FORGIVE THAT THING AND BE FREE

Is there someone you need to forgive? Are you needing to forgive a child for something that they have done to bring your heart pain? Are you struggling to forgive a parent that abandoned or abused you? Maybe you are holding on to some type of hurt caused by a Church or fellow church member. Oh, dear friend, please forgive them now! Forgive them or you'll never be free to enjoy the relationship God wants for you to have with them; nor will you be able to enjoy fully your relationship to the Father....Colossians 3:13 tells us to ...forgive as the Lord forgives us. Matthew 6:14-15 also tells us that unless we forgive ...our Father will not forgive us.

If only you will forgive them and release them; for if you do not, you will spend all your emotional energy keeping them in the prison of your resentment and when you do that...you

end up being the captive instead of the captor. For they conitnue on doing what they do, never bothered with how you may feel and for the most part, they may not even be aware about how you are feeling.

The Lord will not let you grow or move on in certain areas of your life until you can forgive. When you harbor bitterness or anger towards someone you are missing the joy that the Lord entends for you to encounter. Your tied to the past through the umbilical cord of unforgiveness. When you forgive you cut that cord and there is a freedom that pours into your soul that you can only know through forgiveness. Don't let issues rob you of making it right in your heart to forgive and maybe once again restore that relationship that you once might have charrished.

As God's children, we will be spending a lot of time together in the end....and then nothing will matter! The sad thing is....it can be that way now....but some choose not to cut the strings that hinder restored relationships and they miss out on some good stuff!

If you want a tender heart, a lighter spirit that reflects love and have your mind free, your vision clear and your voice full of kindness once again....then simply forgive! WOW, what a way to live!

Oh Father, if any, that I have wronged and am unaware please make a way for me to make that right....for any wrong that has been done to me, I release it in Jesus name forgiving in Your love!

The scripture tells us to be at peace with all men whenever it is possible....we must ask ourselves...is it possible with this one? And while you may never be able to make them see nor come to the same understanding that you may have about it.......you simply, forgive in your heart, allow God to work in theirs and release yourself to be free!

Oh how I love you and want you to be free!

Bren

GET INTO THE WORD

You may have in the past started to read the Bible. Maybe even tried the straight through approach starting at Genesis and chances are you made it to Leviticus and gave up. Let's face it. The Bible is not always easy reading. It requires attention and effort, and it may even require a little help. I know from personal experience that it has been very productive for my spiritual growth to encounter the wisdom of godly men and women that God has allowed to cross my path. The scripture tells us about an Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:31-35 who was reading the scriptures and encountered some godly wisdom…Philip was told to go near him and stay there. As he heard the Ethiopian man reading the scripture he asked him, "Do you understand what you are reading?" The Ethiopian looked up from the book of Isaiah and answered," How can I he said, except someone should explain it to me?" Then Philip using the same scripture that the man was reading explained the good news of the Savior, which lead to the man’s spiritual conversion.

God has not laid out truth in complete clarity for all men to see. According to Proverbs 25:2a Solomon wrote: "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: The truth will come, but it may come slowly. It may come with considerable effort. Sometimes we need a guide, yet each of us individually must search out the answers for ourselves. II Timothy 2:15 tells us to “Study to show ourselves approved unto God, workman that needs not to be ashamed rightly dividing the Word and Truth…. ….this scripture is telling us to study God’s Word, doing our utmost to present ourselves before God, approved and accepted because of the effort that we have made; working servants who have no cause to be ashamed, because we are making great effort in analyzing and accurately dividing and rightly handling the Truth in the Word.

The person who is determined to search and study the Scriptures daily, comparing what he is told with what God says, will be a hard person to deceive. "The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12). In (Acts 17:11) the scripture says that “The Bereans (a group of people) were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

So, get out your Bible, some paper and pen...maybe a journel and get at it…study for yourself….taste and see that God is good!

I love you and am praying for you today!

Bren

His Life For Mine

YOUR UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST

Many of us have a mental conception of what a Christian should be. We often times look at the saints of God and see failure and it causes us to either stumble in our faith or use their mistakes as human excuses to fail.

