Psalms 23

Good Morning! 

Wow Its been awhile since I've written a blog! I hope you all are doing well!

Its finally nice and sunny here today! So I'm sitting out on the deck enjoying the weather and reading God's Word.

While doing my devotions this morning, I found these verses....I LOVE them! They remind me that no matter what I'm going through, God's always there with me and for me. Whether I'm stressed, or going through trials or going through good times...He's always there!

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want

He makes me lie down in green pastures

He leads me beside quiet waters

he restores my soul

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his names sake

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. 

You anoint my head with oil my cup overflows;

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Let Him Lead

Good Morning!

As I was doing my 40 Days in the Word challenge, the Pastor was talking about how God speaks to us through His word. How we need to Read it, Meditate on it, and then live it out.
 Honestly, such a PERFECT devotion for today....As my husband and I are deciding where his next job will be come August. He has been interviewing like crazy, we've been writing out pros and cons and we have been praying hard that God will lead us where he wants us to be.

Joshua 1:8
Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

The pastor gave a great idea that I tried this morning...He said to write down your prayers on a piece of paper and as you write let God speak to you.

At first it sounded weird, but I thought I'd give it a try and as I was writing out my prayer God reminded me of this verse:

Jeremiah 29:11-12
"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

God knows exactly where He wants my husband and I to be. I believe, that He will lead us in the right direction and through prayer he will show us EXACTLY where that place is :)

God wants you to know today, that HE knows all the plans for your life already...He want you to prosper, to have hope and a future! And if you pray to Him, He will always listen to you.

No Matter what....

Good Morning!

Are any of you taking the 40 Days in the Word Challenge I posted last week?! Its never too late to start the Challenge :) Just go to www.40daysintheword.com On the bottom right click Sign Up...ITS FREE! And each day it will give you a short video devotional and a verse to memorize! Its really amazing!

I was reading Habakkuk's Prayer this morning and thought "Wow! My heart and prayer's need to be more like this!"

Take a look

Habakkuk 3:2, 17-18
Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.

Through the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

It's so easy for me to praise God, when everything's going perfectly...but I sometimes find it harder when trouble comes my way.
Habakkuk says even though there's no crops, no grapes growing, no animals to get food from....he still will rejoice in our Lord Savior......we can learn a lot from these 2 verses.

Next time there's hard times and trouble I"m going to re-read this verse and remind myself God is always there to Help us through the hard times and we should give him all our praise no matter what the circumstances are!

Praise God!

Soar on Wings Like Eagles

Good Morning!

Rise and Shine and give God the glory!!! :)

I wanted to share with you ONE of my favorite verses today...hopefully it will give you encouragement as you go throughout your days!

Isaiah 40:28-31
....The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

It's so encouraging to me to be reminded that God NEVER grows tired and weary, therefore he can give us strength and power when we feel weak.

We all are going to stumble and fall and make mistakes, but these verses say if we put our HOPE in God, he will give us strength! We can keep on truckin' along on our journey of faith and God will be there with us and won't let us grow weary.

Today, if you are feeling weak, tired and discouraged....put your hope in God and HE will renew your strength!!

Enjoy your day!

40 Days

Hey everyone!

My mom sent me a link to "40 Days In The Word" challenge! I'm on day 2 and the lessons so far are AMAZING!....They are only about 8 minute little talks. But they teach you alot in those 8 minutes. I wanted to share with all of you!!

Wanna take the Challenge with me?! Here's the link: www.40daysintheword.com On the bottom of the page, Under "Get Free Daily Devotions" click Sign Up...enter your email and a password and start on Day 1! Watch the little video and read the scripture!

They are teaching you to not only be a "hearer" of God's Word, but a "doer" :)

Dig in today!!

Ask for Wisdom

Happy Tuesday Everyone!!

Yesterday you read about David, a shepherd boy, killing Goliath the Giant, with God's help! David went on to become King.

Before David died, he anointed his son, Solomon to be the next King. Solomon is known for all the Wisdom God gave him. Today we will learn more about him.

1 Kings 3:5-14
The Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you."
Solomon asnwered, "You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.

The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have  been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for both riches and honor so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in my ways and obey my statues and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life."

What if God told you to ask for anything...and He would give it to you?! Wisdom probably wouldn't be the first thing on our list to ask for. But Solomon, being wise as he was....asked God for a discerning heart and wisdom.

And what was God's answer?! He gave Solomon wayyy more than he asked for!! Because Solomon wasn't being greedy or selfish with his request, God blessed him with so much more!!....Wisdom, a long life, noone will ever be like Solomon, riches, and honor. Wow!! God is so good!

These verses talk about Solomon's Wisdom:

1 Kings 4:29-34
God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than any other man....And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations.
He spoke three thousand Proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five.. Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.

Lets ask God for Wisdom this week :) If you want to read more about Wisdom...I encourage to read the first 4 Chapters of Proverbs!

David and the Giant

Good Morning!

