Sunday, December 30, 2012

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