Let’s look at it this way; God sets the standard we are to follow, those that fail, we are to look upon as simple detours to mistakes and examples of making choices apart from God’s will. The New Testament encourages us that when we have fallen and have been restored, to go and restore those that are falling….

The only purpose that you and I have in this life as a child God is to know Him! The very thing that you are looking for is God. The difficulties and trials, the casting about in our minds as to what we shall do this summer or tomorrow, all vanish away when we look to God. The simple fact of the matter is that, we have forgotten how to look to Him.

Now rouse yourself up and look to God. Do your utmost to build your hope on him. Seek Him in His Word and prayer…and do not give up. Beat your body and make it your slave; and do that thing which you know you should. Take your eyes off the problem, no matter if you have a hundred things that are pressing you, resolutely exclude them all and look to Him, and the moment you do, you will not be disappointed.

I love you and am praying for you today!
Bren

Darlene Zschech - Here I Am to Worship

WHAT JOB DID

While reading this morning abut the life of Job, I was reminded that he had a devotion to God, and in spite of all his pain and suffering he was determined to stay true to what he believed, that God was "Just", no matter the situation, and he knew in his heart that God always had His children’s best interest in mind. He was already a man that bared much spiritual fruit. Which puts me in mind of a scripture found in the New Testaments that says, “Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit”…John 15:2

God prunes the righteous (His children) by removing anything unproductive in our lives that is not bearing or reflecting Him and His character. Job’s life before his great calamity was a life to emulate and his life during and after his calamity was one of great example to follow as well. The example that we should follow is to realize that when we don’t understand God, He can still be trusted. You see the devil caused Job’s troubles, but Job did not realize at first that it was the devil. He struggled with trying to understand why he was suffering. According to Job 19:1-12, at first Job thought that God was causing him to suffer, but in fact God did not. He only allowed his suffering. He also pondered the fact that he believed that God may be a little unfair… because it appears that God seems to ignore some of the wrongs that others do in Job 24. But those thoughts were about to be corrected in later chapters of Job.

Job had a few friends who thought the same thing and tried to advise him, but they gave him wrong advice. You see they did not think that God would allow an innocent person to suffer. So they thought that Job was guilty of something. While Job admits that he was a transgressor in Job 31:33… he did argue with them that he had done nothing wrong at that point to bring on his current calamity in Job 31. He still struggled within himself and with God in trying to figure out why the suffering was allowed. Now Job had another friend called Elihu who was much wiser than his other friends and listened to Job as he proclaimed his innocence. Then he rebuked Job in chapter 32. Elihu told Job not to accuse God… and he was angry with the other friends for being so cruel to Job. While Job never cursed God…he did struggle with God over some issues about his situation.

Reading these verses reminded me of the times that I have wrestle with God over my own problems. Sometimes I know without a doubt why trouble has come my way. I do my best to repent of any actions that may have brought them on and move forward with a better understanding of how God prunes off the unfruitful and unprofitable things in my life. But sometimes I do like Job and question God’s decisions in why He allows certain things or does things the way He does; because sometimes it does seem like the innocent suffer while the guilty get away with wrongdoing. But as Elihu reminded Job and his friends, God has a reason for everything that He allows….and if we know Him and trust Him we are to counter our doubt and lack of misunderstandings with that faith.

The only reason that satan had, in bringing on Jobs’ conflicts, was in hopes that Job, would curse and dishonor God because of his pain and suffering. And while Job struggled with trying to understand it all….he never cursed God. Even God tells us to come and reason with Him. He understands that we have questions. But we are never to doubt His reasons by thinking that He is unfair for what He does. Understanding our situation will only become clear to us, when we surrender any frustration, bitterness, anger or self opinion.


I ended my scripture reading with this verse… "And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends": also the Lord gave him twice as much as he had before Job 42:10. You see this is a prime example of how satan wants to do us harm by what he sends our way….yet God wants to turn it around and use it to prune off the bad in us, so that the good fruit will surface….imagine it….your friends telling you what your problems are because they have it all figured out, and it may sound pretty solid… to them!

