A Blessing For The New Year

May the multitude of God's blessings be on each and every one of you as the year 2012 comes to an end and 2013 makes its grand entrance. Each and every day God has something planned for us. Not only do we need to be ready to receive from God, but we need to be willing and ready to give back to God. This year has been just as full of surprises as every year preceding it. Once I made the commitment to draw closer to God and become aware of how close He is to me, I did not go back on it. And this coming year, 2013, I choose to make that same commitment.
God is faithful. His many promises, given throughout the ages via His Word in The Holy Scriptures, have been received and fulfilled many times over by they who believe and know that God Is. It is God Who desires to draw close to each and every one of us. He made that same commitment when He sent His Only begotten Son into the world, that those who believe on Him and on His Name would be saved from the condemnation of sin which is upon them. And that condemnation is death. John 3:15-17.
Believers will not taste death. (Romans 8:1, 2) For while it appointed unto mankind once to die, and then the judgment (Hebrews 9:27), for the believer death is but another door. More like a doorstep, actually. Because Jesus Christ is The Door: IAM The Way, The Truth and The Life; no man comes to The Father BUT BY ME, thereby declaring Himself to be the entryway, the doorway into God's eternal presence. Referenced in John 14:6.
Created by God and breathed into by the breath of God are we. We are ever present with the blessing of life by God; but like many among us, life is taken for granted. We have seldom thanked God for the breath He breathes through us each moment of our lives. With a humble heart and full knowledge of my statements, I surrender my body a living sacrifice to God, as many others have before me and many others will after me. (Romans 12:1). For I have this body to use because God gives it to me. He cause my heart to pump oxygen to my brain and my lungs to fill with air and breath in and breathe out. God is my Creator. He is my Life, my Song, my Joy, my Savior. He is my All.
JESUS IS ALL THE WORLD TO ME - MIDI FILE

JESUS IS ALL THE WORLD TO ME
1.Jesus is all the world to me, my life, my joy, my all;He is my strength from day to day, without Him I would fall.When I am sad, to Him I go, no other one can cheer me so;When I am sad, He makes me glad, He’s my Friend.
2.Jesus is all the world to me, my Friend in trials sore;I go to Him for blessings, and He gives them over and o’er.He sends the sunshine and the rain, He sends the harvest’s golden grain;Sunshine and rain, harvest of grain, He’s my Friend.
3.esus is all the world to me, and true to Him I’ll be;O how could I this Friend deny, when He’s so true to me?Following Him I know I’m right, He watches o’er me day and night;Following Him by day and night, He’s my Friend.
4.Jesus is all the world to me, I want no better Friend;I trust Him now, I’ll trust Him when life’s fleeting days shall end.Beautiful life with such a Friend, beautiful life that has no end;Eternal life, eternal joy, He’s my Friend.

