“Today if you dare, tell me how a worm infested hungry aids child in Africa experiences abundant life.”~priest

Jamie Longoria

ouch Archie!!  You have just inspired my prayers with a new purpose…just a thought, according to your definition of abundance “God’s perfect will and purpose in one’s life” is it possible that their illness and starvation is part of the abundant life..in that it calls the attention, breaks hearts and motivates God’s people into action so that we can be transformed by the impact. In this case, it wouls seem, dispite human logic, that abundant life really has nothing to do with happiness. Still contemplating though..thanks for the food..

I posted this comment to my status in Facebook and in wonderment received these replies.  Click on comments and enjoy the dialog…

Throw Down Bibles and Paul of Tarsus (maybe?)

As an update to my adventure in the Maverick County Jail.   After clicking, the saga begins at the bottom and reads forward as you scroll up.  Confusing?  Sorry. 

I was finally invited by the court to meet the judge.  God provided a lawyer through my “father-in-law” at a public defender price.  The help will cost me a couple hundred dollars instead of thousands.  God is the great provider.  He continues to confirm He has a plan and it is not all about me, although it feels like it.

 

I have shared with my blog friends about my “Throw Down Bibles“.  While waiting for court to start, I met the guy you see in the picture.  He went into court, came back out and sat next to me.  I had a “Throw Down” copy of The Message sitting on top of some documents I needed.  He asked what The Message was? It was funny.  I thought he was talking about my cell phone and a text message. 

 

He pointed to my Bible and I explained it was an easy to read version of the New Testament.  I asked him what he was reading and he pulled a couple of books from beneath his robe.  One was a physics book and another book with spiritual guidance I think.  I’m not sure. 

 

I had to enter the court room at that point, so I gave him my Bible as a gift.  He was surprised and appreciative.  I saw him again as I left the courtroom.  He and I waved.  He had a great smile.  I’m hoping he will accept the FREE Gift found on P.198.  via John 3:16 and possibly he will drop me note on this blog.

 

I know many of my friends were praying about my court appearance.  Thank you!  Continue to keep my family and I in your prayers as this chapter in our life winds down….  It has been quite the adventure, full of God Spots.   It is looking hopeful the case will be dismissed. 

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Pray for my friend now, lest you forget…

I have a friend who is in intensive care at a local hospital.  He might have died today.  God chose otherwise.  This afternoon I visited my friend.  With difficulty communicating, he had but one request.  Pray.  So he, his wife and I prayed.

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He said many times people say they will pray, but never get around to it.  This was one prayer he didn’t want to miss.  What impresses me most about my friend is not that he asked me to pray, but that the request would be the same whether he was in ICU or dropping by for coffee.

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My friend is a believer.  My friend is a believer in God and the reality of prayer.

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I look forward to God continuing to authenticate His presence in my friend’s life and the struggle he finds himself in.  There are blinding God Spots on the horizon.

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Please pray for my friend.  He would ask you do it now, lest you forget.

God bless.

archie

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This may be the most important blog I have ever posted. What will you do with it?

How long does it take to write a blog post? After writing about a thousand. I don’t know. Sometimes the thoughts just kinda ripen with age. Other times they pop out of the microwave. This post is one that has been ripening with age. I’m not even sure what to write….

A few weeks back, a friend named Mike came in my tiny janitor’s office and began sharing about God’s love. It was one of several times our paths have intersected and we have talked about God’s love. I appreciate his passion. It’s not difficult for you that know Mike to figure out who I am talking about, when you put the word Mike and passion together. They fit.

Keep love in the forefront of your mind, but for a minute ask yourself the question: “Why love?” Consider from the beginning of time and before there was mankind. God was God and He likely did a pretty good job of being God. What was He thinking when he created you and me? For what purpose was the idea of mankind birthed?

The answer comes to me in a struggle. I have become aware that I do not know how to adequately express my appreciation for who and what God is. I believe my praise of God is inadequate. I want to tell God thank you for all His creations, but it doesn’t seem like that is enough. My inadequate expression of praise for the creator brought me back to my friends passion for God’s love.

I believe in a very limited way of understanding the makeup of God, that in the beginning of time and before mankind, God must have been bursting at the seams with love. He was like a balloon totally filled with love and stretched to the max. Love was the most important part of who He was. It was the essence of His being. He was bursting with Love and so passionately wanted to share in His experience. Even the rocks would cry out, but that wasn’t enough. It was time to give birth.

It was time for God to create mankind in His image. How else would His creation be able to experience the Love He so desperately wanted to share? Do you get it? God had this incredible thing called Love that He wants you to experience! It likely was the very reason you were created.

There is nothing more important in life than Love! Think on it. Dwell on it. Don’t just flippantly click to the next blog. You for a moment have been brought to a place at the feet of God and have been offered the opportunity to experience God’s greatest gift, Love. What will you do with it?

For me, Love answers a question. I now know the missing component to my praise of the Holy Father. Love.

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AHHH God’s love. A topic that is fresh on my heart.

Guest post by Elisha.

There was this woman in my life that was someone I just couldn’t seem to get away from. She drove me crazy. She was one of those people that when she was around my true colors rose up. Sure on the outside I kept a pretty face, but on the inside I was the biggest hypocrite as I wished with all my might she would just go away. Everytime she was around she would say things to cut me, to make me feel bad, or just to be mean. It was irritating.

All the while I knew all the right answers…I knew I was to forgive her, I knew I was to love her and I knew that there was probably some underlying hurt in her life that caused her to say these things. And as much as I prayed and vowed that I had forgiven her and that I would kill her with kindness, everytime I saw her I still wanted to ring her neck.

One day when the topic of the home group that we hold in my home came up she stated that she was going to start coming. GREAAAAT!! Just what I needed.(Please note the sarcasm). So she had been coming for a few weeks and the ministry always seemed to be directed at her and that drove me more crazy as she would sit there with a blank stare and say she was fine and she was already doing everything she needed to.

The pharisee in me sat there despising her. The unforgiveness and bitterness in my heart was rampant and I knew then that I could not ever love this person. I could pretend and even say all the right things, but in my heart there was no love. So, yesterday came and we decided to meet and get on our faces to seek the Lord. As I lay there on my living room floor I heard the Lord asking why I cared so much what others thought of me when I know the King of Kings. Why I longed for others approval when I was the bride of Christ.

Then He showed me this woman I despise who was next to me at the time and asked if I was willing to love her. I confessed that I couldn’t.  He said to humble myself and consider her better than me. Immediately I knew I had to drop my pride and be obedient. As I submitted to the idea that I was the least and the worst, God cleansed my heart from
the unforgiveness and bitterness. No formula, just a change of heart.

Then, my spiritual authority said out of the blue…”I think we should pray over (Sally).” I knew I could lay my hands on her to pray because of what God had just done in my heart. As we prayed I just asked for Him to show me His love for her. I knew if I could see it, then I would be able to love her.

As she sat there she began weeping and crying out to God for all the times she fealt alone. She said, “For the time I was alone in my closet, for the time they beat me, for the time the called me worthless, and for the time my parents killed themselves.”

Immediately a flood of sorrow rushed through my body. So much I could barely stand it. I kept my hand on her and wept with her. God showed me this was just a taste of the sorrow He fealt through all these things that she went through and that He never left her. We wept and wept and wept.

Then she turned to me and we embraced and on top of all the sorrow a new emotion came…..LOVE. An overwhelming love for her that physically  my body could not contain. I began shaking and could barely speak to tell her how much God loved her. We sat embraced for awhile as this love took over my entire being. Love so great I couldn’t even look her in the eyes becuase it was so overwhelming.

Again, God revealed that this was just a taste of how much He loved her. When the emotion died down enough to be able to come together again as a group there was something new in me. God had given me love for her.

I looked at her with new eyes. She honestly looked different and I swear her voice was different. We were new women. Released from the grasp of the enemy who loves division and strife. I could not love her with any ounce of the religiousity that is in me, but God’s love is more than enough and so much better.

Elisha

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The death of a church and the birth of a vision…

Many are saying God meant the church to be organic. It seems reasonable to me. God breathes life into it. It is birthed. It is fed. It grows. It is healthy if God has His way. But the question comes to mind, can the church die? If so, what might be the quickest way to kill a church?

I am praying that God will breath life into Fresh Connections. At the same time, I am asking God to kill the vision if it is not from Him. I’m trusting He will do one or the other. Am OK if He thinks of a third choice. I just don’t want to waste time doing something that He didn’t plan. Does that make sense?