Yet you know in your heart where you stand before the Lord. What do you do? ….Yep, you forgive and you pray for them and satan will slither away like the humiliated snake that he is….knowing that he failed again…..just like with Job and his friends and just like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and the cross….defeated once again!


You were on my mind...I love you!
Bren

HE MUST INCREASE AND I MUST DECREASE

Have you ever looked at a candle and how it burns? The more the light shines, the more the candle diminishes. What a beautiful illustration of the believer in Christ! The more we allow Christ to shine in and through us, the less of self in us is reflected to the world and the more noticeable the Christ in us gets bigger.

John the Baptist said the following of Jesus, "He must increase, I must decrease" (John 3:30).
John had been called to do a task. He did it too! But when Jesus showed up, John knew in His heart it was time for him to depart. He knew that he had done what was ask of him in his situation; and the time he had spent where he was had come to an end. He was the one that God would use to set the stage for the coming of Christ….the one who according to the old time prophets was crying in the wilderness… warning, telling, preparing folks for what was about to come after him…he did what he could do and God was about to move John to another level. John’s next level of course took him home to be with the Father. Jesus said of John that… “None among the sons of women had arisen who was greater than him”. Some think of John as being a little on the weird side…I mean he did eat wild honey and locusts and apparently did not care much for his attire… yet, he had more spiritual fervor in his little finger than most of us have in our entire lives. He was willing to take the risk…to follow his calling… to obey what He knew he should do… and wait until God was ready to take him to the next level.

Sometimes God will move you to another level. You may have done all you have been ask to do where you are. When He ask you to move on, don’t fret over it…..just go… because there is always something sweeter waiting your arrival of where He will be taking you. Jesus Himself said He had no place to lay His head…meaning; that He was not so wrapped up in this world or His current situation and the places that he stayed that He could not function in a life of constant change. While He was accepted by many, He was not understood my many more. His ways were not and are not our ways and when we begin to do things God’s way, others will not always understand. That is basically because people have a tendency to judge things from their own frame of reference: from their perspective and how they would do things.

I am finding myself being forced to another level in my own life. Will I go with Him or will I stay? It seems as though my life will never be a life of sediment…only current.

Did you know that Ocean waters are constantly on the move and how they move influences the climate and living conditions for plants and animals, even on land? Did you also know that the Gulf Stream current separates open-ocean water from coastal water and that organisms and plants move from one layer of sediment to another because of the current?

I was reading about that one day… as Charles and I were getting ready to take a much needed vacation to the Gulf Coast and as I was reading about the ocean I felt like the Lord sent a bolt of discernment into my heart and mind and said…you know what….that’s what I created you to be….a current. I tell you, it’s the most liberating thing to be set free by receiving direct confirmation from the Lord whenever we are seeking His wisdom in a situation. Every question that I had been dwelling on seem to disappear through the perfect understanding of why I am the way I am and why I do the things that I am compelled to do. As I look back upon the many years of my being a Christian and serving the Lord I can truly say that I have no regrets as to where I went and the reasons I went there. Because I am a current, I have no desire to be the sediment, the plants or the organisms, but simply the current that may possibly bring change no matter how small or how big the change or even if only to stir the sediment ….wherever God may direct my path to go. I have learned through the years that it is not how big God may use my life, but that He use my life period. However He chooses to, is up to Him….as long as He will use me.

I praise Him today for every trial, every pain, and every place that I have ever been and I am striving to allow them to bring me closer to Him and make me more pliable in His hands for His use.

If you are in place where God is wanting to take you to the next level, don’t be afraid to go…you may be the current or influences that someone else is needing to bring a change to their condition or simply to stir the things that have settled and need to be revived in their lives.

I love you and am praying for you today…let’s keep pressing on until He comes for us!

Bren

THE STORY OF AN UNFAITHFUL WOMAN

No matter where you are, you are never too far from the love of God. You don’t have to understand it, but you do have to accept it to have peace .....He is worthy of our love and faithfulness.

