I choose to feel blessed

 
 
 

You choose to feel blessed.  You choose to look through the trials and the struggles and see the many gifts God has bestowed upon your life.  I see that now.  I am not any less blessed today than I was six or seven years ago when I was in what I felt was the darkest part of my life. I was just as blessed then as I am now.  I choose to focus on the beautiful things, God's "small" courtesies to His greatest gifts.  I choose not to focus on the worries that could easily wrap their tentacles around me and pull me under.  I choose not to get caught up in the annoyances.  Life has plenty of them, plenty of minor and major frustrations. Plenty to fret about, plenty to be angry about, plenty to get trapped under.  I choose not to live that way.  I choose to see the many ways my husband loves me, and in doing so, he loves me more. I choose to see the beauty in the mess, choose to count the interruptions as blessed moments (it has taken me an hour  to write this short bit because Brandon wanted to read me a couple chapters out of the book he is devouring, Evie wanted to sit in my lap and poke my belly button while jabbering at me, and then I snuggled her a bit before laying her down for a nap... and then searching for her pacifier).  I choose to see the little blessings, not to number the dents and scratches in the walls, not to count the messes I have cleaned over and over again, not to growl under my breath about the loads of laundry or how my husband is having to work late again.

Instead, I choose to say thank You.  Thank You to the Maker of heaven and earth who fills my life with beautiful moments and liberally sprinkles blessings upon me.  So many times I have grumbled or ignored these things, and oh how that must have grieved Him just as it grieves me when I give good and wonderful things to my children and am not met with gratefulness or appreciation.  How soon we forget those great gifts or are completely oblivious to them. We shrug them off, move on to our gripes and groans, looking upon His provisions with dissatisfied, demanding, and self-centered hearts.

I choose life, and life is more abundant when lived in thankfulness.

It's no longer I that liveth

I've been awake these last few wee-hours of the morning repeating this line in my head over and over, "It's no longer I that liveth but Christ that liveth in me." I finally, finally get it. I mean, not just head-knowledge-belief it, but heart-soul-spirit-feel it.

As I read through the bible with this frame of mind, it all makes sense. I've been fighting this battle, saved and trying to still work my own good works, trying to figure out how to live in the Holy Spirit.

And now I see, it's not the Holy Spirit that helps me to live, He does it for me.  The bible says that we are God's workmanship- His masterpiece- created in the Messiah for good works which God before ordained for us to walk in.  So often, when I read that verse, my mind would conjure up images of me being transformed so that I could do good works.  It was still about me. The truth is, Christ is in me. He has become me. I have decreased- not in some pious, "oh I'm so holy and such a great servant" way, but truly decreased because He has overcome sin- my very flesh. I no longer have to strive to be holy.  The Spirit of God has the power to live through me if I am willing to be the vessel.  We are not co-captains of this bodily ship. Either I am at the wheel, or He is.  He doesn't want to just help me steer the ship. If we think we are being "assisted", then we have it twisted (because what we are really saying is that we are assisting Christ, right?).  The truth is, He does it all.  It's no longer I- no longer me attempting to control, no longer me moving and working and living, no longer me striving, but Christ. Christ alone working through me.

How can words possibly explain so great a promise and reality?

Making Your Home a Ministry Center

God designed the home to be the heart of ministry. It is to be a place of worship, learning, health, hospitality, and productivity for each member of the family and a base for reaching out to others in the community. When these aspects of the home are cultivated, it becomes a vibrant hub of life and outreach, attracting neighbors and friends who are looking for living demonstrations of successful Christians.

The first responsibilities in the home are to meet the needs of the family members, nurturing a safe environment that is filled with righteousness, peace, and joy. As the family members grow and develop within the home, they are able to reach out in ministry to their friends, church, and community.

One of the most traditionally valued environments is the home. Men go to war to fight for hearth and home, but sadly, many nations perish when the vision of the home is lost. Today, many American homes have become centers for sleeping, entertaining, and snacking because we’ve lost the vision for the power of the home place.

A home becomes a ministry center as parents intentionally seek to recover and rebuild God’s purposes for the home.

- Excerpt from Making Your Home a Ministry Center for Your Family & Others

He is the Gift

He is the Gift that always gives
Bountiful blessings pour from His hand
Everlasting arms open wide
His radical love it draws me in.

He is the Gift that always gives
Bountiful blessings pour from His hand
Everlasting arms open wide
His radical love it draws me in.