As you read this and the stats say hundreds of you will, please pray for the birth of Fresh Connections. Pray that God will breath life into the vision. Pray for resources for Fresh Connections. Pray for the people of Fresh Connections. Pray that Fresh Connections will be a faith builder for all. Pray about what part you might play.

Then if God is not in Fresh Connections, pray the vision will die.

From my friend in Sweden: Frid Broden or Peace Brother…
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What does your earnest prayer sound like?

When I slow down and earnestly desire for God to act on my life, my prayer goes something like this…

In the name of Jesus and with the authority of my name having been written in His blood at the base of the cross, by the all encompassing power of the Holy Spirit and totally engulfed by His love, I humbly fall on my face before your throne of grace and ask that you God might (fill in request here).  

I follow up with God, I'm not smart enough to know if this fits within your design for abundance in my life.  If it is all the same to you, I'd really like for you to act on this request.  But if you have something better planned, I'm ok with that.  I anxiously wait to see you work the perfection of your will and purpose in my life.  Thank you, Jesus.

Then I wait with an expectatious spirit…

Paul said it like this: "I have one request, dear friends: Pray for me. Pray strenuously with and for me—to God the Father, through the power of our Master Jesus, through the love of the Spirit—that I will be delivered from the lions' den of unbelievers in Judea. Pray also that my relief offering to the Jerusalem believers will be accepted in the spirit in which it is given. Then, God willing, I'll be on my way to you with a light and eager heart, looking forward to being refreshed by your company. God's peace be with all of you. Oh, yes!"

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For more GodSpots – 37stories Enjoy!

Jesus Freak? Me? Never! Well maybe….

I don’t know what happened to me.  Somehow a couple years ago, I became a Jesus Freak when it is way past being fashionable.  It is not something I asked for.  It just happened.  I have always loved God, but somehow this Jesus Freak thing has taken ownership.

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You say, “What’s the big deal?”  It is a HUGE deal.  Everything about life is shaped differently when the focus is Jesus.  I go to bed at night wondering about what Jesus did for me.  I wake up in the morning, wondering what Jesus will do to me, with me and for me.  I am obsessed with Jesus being active in my life.

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Even as I write this blog, I am considering how did God reveal His presence today?  You know what?  I think Jesus likes it that way.  I think He likes my looking for Him around every corner.  Someday, I hope to get really good at seeing His hand at work.  Some day I hope He will say, “Well done!”

“Jesus rejoiced, exuberant in the Holy Spirit. “I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to these innocent newcomers. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.”

My friend.  A Jesus Freak…. Visit his blog…

I was rejected the other day…

How many times have you heard a Christian brother or sister tell you that when you share your faith with someone and they reject it, they are not rejecting you.  They are rejecting Jesus.  It is reasoned out this way so you don’t feel bad about yourself.  The idea that you are not rejected seems contrary to what is taught by Jesus.  It appears you, Jesus and God are being rejected.

 “The one who listens to you, listens to me. The one who rejects you, rejects me. And rejecting me is the same as rejecting God, who sent me.”~Jesus

 So when you feel the pain of rejection, accept it.  Embrace it.  Know that Jesus and God suffer with you in the pain.  Be encouraged by it.  Know that God is real in your life and you are discovering the pain found in obedience.  God loves you and will meet you in your darkest hours.  For in the darkness, His light illuminates the world through you.

Consider your pain a badge of honor.  Wear it proudly.  God bless and “Go.  Take on the Day!”~Dr.Laura

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I’m thinking about joining a gang!

Seriously now.  I’m thinking about joining a gang.  I understand the gang to be family.  Each member covers each other’s back.  You don’t have to wonder where you stand.  You are family.  You have a problem, you take it to the family. 

 

A cool thing about being a gang member, is you can hang out 24/7.  You don’t have to wait and get together once a week.  You get together all the time.  If you have 6-pack, you share it with the family.  What’s yours is theirs.  You are happy to share.  You just wish you had more to share for the less fortunate. 

 

Gangs even mark their territory.  I will know where it is safe to hang out.  I’ll always have friends to hang with.  A gang could really be a good thing.  A gang has colors so I can spot a family member, even if they are from “out of state”.  I don’t have to wonder if we are friends even though strangers.  We are family.

 

Oddly, this sounds a lot like the early church described in God’s book.  I wonder if a gang will ever evolve into meeting on Sunday and flipping a quarter in the offering plate?

 

Just thinkin…

Actually just kidding.  Just thinkin.. got me into trouble. 

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