Having the heart of a prophet; for me there is no other book that draws me to it's pages more often than the book of Hosea. For there is no other book that teaches us about the love of God in the Old Testament from a human perspective than this book. The Book of Hosea is a prophetic account of God’s relentless love for His children. Since the beginning of time God’s ungrateful and undeserving creation has been accepting His love, grace, and mercy but finding it ever so hard to refrain from consistent wrongdoing. Hosea takes this act of unfaithfulness to a personal level as he is told by God to take a prostitute in marriage and show love and compassion to her even though she will be unfaithful to him. Through Hosea’s hard life’s experiences in his marriage to an unfaithful wife he learns firsthand how love can once again be restored in a marriage as well as to the children of God and how their misdeeds are forgotten with a repentant heart, from those that follow after Him.

The Book of Hosea assures us of God’s unconditional love for mankind. But it is also a picture of how God is dishonored and hurt by the actions of His children. As we look at how the Israelites turned their backs on God we need to look no further than the mirror in front of us to see a reflection of those same Israelites and how we too at times take God off the throne of our hearts and allow something else to take its place. There is a lot to be learned from Hosea’s life….so let’s get started!

Hosea was a prophet in northern Israel. During this time the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria. He lived in a time when Israel’s spiritual condition had become so vial that God could no longer stand it. Their time of repentance was running short and God was about to do some stern speaking and spanking and chose to use a simple man’s personal pain and experience to communicate His love for them through a warning of change or expected disaster. Hosea uses his personal life story metaphorically as the relationship between God and His people. While Hosea suffered the pain of an adulterous wife, God suffers the pain of an idolatrous people. While God desires to forgive… He insist and reminds us that there are repercussions to following after other gods…so it’s best not to ever do it to begin with...For Israel, He had warned that they would be overrun by other nations and would be dispersed from their land if they continued on the path that they were on….and as we know, they ended up being dispersed from their land and the repercussions of their turning away from God was very costly.

Like the prophet Amos, Hosea did not ask for the burden that he had to bear, yet God saw fit to give it to him. Many times I, have wondered and ask God to show me why a certain thing has come into my life… and no matter how I struggle with it, I can not always get a clear fix as to what I had done to bring it about. Yet I know in time if I will but trust the Lord….He and I will look back together to view the whole picture, as He meant for the end result to be and how it all played out in the end. Our lives are somewhat like a canvas that starts out blank. As the painter works to manipulate the colors with oils, paint thinners and brushes, so God must move and manipulate circumstances in our life to paint the picture He wants to complete. When we do not work with Him… we become hard to shape or work with to attain the end result that He wants. And yes that does mean, that even though God is God…He will not force us to do what we are unwilling to do. He gave all mankind a free will to choose,and while He never gives up on trying to change us into His likeness, He will not make us change.

The scripture does warn however in Revelation that He will take us home early if we abuse who we are in Christ and the new life that He provided by bringing Him shame and dishonor by our lifestyles….so it does go without saying that if we belong to Him (and I do believe strongly that the Word of God teaches) that we will change at some point. He died to give us life more abundantly by changing us …and change will only come as we release our will and accept His.

More often than not, we wrestle with God over what’s best for us….and the wrestling only comes about when we struggle and wiggle to have our own way. If we could just learn to be gliders and allow the breeze and Presence of His Holy Spirit to direct our paths, the struggles that we must face would not be so hard to bear, nor so long.

Some Christians will spend all their life being broken and remolded, never hearing, and never learning. That was Israel’s experience as a whole….it was only in those times after they had been in bondage, did they turn back, bow and say, “You are the only God…in You, only will we trust and follow”. Hosea did exactly as God commanded. He married Gomer, and in the course of time three children were born. As each of the children was born, they were given names by God, and each of their names symbolized some aspect of Israel’s relationship with God. The first child was named; Jezreel a city and territory in the heartland of Israel from which much of the wickedness associated with Israel’s sin and rebellion came from. The second child was named Lo-ruhamah which means, “to have no pity”. Through this child God would say that He had put up and tolerated the sin of His children as long as he was going to…enough was enough! The third child was named Lo-ammi, meaning “not mine”. At some point it appears that Hosea came to the realization that Lo-ammi was not his true son but a son born to Gomer out of her harlotry. While Gomer was blatantly going after her lovers that offered her the things that she sought after in chapter 2, Israel was seeking to satisfy their own worldly desires by looking to other channels, avenues or gods to meet their needs. God was saying to them both…go ahead go after them, and I will distort them all (meaning all your avenues and other gods).