I met Him all the cross
Where grace and wrath embrace.
I couldn't help but bend my knees
And fall down on my face.

He washed away the stench of death-
It clings not to my soul.
And all the things I once held dear,
Now I let them go.

He is the Gift that always gives
Bountiful blessings pour from His hand
Everlasting arms open wide
His radical love it draws me in.

He is the Gift that always gives
Bountiful blessings pour from His hand
Everlasting arms open wide
His radical love it draws me in.



Copyright © 2012 MandyMom.com / A Fighting Faith

I Forget....

I wrote this song... have rearranged bits and pieces time and time again, and I believe.. this is the final product.



Sometimes it feels like this is all there is and
This is just the way it's supposed to be.
Is what I see really what I get or is
There really something more than what I see.

'Cause I forget there's a battle raging on
For my soul, there's a war on my mind
And though I know that Your promises are true
I forget they're for me too.

You have said that You're for me,
That You love and adore me,
And though I know each day is made by Your hand
Sometimes it's hard for me to truly comprehend, to comprehend

'Cause I forget there's a battle raging on
For my soul, there's a war on my mind
And though I know that Your promises are true
Lord remind me, they're for me too.
They're for me too.

Copyright © 2012 MandyMom.com / A Fighting Faith

Humanism: The Self-Destructing Religion Infecting Christians

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.  [Colossians 2:8]


I wanted to share a post written by Kelly Crawford of Generation Cedar (Guest blogged at Visionary Womanhood).  Humanism is a subject that has been on my mind quite a bit.  See, I often read and hear things from humanists that sound really good. I hear words like hope, truth, safety, happiness, justice, goodness, and helpfulness, but the truth is, Humanism ultimately believes in relativism. Therefore, what is justice to me may not be justice to you. What is true for me may not be true for you. What is goodness for me may not be goodness for you. Thus, there cannot really be real hope, true truth, actual safety and so on because it all depends on how one feels, interprets, etc those things. Secular humanism is a philosophy of life, a religion itself, which views man as the supreme being in the universe and rejects God and the supernatural. Moral values and truths vary from person to person since it's "all relative".  How can one combine humanism and Christianity?  It cannot be done without sacrificing the very foundation Christ laid.

Humanism: The Self-Destructing Religion Infecting Christians


The most serious enemy facing mankind today is the same one that has always been…the “Tempter’s Creed” known as secular humanism–a.k.a. the worship of MAN. We are now seeing the full-blown fruit of it in America as we bury the last shreds of our founding father’s faith and devotion to God’s laws, replacing it with our devotion to man’s law.

“Humanism is the second oldest religion known to man. It goes back to the Garden of Eden…Its first article of faith is the belief that all things, including every word from God, must be put to the test of man’s reason and experience: ‘Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ “ R.J. Rushdoony

Humanism is the belief that all things exist for man’s good and betterment, and therefore man determines right and wrong; Christianity is the belief that man exists for God, and as such, He knows what is best for us. (The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.)

The two are antagonistic in nature. But there is a MAJOR problem…many Christians have unknowingly begun to follow the doctrine of humanism, wounding the body of Christ, rendering themselves impotent–and even worse–accomplice to man’s destruction.


Read the rest of this post here at Visionary Womanhood.

But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a complete and pure devotion to Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:3

Explaining "Born Again" to children

We're reading in John 3:1-7 this morning.  I feel that many of us, especially children, can relate to Nicodemus' question, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

And Nicodemus still had a difficult time understanding Jesus' answer, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

Can you imagine Nicodemus' confusion?  "How can these things be?" (verse 9).

How can we explain such an important aspect of what is means to become a Christ follower to our children?  Of course, the Holy Spirit is the one who has to do the revealing (really, I did not grasp this teaching until I was captured by the Lord in my early 20's), but I feel it is good to help children begin to understand what it is to be born again.

I like the way the site, Sermons4Kids approaches the subject.

Think about the story of "The Hungry Caterpillar?" When he came out of his cocoon, he wasn't an improved caterpillar, was he? No,he was a totally new creation. A butterfly! That's the way it is when we let invite Jesus into our heart. He doesn't just make us a better person. He makes us a new creation!

I'm not a fan of the whole "invite Jesus into our heart", because that's not really a biblical principle, so I explained that when we confess our sins, repent, and surrender to Christ, the Holy Spirit enters us, and we become a new creation in Christ.  We look the same on the outside, but our hearts and minds are changed. We are no longer the same person!

The children enjoyed illustrating this lesson with a picture of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly!