Do You Live Out In Your Life What Your Lips Proclaim?

There it is in BLACK and WHITE...I have been the biggest of these. Saturday night sinner. Sunday morning saint. Though, to be honest, that has been a while, nevertheless, I can remember in my teens through mid-20s going to church still drunk from the night before and pulling it off. But since my life has started the process of transformation in Christ, what used to not bother me in other's posts of being drunk and hungover now greatly saddens and disappoints me as in the next breath they post about how great God is and how much they love Him and are thankful.

 

That was ME. To a TEE. I sit here ashamed to have to admit...that was me. And it was amusing to me too.

 

At the time.

 

Though, I can no longer recall just why. Why is it amusing to comment publically, as an adult, how drunk/hammered/smashed/wasted/hungover you are and then post about how much you have to thank God for? How you love Him. How awesome He is.

Really?!?! Do you think people are buying what you’re trying to sell?

 

Because you’re sure not acting like you believe the words you’re posting. Neither did I. One post about God does not negate everything else that you’ve said about living anything but a Godly life. James 1:8 in the New Testament says, “A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.” You cannot serve two masters. You can’t live for the world on Saturday night and then try and claim you live for Jesus Sunday morning. It just doesn’t work that way. Sorry folks. Who would believe you mean it? Who would want to follow YOU if you don’t present the spiritual walk consistent with your talk. All it seems to be is hot air and empty words when compared with your life and what pictures and comments you post about your wild weekend/party time.

 

Yes, God’s grace IS greater than all of our sins. But grace doesn’t give us license to sin.

Maybe the reason is...

Rocked. My. World. I believe this is exactly RIGHT! God knows this is the single area in my life where I have the biggest temptation. Not gonna lie. That's where I've gotten myself in trouble in the past because I went with my emotions, full speed ahead, jumped in with both feet, used no restraint and absolutely, positively did what I knew to be against what God said in the Bible about intimate relationships. It wasn't until God really started getting hold of my mindset a couple years ago and not just my heart that it truly hit home just how very wrong I had been in the years past, and I have finally been living by what is in the Bible ever since. Easy? Not always. Not for someone who has lived opposite for pretty much all of her adult life.

Seeing this, after all the frustration I've been through as to why I haven't been able to find a relationship worth keeping, made so much sense. It was a huge DUH moment...the kind applied like a sledgehammer upside the head. That is His way of removing what is my biggest temptation and keeping me pure for the person He has had planned for me all along.

So I am working on being the person I need to be and preparing myself for the one HE has in store for me! I can't wait to see who it is b/c I know they will completely rock my world and be better than I ever could've dreamed! I'm asking him for a Job 29, Oneand2Blue kind of man while I am working on becoming a Proverbs 31, Oneand2Pink kind of woman.

Just like the verse scrolling across the top of my blog says, when you put God at the heart of it all and wait on HIS timing, it makes all the difference in your perspective of things. "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Psalms 27:14...

Rather be Single

Being out of a relationship for right at a year now, there are definite things I miss about being in a relationship. But sometimes love, no matter how strong, is just not enough. Sometimes the differences are just too great and people don’t want to compromise or bend or grow or you find out that you didn't have as much in common as you originally thought.

So you let go, you move on, and you work on becoming the right person for the RIGHT person because a successful relationship does not depend solely on *finding* the right person, but on *being* the right person. Working on oneself to become the right person is not easy...kind of hard at times, in fact, but you have to take an honest look at yourself and realize the one common denominator in your failed relationships is...you. Yes, most of the time it takes two to make or break a relationship, but, fact of the matter is that something wasn’t right on either side.

What made me choose...unwisely...each time? Why didn't any of the relationships last? Digging deep and being brutally honest, I’ve come to understand where I went wrong in my choices and why and now it’s about changing myself to make sure that

1. I don’t make those choice mistakes again and
2. that I am no longer that person. Besides, I know that when all is said and done, I won't be single forever.

After all, the BEST is waiting for me to be ready to handle everything I've been praying for. But, being single, for someone who truly enjoys being part of a couple, is not exactly my cup of tea - and single parent dating is rough! However, I know this much, from what I have learned in my experiences, I have come to realize that at the end of the day I would much rather be single right now than be with the wrong person. For myself and for my children.

Put the paper down

"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."- Jeremiah 29:11 ...