Because of Gomer’s unfaithfulness, her marriage fell apart. Though Hosea was broken hearted he still chose to love her. Even after her separation from Hosea, Gomer continued her adulterous life and eventually was scarcely different from an ordinary slave, she had worked herself into a situation of bondage that she could not get out of on her own. But Hosea still loved her in spite of her unfaithfulness. To rescue her from her lovers, he sought her out and purchased her freedom.

Like Hosea, God chose Israel and entered into a covenant relationship with them, but Israel had been unfaithful to that covenant; they had forsaken the one to whom their loyalty was pledged and went after other gods. Our best understanding of God’s nature can be understood by analogies drawn from how God structured the family relationship. These are appropriate symbols for indicating the very Character of the His deity.

As parents, the end result of chastisement is not to punish our children and be done with it, but to restore them through their wrongdoing. God has taught me this many, many times. The story in the book Hosea is about how God, who found Israel to be stubbornly faithless and spiritually rebellious, had to allow them to experience the consequences of their waywardness. God didn’t let this happen because he stopped loving Israel, or because he ran out of patience—he did it as part of a plan for the redemption of his people. God is very patient, and His plan is still being worked out even today with His people Israel and it will not come to completion until Israel comes to faith in Christ, which the Bible says will happen in the last days—that is, the last days prior to the second coming of Christ. While He is still drawing Israel as a whole because of the first covenant He made with Abraham for the coming promised Messiah. He completed that promise under the new covenant through Christ, and through Jesus He has grafted in and accepts all who come to Him in repentance as well.

So you see, all God’s children must learn and live in a state of repentance. Sweet friend I have no idea where you stand in your relationship with God today. For me, I am struggling and striving to draw closer to Him as never before… in these days that we are facing. I long in my heart to once again hear the prophets of God preach and proclaim to us His children with warning and strong reminders that we are accountable to God for the way that we live before others. People need the Lord…and we are His light to them….but we can not shine unless we are willing to live and behave as His nature in us longs and calls us to do. May I tell you that the world does not need another worldly friend, but they need someone who can lead them out of the darkness that they are in to find Christ who will set them free. I know this because He has set me free…so therefore I have the credentials to tell others that whomever He sets free is free in deed. For the backslider the Lord tells us in 1 John….that we (His Children) are not to sin…but if we do, we have an advocate…Jesus Christ. We need to run to Him….cry out and be sorry for our sin….go the other way! It is not because of all the lost reprobates that God’s children need revival….but because of the disgrace that we His children are bringing Him by our lifestyles… by being candles without flames….no fire in us…no burden! I tell you the truth…God is Able….but are we willing?

Precious Friend…pray with me …pray for me….that we will see…. our great need for personal revival in our churches and homes everywhere! "Oh Father….may it start with me"!

I love you and have prayed for you today!

Bren

THAT'S NO MOUNTAIN FOR A CLIMBER

If you have ever been to the Smoky or Blue Ridge Mountains, you know how devastatingly beautiful they are. How certain views and landscapes seem to take the very breath from you. Each mountain top makes you think, "surly this view is the most beautiful one" and then you go down the valley and up another mountain only to find it more beautiful than the last.

Those mountains remind me of how God uses them as a comparison to the mountains in our personal lives, to draw us back time after time from the valleys that we so often live in.

Scientist tell us that those mountains were created out of the earth’s unrest and the disasters caused from earthquake’s. It is the same with with our lives. Mountain experiences will only come about after some type of disaster that has caused us to be in a valley for a time, and the mountain experience can only be as lovely to us because of our time spent in the low valley, where even at times the valley can be beautiful....yet, it is always the mountain top that we long to be on.

