God is awesome.  Even the "little things" are "miraculous" to me.  Like this morning I was wondering what to eat for breakfast and I kinda had a craving for waffles.  I haven't had them in ages!  I look in the freezer and there happened to be ONE waffle left!!!  I didn't even know it was there!  I heated it up, put some syrup on and guess what that one blueberry waffle filled me up until lunch time!!!  Incredible!!!  I thank You God for these "little things" that just make my day.  Truly this was a butterfly kiss from the Father to His little girl :,) <3

Was reading the Word and I ran into Matthew 27:15-18.  And it hit me: What if Jesus had been released?  What if Pilate had said something differently or stood his ground and overruled the people?  What if he hadn't washed his hands of the Jesus situation?  Then later, Pilate's wife even tried to tell him to not give Jesus over to be crucified.  Again, he wouldn't listen.  Then later, the people were saying 'If you're the Son of God then deliver yourself' and what if He had?!  If HE had delivered Himself, if He had given up, if the Father had taken the cup from Him as requested. If things were different than I would NOT be alive today. I would not have been set free to love God. The veil would not be torn, I would still be behind it. I would be scared to approach God or I wouldn't even know how. Thank You Jesus for Your sacrifice.  Thank You God that You allowed the people to be hardened...Amazing...it confirms what You say in Your Word that You give Egypt for my ransom, Cush and Seba in my stead" (Isaiah 43).  So, you allowed the current people and even your Son to suffer because You loved me and those that were yet to come so much.  And I hesitate to say this because people may think: Well why would God kill people?  Or Why would God harden their hearts? So then they didn't have a choice? But, first of all, they did have a choice and they repeatedly chose to have Jesus crucified. And second of all, God is not us. We are not God. You create the universe, you create heaven and earth and even hell, you create people and cause weather to happen and THEN MAYBE we'll talk about what God should have done...except that you can't do any of that.  So why should you judge God?  Just thank Him for the opportunity because even if you don't believe Him you still have an opportunity to repent and believe.  The bible says in Romans 10: “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,”^d that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”^e 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”^f

14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”^g

Sometimes the only One who can/will make you feel beautiful is the only One that has seen you in your ugliest.  I'm told a lot that I'm beautiful/pretty.  And I am not very self-conscious of late...then they sometimes add about how I'm beautiful on the inside.  And I'm like: UMMM.... I know that I have a good heart and good intentions.  God always reminds me who I am but sometimes I just feel so ugly inside and I'm like: if you would know my thoughts or what's REALLY going on or if you saw those skeletons in the closet you'd be like: EW!  And nobody really sees that part of me so I can see why they call me beautiful but then GOD Himself will speak directly to me and tell me that I'm beautiful and it just blows me away!  Kuz, see, GOD is the ONLY ONE who sees all of that but HE is the ONLY ONE that makes me beautiful - in Him.  Through the Blood of the Lamb.  He doesn't see me in my sin, He sees me how He made me.  I am the work of His hands, His masterpiece...*sigh*.  I'm so undeserving but He's so merciful and I so appreciate that He loves me so much and reminds me who I am.  And I love that He'll even use my mistakes/sins to show me who I am - and not to just pound me over the head and tell me I'm awful.  On the contrary.  He's like: I still love you.  You're gonna get through this.  Your beauty is not based on outward things or even circumstances.  I have made you beautiful.  I make you beautiful.

Why do we think that sin draws us away from God. Well, actually, it can lead us away but let me put it another way. Why do we think that sin causes God to stop loving us? Jesus died for my sins so when I think about my sin I should immediately see the cross and realize how much He loves me.  That's the ONLY reason He would've gone to the cross for me.  Because He loved me.  Kuz I didn't deserve it.  And He didn't deserve to die.  I should've been the one to be crucified and He knew that and He stepped in because He loved me and He took away the dirt and shame and guilt...I just need to really receive that......

<sup>Be encouraged today: "God is love" (1 John 4:8) so therefore, "God is patient. God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He does not dishonor others, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).  No matter what we do, God still loves us.  He is merciful in that He doesn't give us what we deserve.  Jesus took the punishment and the turned back that we deserved.  Because of Him, God will never leave us or forsake us.  Because of Him, God is preparing a place for us to be with Him for all eternity.  Oh if we only believed and understood this, we would think very differently and live very differently.  The things that seem so big to us are sometimes so little in the grand scheme of things.  

We wouldn't have to be so afraid...

though that does not mean that we can just act out all the time because of Grace etc.  I was thinking about this: God but I sin so much. I don't want to sin. If I sin I am not obeying and I still won't make it to heaven...that kinda thinking.  So I went to the Word.  Romans 6 clarified it so well.  I need to embrace it.

I'm just gonna copy the whole thing in fact because all of it, I feel, is relevant and encouraging.</sup>

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,^a that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Slaves to Righteousness

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in^b Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

I was talking to someone a lil while ago and we were discussing fasting and consecration and stuff and it led him to say "like, who are we?" And I started thinking of the scriptures (Psalm 103:14, Psalm 78:38-39, 1 Peter 1:24 / Isaiah 40:6). And I'm like: "yeah Lord we are dust and grass" but I got such a revelation: Grass and dust/dirt, that is where things grow from. So, yes, we are weak and weary, and easily swayed, and our lives are but a vapor, but we serve a purpose.  With a seed and water and the right climate, God can create THROUGH us. So beautiful.

Freedom

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom...."  We are free to heal and free to be real and free to forgive. 

(I guess I'm pretty normal) It is really easy for me to develop a grudge.  And I always thought it was so hard to let go of them.  And I tend to look for justifications.  

But recently I heard a sermon on wrath and the pastor (Pastor Barry) said, "If you really forgave them, why is it so hard for you to speak to them?"  So that night I tested it out.  I talked to someone that I was holding something against and asked for forgiveness.  I had just heard a sermon by Charles Stanley and he and Barry said the same thing about how when you talk to them it shouldn't be about what they did wrong blah blah blah but what your role in it was - holding unforgiveness etc.  

Tonight I spoke to a few more people about things that I was holding back from them.  

Still got a ways to go but I am learning that it is not as hard as I thought it was...the Holy Spirit helps so much too!  And it really feels so much better to let go.  And there have been situations where I say "God I can't go to that person yet kuz im still hurt" but as I opened my mouth to speak that pain just PHEWWW started going away :).

There are still things that I feel like: NEVERRRR! But where it's God's will, God will make a way.  You just have to be obedient...