We may not know what tomorrow holds but we know who holds tomorrow. The purpose of a horoscope is to gain insight into a person's character and foretell the future. The basic belief of astrology is that planets and stars exert an influence upon our lives. Those with special knowledge, "astrologers", can predict events in a person's life.

It is distressing that most major newspapers have a horoscope column, and even more distressing that many Christians read their horoscopes. I've been guilty of this. Seriously guilty of it. But God has done such a profound change in my life, the thought of bringing the occult into my life anymore, and yes, horoscopes are of the occult, brings cold chills to the back of my neck. When you dabble with the occult, you open doorways by which demons can creep into your life.

The Bible expressly forbids divination, sorcery, and hidden arts (Deuteronomy 18:10-14). God's people are to heed God only (Deuteronomy 18:15). Any other source of guidance, information, or revelation is to be rejected outright. (See also Acts 16:16-18.) The Bible points to Jesus Christ as the only proper focus of faith (Acts 4:12; Hebrews 12:2). Our trust is in God alone, and we know that He will direct our paths (Proverbs 3:5-6).

Faith in anything besides God is misplaced.

Astrology, then, opposes biblical teaching in at least two ways: it advocates faith in something other than God, and it is a form of divination. We cannot determine God's will for our lives through horoscopes. As Christians, we are to read the Bible and pray to God in order to gain wisdom and guidance. Consulting a horoscope is a violation of God's means of communicating with His children. As a Christian, I strongly believe that horoscopes should be rejected by Christians.

A life of transformation

God has really started a big work in me. The first weekend in January I went to a www.Oneand2.com conference in Dallas. What happened to me was nothing less than mind blowing. Suffice it to say, that weekend was one of the most significantly impactful, intense and transformative weekends of my life. I'm not sure exactly what my expectations for this weekend were...I will just say that they were shattered. This is one of THOSE moments in life where you know that everything you knew or thought you knew and everything that you had been about and lived for is forever changed. So many will never understand. It's ok. It's about living out the change in all areas of your life. It's about being different b/c you have become different. For those who it has happened to it is one of the most profound moments of your life. Everything's changed. Thank God... :-D Romans 12:1-2

39 years on this earth...35 of them in Christ...and this is the first time I feel truly TRANSFORMED and FREE! It was a heavy, heavy weekend with much discussion on generational curses, “soul ties” with others you have been sexually involved with etc. and breaking those. And my experience in the breaking of them in my life that Saturday evening was profound, absolutely chilling at one point and in the next freeing beyond anything I have ever known or felt! And there was a point in that experience where I had to fight from crying that ugly donkey cry in front of 200+ people. You know the one...you don't want to open your mouth for fear that your sobs will sound like a donkey braying. LOL!

My encounter with God that weekend was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Even Emily said when I got home, "Who are you and what have you done with my mom? You're different. Like really different. You're happy. Kind of giddy happy, but happy happy. You're just different." I feel lighter, but heavier at the same time. The heavier is more like a deep profound feeling and weight of increased awareness, but I feel the absence of the weight inside of the very center of my chest, that I didn’t even realize it was there until it was gone, and filled with the most buoyant, light, carefree feeling I’ve ever experienced. My mom said that it was the Holy Spirit truly dwelling in me and being given free reign instead of always fighting with Him and myself with my worldly desires and selfishness of what *I* wanted.

She said that this is the breakthrough that she’s been praying for for me for years and years. There is such a difference in the way that I am processing things, that I am responding and reacting to things and how I am treating others. I SEE them differently. I SEE my responsibilities differently. Was I saved before? Absolutely no doubt that I was...but I never had that OH MY WOW experience that others have talked about having until that weekend.

During that weekend I was told by 3 completely different people, only one of those who even knew me, that they saw me going into ministry of some kind and helping others. My mom has been saying the same thing to me over the past years.

How God works and His timing is incredible to me. Why not before now? I don’t know. I guess it just became where I got to the point that I had to willingly give up my own fight and truly lay myself down on the alter at His feet and just say, “I truly surrender all. I’m done. I don’t want to do this with only part of You. Not my will but Yours...and not just ‘Your will for my life’ but ‘Your will...period. End of sentence.’”. It’s incredible what happens when you stop trying to fit God into the box of your life. Even a couple of months later I still feel like crying over the profoundness of it all...but the good kind of cry. LOL!