If you ask a mountain climber where his favorite part of the mountain is he will tell you that it is most definitely the top. If he is an experienced climber, you will find that he is a patient climber; because he has climbed enough mountains in his lifetime that he knows what awaits him at the peaks. The shear experience of the view is worth it all he might say! When I was on top of the Smoky mountains I could look down and see everything that was going on in some places. Odd how when your looking down on a situation you can see it from all angles. But when I was at the bottom or base of the mountain, I was very limited to what I was able to view.

I don't think that much thought had to go into naming those "Great Smokies". Because when you see them appearing in the windows of your car as you approach them....I can assure you that you do not say, "Oh, look the Smoky Valleys"! Yet, there are as many valleys as there are mountains there. It's just that the mountains are more grander, more striking and yet the mountains depend on the lowley valleys for the relief from the burden or weight of the winter's snow. If the valleys were not there to allow the waters to flow down and out through their rivers, the mountains would flood and we would not be able to see their great beauty.

We are prone to see the valleys around the mountains as the least place we would want to be, because in the valleys we feel enclosed and surrounded as if we can not see what’s coming….what’s over the next mountain. But on top of the mountain we can see everything for miles and miles and we like that freedom and control. Yet it was never in God’s plan for us to see the big picture, not as He sees it, but only trust that He does and that He can be trusted with what He sees and knows. Even Jesus told His disciples when one of them ask what heaven was like, that even if He told them, their minds were so tiny that they could not comprehend it... so, some things just must be left up to faith, trusting He knows best...because we may not be ablet to understand the big pitcure even if He tried to tell us!

Once there was a young woman who was trying to set a non-stop aviation record. During the course of her trip she ran into a thick fog that caused her to be unable to see anything. As she tried relentlessly to get someone on her radio, finally a voice came in and began to talk to her. The voice told her that while she might not be able to see clear through the fog, that he could see her clearly on his radar and could talk her through the fog if she would but listen to him and trust that while she might not be able to see him, he could see her and would see her to safe landing. Sure enough while her eyes did not want to trust, her heart had to. She gained a whole new perspective on radar that night and that with radar she could trust the voice that she heard in her cockpit and obey it. Had she argued with the man doubting him, she might not have ever lived to tell anyone!

You see God can see you threw the fog, the valley, the rut that you may be in, but you must be willing to allow Him to be your eyes and trust that even though you may not understand why this thing has come upon you; and that you can not understand the things that your eyes may be seeing at the time; and that no matter what the bumper stickers may say about God being your co-pilot, He will only be your pilot! GOD has never wanted to sit in the back seat of your life and be your co-pilot. He must be the pilot, the captain, master, and Lord of your everything!

While most of us want to live on the mountaintops, some have learned to recognize the beauty in the valley and the growth that comes from living there. You seldom will ever see farmers growing the crops on the sides of the mountains. Because it’s only in the valley that the crops can really grow to their fullest potential. In the valley on the flat ground that is where the best of the nutrients in the dirt lay; washed down the mountains with the wind and rain to find rest in the thick rich dirt of the valley.

Often times we are in such a hurry to get through the valley and get to the mountain top that we miss some very important facts that could be learned and might keep us from sliding back into the same valley again. Many times our valleys engulf us and keep us captive in our own fears and doubts because our focus is so out of order when we really just need to let Jesus finish what He’s working on in our lives and then we can look back and see the beauty of whatever it was that He was taking us through; and If it makes me more like Jesus, then that’s where I want to be, because I am no stranger to the valley’s... they seem like home to me.

In a song that I love called “That’s no mountain for a Climber", there is a part that says, "That's no mountain for a climber, because they know what awaits at the peaks"! Let me encourage you today to become a climber, don't you dare fear what it may take to get you to it, because as you go up it and around each valley you can be assured that the mountains with all it's beauty are there awaiting you at the peaks, you simply need to learn how to climb up to them! Then and only then will you be able to appreciate the valleys and see the beauty that the Lord sees as He is brushing off the old man in us to make us more like Him, and as we let go of what we feel safe with and let God.... trusting Him through those dark days in the valleys, they become much more bearable and fewer and far between.