I love the old songs, the classics, the beautiful hymns I grew up on. It is a good thing I know many of them by heart, for I have great difficulty seeing the tiny font in our song books. I did not think I would live this long. When I was younger, I always thought I would die before I turned 30. And every year passing that, I did not take for granted, but I was not wise enough yet to use my life for God's glory either. Not until I turned 34, when I surrendered my heart and my life to God. It was at that time, that I first learned of The Holy Spirit. I heard Him and saw Him in action in the little Methodist church up the street from where we lived. It was here I learned that I needed The Holy Spirit in my life, but I was not there long enough to learn how to receive Him.
That happened after I moved to Kenosha and began to attend a little brick Full Gospel Church with, of all things, a woman pastor. How nice that God would surround me with so many supportive women in His ministry at a time when I had little trust in any man, even God's men. God will take us through our struggles, situations we have created by making wrong choices, when we let Him lead. It is only when we lead that we get into trouble. But when God leads our life, then the troubles that plague us glorify His Name, instead of detracting from His Name.
The reason I am here at all, though, is because someone prayed for me. They prayed for my salvation when I was lost in sin. They prayed for me to be in love with Jesus Christ. They prayed for me to draw closer to God day by day. They prayed for me to be filled with The Holy Spirit. People still pray for me. Some more often than I pray, some less. Yet, still, we pray for each other. So, this year, in addition to all the blessings you will be receiving from the hand of God, as He allows, I pray that you not only surrender your hearts and your lives to God, but your bodies also. That your will would be surrendered to God's will and His Name glorified on your behalf.
My prayer for my children, my family and my friends all this year, in fact for the last 3 years, has been: "Lord, save them, fill them and give them a desire to serve You . Lord, hear my cry, hear my prayer. Bend an ear to this sayer, hear me. Hear my heart, heart my voice; save our children this is our choice. To give them to You. We haved dedicated our children from birth to You, Lord. To raise them in Your ways and to teach them to follow Your will for their lives. Now, they are on their own, most of them, and still we are giving them to You. As we gave You to them when they were little children, now we give them to You in their young adulthood."
My prayer is that those we pray for would receive The Holy Spirit, for it is The Holy Spirit Who guides us in God's Word, God's Will and God's Ways. It is The Holy Spirit who emboldens us with power to overcome temptation. But we have to listen to Him. You cannot blow off The Holy Spirit. We have to listen if we want to draw closer to God and if we want God to draw closer to us. We need to obey The Holy Spirit when He speaks, for He speaks The Word of God when God gives it to Him. The Holy Spirit is The Wisdom of God. And leads us in the fear of God, the reverencing of God, the worship of God.

~Acts 2:1 "One accord in one place"

Ephesians 4:4 "One body, one Spirit, one hope of your calling; 4:5 "One Lord, one faith, one baptism; 4:6 "One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all."

I pray Ephesians 3 over my family and my friends. Sometimes where a name can be inserted I just use group names, like FRIENDS or FAMILY, or a person's given name. Read it carefully and pray carefully before you read it out loud. As with all Scripture, there is Power in This Spoken Word as well as the words we speak on a daily basis. Our words can destroy relationships within the family bonds or strengthen relationships within the same. Our words can kill, can heal, can wound, can refresh. If chosen carefully, and thinking at length, constantly and consistently kneeling at the throne of grace before we open our mouths to each other and to God. For it is the breath of God that gives us breath to not only breathe, but to speak. What we are given in love should not be shared in hate or misspokenness.
Though I was able to share this personally with 50 friends and family via facebook, this blessing and prayer, from my heart and my thoughts, is intended to be given to all of my family and friends, and received in the manner in which it was given: with love.

JEREMY CAMP-THERE WILL BE A DAY  - GODTUBE VIDEO




 

Satisfied

PSALM 63:1 - 5

O GOD YOU ARE MY GOD

EARLY WILL I SEEK YOU

MY SOUL THIRSTS FOR YOU

MY FLESH LONGS FOR YOU

IN A DRY AND THIRSTY LAND

WHERE THERE IS NO WATER

TO SEE YOUR POWER AND YOUR GLORY

SO AS I HAVE SEEN YOU

IN THE SANCTUARY

YOUR LOVINGKINDNESS

IS BETTER THAN LIFE

AND I WILL PRAISE YOU

I WILL BLESS YOU

WHILE I LIVE

I WILL LIFT UP MY HANDS

IN YOUR NAME

MY SOUL IS SATISFIED

AS WITH MARROW AND FATNESS

MY MOUTH PRAISES YOU

WITH JOYFUL LIPS

So, are you satisfied with God? Good. Is God satisfied with you? 

The House of The Lord

This beautiful setting is in the Great Smoky Mountains.

 

 

Psalm 122:1 "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into The House of The Lord."

 

The House of The Lord takes on a whole new concept, when we realize that we who have been born-again into newness of life, into the family of God; we are now The House of The Lord.

For it is in us that Christ dwells through the power of The Holy Spirit. We carry the gospel of salvation within our bosom, our being. It is our privilege, and honor, to serve God in this capacity.

As Mary was the first one to carry The Gospel within her, when she carried the baby Jesus in her womb, so to are we given the same blessing.

Carrying the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ

within us we are able to present Him to other people,

that those who are called out of darkness at the urging of the Holy Spirit

into the Light and Love of God can receive His salvation and

worship at His presence.