Its a beautiful, chilly day here! I love being able to have the windows open with the fresh spring air filling the house! ahhhh.. :)

I remember being taught in Sunday School about David and Goliath.....its been forever since I've read the story! This morning I went back to the book of 1 Samuel chapter 17, to refresh my memory.

A little background first.....Saul was the King of the Israelites during this time. The Israelites were at war against the Philistines.
David was the youngest son of 8 children. He was his father's shepherd. In Chapter16, David had already been anointed as the next King after Saul dies.

1 Samuel 17:4-7
A champion named Goliath (the Giant), came out of the Phillistine camp. He was over nine feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels, on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels.

One "shekel" is equal to .0497 ounces. Imagine wearing all that bronze weight on your body! He must have been one strong Giant! Plus he was 9 ft. tall....very intimadating.

1 Samuel 17:8-9, 11
Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, "Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Phillistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become  your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us." On hearing the Phillistines words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

Imagine how terrified the Israelites were of Goliath! They Israelites are all average height....and here is this man, 3-4 feet taller than them, wanting to fight one on one. yikes!!

1 Samuel 17:32
David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.
Saul replied, " You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your Servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.
The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.
Saul said to David, "Go and the Lord be with you."

In these verses it says that David was just a boy...we don't know for sure his age, but he was probably younger. But age doesn't matter, David knew the Lord would protect him, as he had been protected so many times before from lions and bears.
Out of all the soldiers, it was a Shepherd Boy who stood up and was willing to fight, because he had the confidence that his Lord was with him.

1 Samuel 17:38-40, 42, 44, 45-46, 48-49
Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the runic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
"I cannot go in these" he said to Saul, "because I am not used to them." So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in hand, approuched the Philistine.

Goliath looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. "come here" he said "I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field."
David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head."
As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead and he fell facedown on the ground.

Not only was David just a boy, and not a soldier, but he fought without the proper armour and without a sword. David fought Goliath with just a sling and a stone! God was with David the whole time and helped him kill the giant that day.

There's a good lesson for us this Chapter....no matter what our age, no matter what we do for a living, or where we are at in our lives....If we trust and believe in God and His Power, He will be with us and help us fight the Giants in our lives. Remember God is always with you, and He will help you when you ask Him :).

Would you build an Ark?

Good Morning!

A few days ago I wrote about Faith and of some of the examples that the Bible gives of people who have been faithful to God. One of those people was Noah.....so I thought today I would show you a few of the verses from Noah's story.

Genesis 6:5-9, 13-20, 22
The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air for I am grieved that I have made them."
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.

This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 ft. long, 75 ft. wide and 45 ft. high. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark-you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

You are to bring into the ark 2 of every living creature, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

Noah did everything just as God had commanded him.

God saw that Noah was righteous and would obey God's commands. Thats why he chose him to build the ark.

Look how God told Noah exactly how to build it! And Noah was FAITHFUL and did exactly as God had commanded him to do. And God saved Noah and his family because of that.

Genesis 7:17, 21
For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.
 
Every living thing that moved on the earth perished-birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all man kind.

Genesis 8:1-2, 6-7, 15-16
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him ni the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. NOw the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed and the rain had stopped falling from the sky.

After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth unti the water had dried up from the earth.

Then God said to NOah, "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.

 God didn't forget about Noah while they were on the ark....he was with them the whole time. And when the water had dried up from the earth God told them to come out.

When we walk with the Lord, follow where he leads and obey his commands....he will take care of us. He will bring us through the "floods" (or hardtimes) in life.

Be faithful! Live for God.

Creating the World

Good Morning!

Today I was thinking that its been awhile since I"ve read about God creating the Heavens and the Earth and everything in it. So I flipped my Bible to the very beginning and read again how AMAZING and creative our God is!

These are long verses so I'm not going to type them all out I'll just kind of skim through, but I encourage you to go back and read Genesis chapters 1 and 2! Pretty cool stuff!

Genesis 1:1-3, 6-7, 11, 13,24, 26-28,
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of the God was hovering over the waters.

And God said "Let there be light" and there was light.

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.

Then God said "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning on the third day.

And God said, ":Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind" And it was so.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Genesis 2:2-3
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

How amazing is it that God created the World and everything in it?! He just spoke the words and "it was so"! We have one awesome God! And on the 7th day he rested! Thats what he commands us to do as well...work all week and on the 7th day we rest.

Thank God today for everything He has created!

Ten Commandmants

Good Morning! Hope you all are having a wonderful Thursday so far :)

Most of us have heard of the Ten Commandments: the laws God gave Moses for us all to live by. But have you ever actually read the verses in the Bible where God gives them to us?

I read it this morning and thought it was pretty cool, and wanted to share with all of you!

Deuteronomy 5:6-22, 32-33
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

But showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do.

Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

These are the commandments the Lord proclaimed in a loud voice to your whold assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land you will posses.

These are the 10 commandments our God has given us to live by. We need to try our best to obey God's commands, obviously none of us are perfect and we won't always be 100% obedient. But always remember God will forgive you when you fall!

Have a great Thursday!