Thank God REDEEMED

So, today...2 times each I have heard the following songs: Redeemed by Big Daddy Weave and East To West by Casting Crowns. I mean, really...what are the odds of that happening, 2 separate times I was in the truck between 30 minutes to 1 hour each time other than it’s a God thing? So here’s what I’ve been thinking about as a result, what has been brought to my mind...

Each of these songs reference the gift that was given to us at the Cross through the entirely selfless act of Jesus voluntarily taking on the sins of the entire world... Past, Present, Future – EVERYONE...mine, yours, the bully from 6th grade, the neighbor that purposely antagonizes you, the murder on death row, etc. He didn’t come to die for just specific people, He willingly gave up His life for all of us.

These two songs speak to me so much because I know what I’ve done and who I’ve been in the past. Who I’ve loved, lusted after, stolen from, talked about, hated and on and on. God says in the Bible that if you look at someone with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery with them. If you have hated someone, it is the same as having murdered them. As the man thinketh in his heart, so he is. (Prov 23:7) That is why it is so important to guard your thoughts and your heart and especially your mouth. (separate post coming on that one).

And there are days when I feel like I’m taking 3 steps back and zero steps forward and immediately I regret, I feel bad...I feel guilty. But you know what? Guilt and regret are NOT from God. God in His infinite Mercy and Grace doesn’t just forgive...He forgets. He erases the board. He deletes the file. He destroys the evidence. He doesn’t remember our mistakes. For all the things he does do, this is one thing he refuses to do. He refuses to keep a list of our wrongs. He just plain doesn’t remember.

But we do. You still remember what you did before you changed. Sins you’ve confessed; errors of which you’ve repented; damage you’ve done your best to repair. And though you’re no longer the same person, the ghosts still linger. They get in your face, whisper in your mind and rob you of your joy and remind you of moments when you forgot Whose child you were. They tickle your mind and say things like, “Are you really forgiven? Sure, God forgets most of our mistakes, but do you think He could actually forget the time you... (insert any instance that brings guilt/regret to your mind)” As a result, your spiritual walk has a slight limp. And when you begin to make headway in your spiritual walk, that specter of the past appears and causes you to start doubting yourself.

Be honest now, do you think God is the voice that reminds you of the dirt of your past? Do you think He was joking when He said, “I will remember your sins no more?” Was he exaggerating when He said He would cast our sins as far as the East is from the West? Do you actually believe He would make a statement like “I will not hold their iniquities against them” and then throw them in our faces whenever we ask for help?

Of course not! To love conditionally is against God’s nature. It’s against God’s nature to remember FORGIVEN sins. God is either the God of perfect grace... or he is not God. Grace forgets. He who is perfect love cannot hold grudges. If he does, then he isn’t perfect love. And if he isn’t perfect love, we are chasing rainbows. But I believe in his loving forgetfulness. And I believe he has a graciously terrible memory.

But with that grace, we need to show thankfulness for it. Grace does not mean we have a license to commit the same sin over and over. God has forgiven us. Given us His grace. We need to act like that means something. Because it does. It means that the innocent death of Jesus on the Cross paid the price for our sins.

God has promised us that if we ask forgiveness from our sins with a truly repentant heart He throws them as far as the East is from the West and remembers them no more. Period. End of sentence. Look it up. Psalms 103:12, Isaiah 43:25, Hebrews 8:12. How does He do this without having to have a high priest to intercede on our behalf, as it was in the Old Testament times?

Through the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus who is the ONLY High Priest and intercessor that we require to come to the Throne Room of God.

There is another new song that I heard today that is called “Hello, My Name Is...” by Matthew West and it is what all of us who are in Christ should say when faced with fear, defeat, regret, guilt, etc. over our sins.

“Hello, my name is child of the one true King
I’ve been saved, I’ve been changed, and I have been set free
“Amazing Grace” is the song I sing
Hello, my name is child of the one true King
I am no longer defined
By all the wreckage behind
The One who makes all things new Has proven it’s true”

So coming up on this Easter season, those of us who have found ourselves in Christ, who call Jesus our Savior, we can say “Hello, my name is child of the one true King. I’ve been saved, I’ve been changed, and I have been set free. I am, thank God, REDEEMED by the One who has thrown my sins as far as the East is from the West...through the span of one scarred hand to the other.”