abandoned to Christ.

When my heart breaks, what do I do? To whom or from where do I first run and seek comfort, protection, warmth, love? Today, my darling husband and I received a text with enormously distressing news. A text filled with bitterness, slander, ungodly opinions given as facts—falsehood presented as truth and poison poured into an open and already painful wound. A wound that has never been given a chance to recover before more poison is poured into it and thus overruns it. When a loved one professes Christ, yet considers it a small thing (if he considers it at all) to sin against God; confesses this is wrong, yet remains apathetic, and therefore, continues to sin without cause, what is one to do? All I had the strength to do, was to cry out, “LORD, help me!” And immediately, the Holy Spirit put Psalm 121 in my mind. So immediately, I opened the Word of my Lord, and this is what I received from Him, In my distress I called to the LORD,    and He answered me. Deliver me, O LO...

Part of my reading and study today was 1 Corinthians 11 and Hebrews 6. It still awes me to consider how carefully and lovingly the LORD, my God and Father, supplies all I need ever before I know I need it. And by His loving-kindness and faithfulness, He teaches me more about Him as He exalts (by lifting up to Himself) everyone who humbles themselves to seek His face. For a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart, He will never despise (cf. Ps 51:16-17). As I type this, my heart is broken and deeply grief-stricken for my loved ones who are far from God. Some who know it, and others who are (more than likely), self-deceived in their religiosity rather than truly saved by the cleansing of their conscience with the blood of Christ Jesus. Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1, NASB95) The Apostle Paul repeats this commandment from 1 Corinthians 11:1 elsewhere in Scripture—1 Corinthians 4:16, Philippians 3:17-19. We know this commandment is weighty be...

I’m sitting here thinking, “How may I wisely and prudently share all the good the LORD, my God and Father, my Savior, my Rock and my Redeemer—my greatest and preeminent love and life, has done for me?” It’s not possible to share it all because there’s just not enough time or room in this world to be able to encapsulate the goodness of God in just one little life, for the past 53 years (Ps 40:5). So what shall I share, and how shall I share it? What is most edifying and what is the least useful for you to consume? I want to feed, comfort, and strengthen you with the former rather than starve, discourage, and burden you with the latter. Thanks be to God for His Holy Spirit who always testifies to Christ! “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (Eph 4:29) and, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my...

What a year 2020 had been. A year that seemed to be far worse than any that came before it. And with high hopes built on resolutions we made, we were sure we could command and control the ushering in of a new year full of butterflies and rainbows—founded in self-reliance, ambiguity and redefining of all things by what “feels most right” for each person…at the moment. There is no longer any absolutes of right or wrong, truth or error. We no longer recognize the weaknesses of different races, or celebrate the strengths we each have to offer. We are all Stepford Wives who look the same, have all the same skill sets, and can all do the same things with the same results, as long as we ourselves have decided it to be so. Yes, unfortunately, it seems our yearning for the disaster and heartaches of 2020 to end once 2021 began, have all been doused with new leaders and new laws and a new social norms hurling us further down the miry pit of mass confusion. It’s the futility of man atte...

I know it sounds a bit strange to say that I’m grateful I grieve. But when I add the words, “when God grieves”, then, for any beloved child of God Most High, it doesn’t sound strange at all. Rather, it demonstrates the power of the Holy Spirit in us; that renews our minds and transforms our hearts to think how God thinks, and to feel what He feels, and do what He does; the way He does it—in His steadfast love, righteousness, and justice (Jer 9:23-24). One of the sins that us Christians rarely speak, think, or teach about, is the sin of omission. The sin of knowing the good we ought to do and not doing it (Js 4:17). This passive sin (neglecting to do good) grieves our God and Father just as much as when we actively doing evil. Examples of the sin of omission include: neglecting to daily seek the face and counsel of our God in all our ways (Prov 3:5-8) and neglecting to pray without ceasing for the needs of others as well as ourselves. This particular sin of omission is fr...

No sane person says, “I’m waiting for God to thank me.” But in reality, that’s what the unbelieving world is thinking, and sadly, many professing believers are thinking the same thing. How do we, the chosen and dearly beloved ones of the Most High God, think the same atrocious and presumptuous way as unbelievers? Every time we’re offended by someone, complain, and/or boast about what we have in the past, or are presently suffering, for Christ’s sake, we prove that we’re waiting for God to thank us, that is, give us the good we feel we deserve for what we’ve suffered. Boasting about anything save Christ, is the outward expression of someone who believes they’ve got the corner market on suffering, and therefore feel owed: respect, being well-thought of, friendship, and loyalty from whom they have suffered. And since as Christians, we believe God is sovereign, then when we participate in these arrogant acts of expressing whatever dissatisfaction we have in life, then we are in ...

As I shared in my last post, it’s been a very painful and grievous two years due to a thorn wedged into my flesh by Satan; but only by the good and wise permission of my sovereign God and Father—who is using this to conform me all the more into the image of His Son, Christ Jesus my Lord, my First and Greatest Love. But before you take more pity on, or think more highly of me than you ought, I must confess: I am not entirely an innocent “victim”. I played a prominent role in the degree and depth of this pain. I made many foolish decisions, without prayer, that allowed Satan to twist and turn this thorn, further and further into my flesh—causing as much damage, and destroying as many relationships as possible. For foolishly thinking I could handle this situation on my own (Prov 3:5-8), I repent…with much praise and thanksgiving to my compassionate, gracious, and merciful Father who is slow to anger and abounds in steadfast love. I give thanks for the gift of repentance—the...

The great comfort that comes from Psalm 14:6 (that I never noticed before) reminds my downcast heart of my Savior's great comfort, protection, and spiritual sustenance that I needed to hear today...and I didn't even know it. Truly, my God and Father loves me so perfectly in Christ Jesus my Lord, that He knows what I need, even before I ask. I was greatly comforted by this verse because as Dr. Steve Lawson teaches, the “poor” spoken of in Psalm 14:6 aren’t necessarily those who are poor in the things of this world, but it is speaking of eternal poverty—those who remain dead in their trespasses and therefore, have not the riches of eternal life in Christ our Lord. In the short clip below, Dr. Steve Lawson does well to teach us that  those who hate God's Word; regardless of their profession of loving Him (2 Tim 3:1-8, 12),  torment all who desire to live godly lives. Just as Satan masquerades as an angel of light, so do those who are enslaved to do his will (2 Tim...