As the shepherds of the fields were called out of the darkness of the night

upon the fields where they lay watching over their flocks,

so to were we called out of the darkness of spiritual night,

to a place where we could worship at the feet of Jesus.

A place where we could sing our hearts out in praise for what Jesus did for us.

A place where we could worship God for Who He is and What He does.

A place where we could receive the message of salvation:

That Jesus died on the cross,

suffering the punishment for our sins,

was buried in a tomb,

and walked out of it

full of glory and truth and power,

into a resurrected life.

Having conquered death and the grave,

He held the keys to both.

By His example of love for us and to us,

we now can have this eternal life and joy

when we believe.

 

When we accept Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God,

Who died for the sins of the whole world,

And rose from the dead,

We become born-again people.

We are borne, carried, through the blood

which flowed from His head, His hands, His feet

onto us and into the ground where we stand.

We are born-again through The Spirit

into God's family.

As Jesus told Nicodemus, "You must be born again",

so to is that command given to us.

Born of water and born of spirit:

first we are born and then we are reborn.

How cool is that?

 

And when we receive the baptism of The Holy Spirit,

and are given the evidence of same by the speaking in tongues,

which is a heavenly language and not of our own knowledge,

then He begins the transformation process within us.

Cleaning out our hearts and our minds

from all unrighteousness, removing wickedness from within us,

that our hearts, our seat of emotions, might be made new and perfect.

Would you invite Jesus into a dirty house? Expect Him to sit on filthy furniture?

Give Him a drink of water in a dirty glass? Feed Him off of stained plates?

And, yet, that is what many of us do, or have done.

 

The Holy Spirit of God first convicts the sinner of sin,

then begins to clean out all sin from the sinner's life,

making us able to house The Lord within us,

that His Light would shine brightly and clearly

into the darkness of this world in which we live.

 

I am the house of The Lord.

He shines brightly within me.

The Spirit reveals through The Word of God

all unrighteousness that is still in me,

and I give Him authority over my life

to remove all uncleanliness from within.

For when I stand before God at m judgment day,

I would like nothing of myself to be left in the ashes,

only what I have done for God.

 

I thank God that someone prayed me out of darkness.

Lord, let my prayer be that I would continue in their stead

and pray my family and friends out of darkness.

Amen.

"...The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." James 5:16

 

"I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of The Lord."



Veritas

One of the things I look forward to in Heaven is weightlessness, for I will be spirit.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:23(KJV Bible)

Gravity is not an issue in the Kingdom of God, so it should not be an issue now.

Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30

While the verse in John is a call to worship and the verses in Matthew are a call to rest, both sections signify a call to Christ. That Jesus Christ is the only way to God. That only the rest which Jesus Christ offers is available through Him. All we have to do is believe that Jesus Christ is Who He says He is.

Truth in John 4:23 is from the Greek word 'veritas', meaning reality. The Word of God is real and current. It is not stale nor has it outlived its usefulness. For The Word of God is Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. The Old Testament is the history of the old covenants from and through God under which men and women of those times were brought into the family of God.

The New Testament has not ended, but is still in its growing stage, for true believers are being added to the family of God even yet. While the Book of Revelation is written out for us in our Bibles, it has yet to happen in our lifetimes. But it is real and it is true.

The New Testament is The New Covenant of Grace. Christ is this covenant. No longer are we bound by laws and rituals. We are not free of The Law, The Ten Commandments, so to speak, for The Law has been fulfilled in Christ: He is The Law. The Ten Commandments defines the character of God. The first five are a call to worship and serve Him. The second five are a call to serve His people honorably. Jesus Christ is The Law of The Old Testament made flesh in The New Testament. How cool is that?

The New Testament is where the new believer is referred to as a Christian, a Christ-follower; not just a Truth-sayer, but a Truth-doer. Their actions backed up their words. As in the beginning of the church's plantings, to say “I am a Christian” was to place a death sentence upon yourself. For many hated Christ, and as such, hate also anything that reminds them of Christ. Even us. Especially, us.

It is not supposed to be easy for you and I to be Christians. But it will be worth it.