourage you too!

The Great Probing

Ye cannot serve the Lord. — Joshua 24:19

Have you the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you? That is what the probing means. It is quite true to say – "I cannot live a holy life," but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. "Ye cannot serve the Lord God"; but you can put yourself in the place where God’s almighty power will come through you. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect Him to manifest His wonderful life in you?

"Nay, but we will serve the Lord." It is not an impulse, but a deliberate commitment. You say – But God can never have called me to this, I am too unworthy, it can’t mean me. It does mean you, and the weaker and feebler you are, the better. The one who has something to trust in is the last one to come anywhere near saying – "I will serve the Lord."

We say – "If I really could believe!" The point is – If I really will believe. No wonder Jesus Christ lays such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. "And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." If we really believed that God meant what He said – what should we be like! Dare I really let God be to me all that He says He will be?

Visions Become Reality

The parched ground shall become a pool . . . —Isaiah 35:7

We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.

"Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use."

God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.

The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.

Go

 

 "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?

And how shall they believe in Him
of whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher?  

And how shall they preach unless they are sent?
As it is written:

'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad tidings of good things!'"

Romans 10:14-15

Represent

 

“There is a glorified Man on the right hand of the Majesty in heaven faithfully representing us there.  We are left for a season among men; let us faithfully represent Him here.”    

AW Tozer - The Knowledge of the Holy

Return, O Wanderer

 "Return, O wanderer, now return,

And see thy Father's face;

Those new desires which in thee burn

Were kindled by His grace.

Return, O wanderer, now return,

And wipe the falling tear;

Thy Father calls, - no longer mourn;

'Tis love invites thee near."

William Benco Collyer

Freedom

I have such a heart for former communist countries and the people who live in them. It has been over 20 years since communism fell in Eastern Europe, many believe that because the Iron Curtain is gone and it is 2014 that those countries are free. 

But freedom is not just having the Curtain lifted, this woman speaks of the freedom we take for granted and almost seem to have trampled on in America. Many countries in Eastern Europe still need true freedom not only in their countries and governments but in their hearts. 

God is not done with Eastern Europe, the mission field is still there, persecution continues and God still wants to give these precious people the freedom they seek.

Bless the Lord

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with loving-kindness
and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed
like the eagle’s.
Psalm 103:2-5

Our Life in Christ

"Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ." - 2 Corinthians 2:14

"Certainly not all of the mystery of the Godhead can be known by man—but just as certainly, all that men can know of God in this life is revealed in Jesus Christ!

When the Apostle Paul said with yearning, “That I may know him” (Philippians 3:10), he was not speaking of intellectual knowledge. Paul was speaking of the reality of an experience of knowing God personally and consciously, spirit touching spirit and heart touching heart.

We know that people spend a lot of time talking about a deeper Christian life—but few seem to want to know and love God for Himself.

The precious fact is that God is the deeper life! Jesus Christ Himself is the deeper life, and as I plunge on into the knowledge of the triune God, my heart moves on into the blessedness of His fellowship. This means that there is less of me and more of God—thus my spiritual life deepens and I am strengthened in the knowledge of His will!"
-AW Tozer

Happy New Year!!!