abandoned to Christ.

The condensed version of, "I told you this would happen, but you wouldn't listen." is, "I told you so." It's been ingrained in me and I think, most, if not all of you, that saying "I told you so" is wrong. It's considered to be harsh, inconsiderate, unkind, jabbing; and therefore, the most unloving and graceless thing to say to anyone after they've neglected to heed wise counsel, and find themselves in an unsavory and often, painful situation. "Call me crazy, but in the history of conversations, has the phrase 'I told you so' ever really generated a positive response? I'd say no, it has not...'I told you so' is a negative and counterproductive way of saying, 'I’m right and you’re wrong,' that does neither party any good. Even if the person in the wrong has been stubborn and refused constructive advice, that does not give another person the authority to rub their face in it... "If you must sa...

After a short hiatus from writing, I thought I'd kick off this new year by sharing an article from someone else. Before today, I'd never heard of Dr. Everett Piper,  President of  Oklahoma Wesleyan University  and author of  "Why I Am A Liberal and Other Conservative Ideas" . But after hearing Janet Mefferd read Dr. Piper's article about why he will not be sliding down the evangelical slippery slope of Jerry Falwell, Jr., President of Liberty University and Pastor Robert Jeffress, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Dallas (who also endorsed Donald Trump), I was greatly encouraged and am now following him on Twitter. Sometimes reading articles, tweets, and various social media posts about what "Christians" in America are saying and doing these days, often puts me in a somber mood. It seems our world is riddled with  a soft, man-centered, and emasculated false form of Jesus. A false Christ that's all "love", but not righteous, hol...

As Christians, we are, by God's redemptive work of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, supernaturally transferred from the domain of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son of God. Therefore, we are commanded by Christ our Lord, to be the light of the world—to be holy (that is, set apart) from the enslaving, self-indulgent deeds of this world. We have been freed to live holy, upright and self-controlled lives—filled with the Holy Spirit—bearing good fruit in the name of our Lord Jesus (Titus 1:8, Col 1:10-14). "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified." -1 Corinthians 9:25-27, ESV According to our Father God, there ought to be an unmistakable difference between the way holy children of God live their liv...

God's timing is always perfect (cf. Is 30:18, Mt. 6:8). Needing to recover from a recent erruption of verbal friendly-fire (Christians assaulting Christians) , where I was greatly discouraged for sharing the Gospel with anyone the Lord leads me to (family, friends, neighbors, strangers, etc.), the Lord provided me with abundant comfort and strength through His Word, my darling husband, and my oldest son. And as if that weren't enough, my ever gracious Father also provided me more encouragement through soundly biblical and exhorting books*, sermons and articles. One of the articles (below) was shared today, at Ligonier Ministries . During this recent verbal attack, it was intimated that I was an unloving person because I didn't always seek to first "love" people through acts of service before I "earned the right" to share the Gospel with them. In our self-indulgent world, love has been desecrated and redefined to mean all that's warm and fu...

"The purpose of a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?...The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it where he will. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice."  -Proverbs 20:5-6; 21:1-3, ESV Too often when Christians talk about voting, we talk about having to vote for the lesser of two evils. This usually forces us to vote based on our fears (financial security, health, etc.) and affinities (worldly comforts), rather than simply and confidently voting our faith, in accordance with the Word and precepts of God. Throughout biblical history, when God’s people have waned from wholeheartedly following His Word, He lifted up pagan leaders (e.g., Pharaoh of Joseph’s time, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, King ...

Part of my daily Bible Reading today was Proverbs 18. As I read this chapter, I stopped at verse two and began to earnestly pray for the Lord to keep me from being a fool in His sight. Whether I am a fool in the sight of people is of no grave consequence to me. Being a Christian doesn't mean I don't care what people think about me (who doesn't want to be liked?). It means I care more what Christ thinks about me (Gal 1:10). Knowing the days are evil (Eph 5:16), I strive to live every day in view of That Day...when I will see Christ my Savior in His full glory. I long to hear Him say that I have done well in His sight and that my life was a beautiful offering (Mt 25:21, Mk 14:6). I pray this article is well pleasing to my Lord, and that He will use it as an instrument to sow peace and wisdom within the Body of Christ, while proclaiming the undefiled Gospel of Jesus Christ  to the lost. Like many of you, I've seen the video (below) of  Dr. Robert Jeffress , Senio...

Being a mom, and especially a Christian mom, is hard. It's what I call, hard heart-work. God builds a special bond between a mother and each of her children. There's something inexplicably wonderful about the life that proceeds from a mother's womb. Which is why abortion is such a horrible and wicked thing to encourage women to do—to strip herself of the beautiful life God graciously gave her in spite of what sins she may have committed, or what sins may have been committed against her.  Every child is an unmerited gift from God. Therefore, in view of God's mercy, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. This command extends to motherhood also. Which means, rather than mothering our children in order to please and seek love for self, we care for our children in order to please and love God and our children sacrificially, and not just when it's easy, fun and dignified. It means we must love God a...

Personality quizzes like, "What's Your Emotional Type?", "Which Famous Elizabeth Are You?", "What Does Your Eye Color Mean?", "Which State Do You Actually Belong In?" or worse, Christianized versions like, "Which Bible Character Are You?" not only clog many Facebook newsfeeds, but they're also the avenue in which many people subliminally praise themselves and invite others to join in. One of the biggest problems with these online personality quizzes is that there are a limited number of options of what your personality can be like, and they're largely generic so that your results can be somewhat true about everybody. "The quizzes are overwhelmingly upbeat and lighthearted in nature, a calculated decision by the people engineering them. After all, they’re designed to be an affirmation of how you see yourself, not an assessment of who you really are." - New York Post "People love knowing and talking...