God never offered victory without fighting, but that His help would always come in time. Just remember that when you’re standing in the valley of decision, and the adversary says give in, just hold on, because He will show up and He will take you through the fire again! Man I love that! Borrowed from the song that I mentioned!

Remember, don’t fight Him for your victory, because He has your best interest in mind and He plans on you being a winner!

I love you and Jesus loves you….I will never tire of saying that to folks!

Keep Climbing....no looking back...no looking back!

Bren

SERVITUDE

What bread is for hunger, Jesus is for the Soul. Bread is a staple that is eaten every day by every person in every nation. If the poor have nothing, they have bread. If the rich has everything, they still will want bread. Maybe by this reason alone we can see why Jesus makes His claim as being the Bread of Life; for He knows that it is the one staple that sustains life itself for every person on earth.

While bread is eaten in many forms and fashions depending on the circumstance or occasion it is served, it always manages to serve its purpose and meet the need of those who partake of it. You see, Jesus meets our needs the same way. The need may be different each time, but He is always up for the job of meeting them.

God packaged His bread of life in the wrapper of a carpenter, and gives us the key to the delivery truck. Hmmmmm….that reminds me, have I shared with someone today, that I know someone who can help in their situation. Have I delivered a kind word of encouragement to someone that I know is going through a hard time right now? Have I helped where I could?

I was sharing with the Ladies in my Bible Study the other night that sometimes, I feel like I will burst if I can not find someone to encourage. Maybe encouraging others does not always come easy to you. There are many things that don’t come easy for any of us, but when it comes to lifting up the broken hearted and downtrodden we are all required to do what we can… Maybe instead of encouraging someone you may need it yourself right now…..may I encourage you today sweet friend, no matter where you are and what’s happening in your life….please know this, there are so many others that are where you are, feeling the same pain, experiencing the same hurt…Jesus said Himself…that we do not have a High priest that is un-sympathetic to our weaknesses….but understands them in every way, for you see He too went through hurt, pain and difficulties and yet endured to the other side of them….

As I was telling the ladies the other night…that if I were to poke one of the ladies with a pin and burn the other with a match, would they both not feel the same pain. My friend, you don’t have to go through what I go through to know pain. Your pain may be brought about through totally different circumstances than mine, but I bet our pain feels the same when it enters our heart.

It’s so easy to get sidetracked from what’s really important. What we are all really called to do…..to simply love each other….and here is a test that you can take yourself to determine what level you are loving at.
Simply ask yourself when was the last time that you served someone instead of being served yourself. When you put someone else before yourself…..I mean, listen to this story and think about how it may pertain to you:

Jesus and the twelve disciples were getting ready to sit down at a table in Jerusalem for "the last supper," the last one that the Lord would take with them before His crucifixion. As the disciples came in they began taking their places around the table. Now keep in mind that there were places of greater or less honor to sit depending where the master would sit down Himself. I believe that it was at this time when there arose a dispute among them as to which one was the greatest. Can you imagine what Jesus must have thought as He heard them arguing with one another over this subject…I’m the number one apostle says one….No, I don’t think so because I keep the commandments better than you says another….You guys are crazy, I brought more people to hear Jesus than any of you, suggesting still another…..As they argue, the Lord simply gets up and walks over, fastens a towel around His waste, pours water into the basin and began to wash the disciples feet and wipe them off with the towel. The disciples knew that this service was one that was done by the most humble or least of servants yet here is their leader, their savior, their Lord setting before them the greatest example of humility that they have ever laid their eyes on. The room became quite. No one said a word. All you could hear was the water as Jesus picked it up with his hands and dropped it over and over each foot that was being washed. Listen, you can hear it in your mind. What a moment. The Lord of heaven bowing before them doing a service to them that they should have thought to do for Him.

It seems to me that the Lord spared those guys of being publicly rebuked (which they deserved) and quietly got up and changed the entire atmosphere of that room as He knelt down to show His great love for each one of them. He never pointed out any one man over the other. He simply responded to their questions by His actions...not what He said. That my friend is what servitude is all about ... action!

I find the more that I ask Jesus to help me to be more like Him, the more He reminds me of the cost in doing so, and I realize that to be like Him I must be willing to pay....the real cost of servitude is being willing to serve at my own expense. Being a servant to someone is like setting a broken bone. Helping to repair what satan often times is trying to destroy. It is ministring the love of God to others.

Someone you know may need your time, some of your money, a ride to the store...maybe someone to clean their house. The Bible says that whatever your hand finds to do...do it wholeheartly as unto the Lord!

So may I encourage you to grab a towel....and go to washing! Somebody somewhere needs you to show them Jesus today!

I love you today....Bren

FINDING FAVOR WITH GOD

How many times have you found yourself going to God asking Him for a favor or better yet asking Him to do something for you? Maybe instead of saying, "I need a favor Lord"….how bout, "Lord, I need some favor". Did you know that as a child of God you already have His favor. The dictionary defines favor as to show preferential treatment, to give advantage to another, and to give special favors. As a mother I don’t think that there is anything that I would hold back from my children and grandchildren should they ask me for it. As a matter of fact, I love to show them my favor. I will even go as far to say, that I live to show them favor…that is how much I adore my children.

Well you can be assured that if we love our children and want to give them good gifts and do them favors, then how much more does our Heavenly Father want to do those things for us.
The Bible say’s in Luke 2:52 …and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.

Jesus had all the favor of His Father and according to the scriptures concerning His life, He learned to posses that favor. The scripture says that as He grew in wisdom and stature….He also grew in God’s favor as well as the favor of men. That tells me that Jesus found favor along His way…with men as well as with His father.

God wants us to have His favor and will allow us to have the favor of others when we seek to do the right things. Many times we have misplaced our focus and stop showing or giving favor ourselves and in turn loose the favor of others. We need only to take our eyes off ourselves and place it back on others as it was meant to be. Jesus spent His entire life focused on the needs and concerns of others, not Himself. He knew that to posses God and man’s favor He had to express it himself. I think maybe we get off course when something happens to distract us. Instead of offering to do a good deed for others we withhold our blessing from them because they are not blessing us. When this happens, we just need to shake it off and put on our big girls panties and move on….pardon the panties part but I do love that expression. Because when we withhold our love and blessing from someone, we are hurting ourselves more than anyone else!

One of the saddest sorrows to bear is to witness the awful changes that take place in Christians who go sour or hard or even feel the burn ourselves from the sting that it imparts on our own soul as we ourselves experience the lack of favor with God. These may be believers who at one time were on fire for God, dedicated and zealous for His work…happy, blessed, growing in faith, maturing spiritually. Then one day you began to sense that something has gone wrong. A frown has replaced a smile. Suddenly they stopped growing and even seem to be going backwards instead of forward in their spiritual walk; spiritual decay sets in and they find themselves walking around in a pool of sorrow which before long turns into pity.

The book of Haggai is a marvelous lesson on how to get and keep the blessing and favor of the Lord. In utter simplicity the prophet Haggai outlines how God's children can live and walk under God's continual blessing and favor. You see living and walking is an ongoing experience. You will find in the pages of this great book the wonderful truth about how God blesses those who walk in faithfulness…He shows favor to those who favor Him.

Now I said in the first paragraph that I long to show favor to my children. Yet I can assure you that if my children were to begin to turn from their family to seek wrong things that would destroy all that is right and good in their lives, then I am afraid that I would withhold any favor from them as long as I knew that they were desiring to seek and do wrong and cause great pain to their family.

God’s Word teaches that while He gives us better than we deserve, He will withhold His favor and blessings when we turn from doing His will to fulfill the lust of our flesh….and that does not imply to sexual sin only but to all sins of the flesh.

The favor that God offers is the favor that we all seek. God's favor is brought about through obedience to God and love for one another. May God honor you with His favor today...as you seek to do His will in and through your life.

Loving you today!

Bren