Life-Giving Words, Beautiful Gardens

Jesus, John

I have never planted flower bulbs in the fall that push through the ground with budding brilliance in the spring.

But I know the drill. The school kids have come by with their fundraiser sheets to purchase the bulbs and I always kindly reply, “Sorry, I don’t garden.” (I can’t even keep a cactus alive). But to be honest, I don’t have the good patience to spend the money and do the work to have to wait until the spring to see the flowers.

I was reminded of this when I read about the Life-giving power of our God in John 5 today:


“The Father has life in himself, and he has granted that same life-giving power to his Son.” John 5:26

In the amplified bible the phrase “self-existent” is added. How amazing to think about the self-sustaining power of God!
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The Father freely gave that same life-giving power to Jesus, and then he freely gave the same life-giving power to us, who believe in Him.

My question to you today is:

Are you passing on this life giving power to anyone else? 

Are you speaking the life-giving words of truth to the people closest to you? Those in your own home?

Sometimes at home is where speaking kind, loving, life-giving, graceful words is the hardest. These people we love the most can receive the most life-killing words from us if we aren’t careful. Because we are our real selves at home, the daily frustrations can make life-giving words hard to find.

But these are the people who need to hear them from us the most.

The Lord has convicted me lately about the way I correct my kids.  Jesus brought life-giving conviction, pointing them to himself as the way to eternal life.  This is the kind of correction and judgement I want to speak into my kids’ lives.

I want to correct my kids in a way that points them to life-giving repentance and dependence on Life Himself.  I don’t want them to stay siting in a puddle of sin.  I want them to rise up out of the mud and take hold of the Life-giver.

I want to plant life-giving  seeds of truth in their hearts that will create a beautiful garden of eternal worth later.  

“God sees you and loves you right now.”

“I forgive you, let’s try again.” 

“I have to give you a consequence because I love you.”

<<<And we all know what life-giving words can do in our marriages.  They can move you closer together or farther apart from each other.  >>>>>

For your husband:

“Thank you.” (seed planted)

“I’m sorry.”  (seed watered)

“You are right.”  Ouch, that one hurts sometimes, right?! (seed fertilized)

“You are the best husband ever.”  (sunshine on the seed)

All these words add up to a robust, vibrant garden of new life in the spring time.

I explained it to my girls like this when I heard them arguing in  the backseat on the way home today:

“Girls, you are just tearing up each other’s gardens instead of planting beautiful flowers for each other.  Let’s talk nice.”

Let’s ask the Life Giver to gives us the words to build beautiful gardens for each other, one word at a time.  🙂

If you missed the Alive! Book of John Plan, you can find it here:

http://refocusedbiblestudy.com/2016/02/27/alivebook-of-john-journey-for-march/

My Alive Journal Page:

 

Sunday night RESET button

Refocused Study

There’s a place in my house where I stand around, a lot.  If you have kids you can probably guess where that is…yes, the kitchen.  Nobody ever told me how much kids eat.  They didn’t have to because I remember how much I ate too.  And I remember my mom always being in the kitchen.

What I don’t remember, is my mom standing around in the kitchen scrolling through her iPhone.  Oh wait, that’s because they didn’t have those back then!

You see, my guilty pleasure from all this hard, constant work in the kitchen are the few minutes in between tasks that I stand there, at my kitchen counter scrolling though my phone.  It’s mindless scrolling, really.  It isn’t for a purpose, and what I am looking at isn’t harmless, but really?  Standing at my counter, scrolling through a phone is not the life giving kind of thing I want to be spending minutes of my hours on earth doing.

Many moons ago, when I was in college training to be a teacher, I took this behavior management class.  And the thing I remember most about changing a person’s behavior was giving that person a REPLACEMENT behavior.  If you don’t replace the negative behavior (the one you want to get rid of) with a replacement behavior (a more positive behavior to replace the old one) then that person is not very likely to change at all.

So on this very ordinary eve of a new week in the wings, I present to you: My Sunday Night Reset:


I am committing to no more standing around scrolling.  I have this box of lots of index cards with scripture written on them that I have placed on my counter.  This week I am going to be spending time grabbing these cards and reviewing these verses instead of moving my finger along the screen of that phone.

I am just wondering, what is an area in your life you would like to hit the “Reset” button on this week?

Does anyone else find themselves scrolling mindlessly through their phone and want to stop?  What replacement behavior would work for you?

His mercies are new every morning!  But they especially feel new on Mondays 🙂

I am looking forward to jumping into John Chapter 5 tomorrow.  I hope you are too!

Can I Really Change?

John

“Yes!  I do have that many emails.  You read correctly– 6,149.”  My blood starting boiling about the same temperature as the steaming iron I was holding in my hand.

My husband was grinning and picking on me in a light hearted way, but inside I was feeling heavier than light hearted.  I was feeling like a dense, sinking failure. I was thinking, “how can you expect to keep up with anything if you have thousands of emails and a computer that has so many files on it, it could crash at any moment?” I let my mind go places that no one walking in newness of life should be hanging out.  In a place spiritually that felt dark, hopeless for change…stuck.

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I just wanted to say:

I’m never going to change.

I can’t.  This is who I am.

But this is a LIE.  And I just know someone else needs to hear this.  Someone else is believing lies that they can never be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In John 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus in the dark of night, ready to profess that he believed Jesus was the one they had been waiting for.  This is what Jesus said to him:

“I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus was so puzzled.  How can a grown man (or woman 🙂 be born again?  Jesus said,

“The Holy Spirit gives NEW LIFE from heaven.”

How do we walk in dark situations like we can see the light of new life peeking through?  How can I stay the old me and walk forward with Jesus?

The answer is that every moment you are living a surrendered life to Jesus, his Spirit inside of you is transforming you.  From beauty to new beauty.  From old self to new you in Christ. Sometimes it will be awkward or painful, but it should always be

~HOPEFUL.~

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“For I am about to do something NEW. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”  Isaiah 43:19

New. Brand spanking new.  I can just smell a new baby smell.  A new car smell.  A new book smell.

I can see new.  I can see my mailbox with a number like 5.  Maybe 10.:)

Picture where you need to Believe He can make”NEW.”

<<<<<Now, here’s a few steps to get there>>>>>

1.Know he sees you right there, and he loves you perfectly, right there.

2.  Believe he wants to transform you into a new person instead of conforming to the old.

3. Trust only in His power and help to change, not in your own.

4.  Hear hope instead of condemnation.

Last year spring, my daughters and I visited a butterfly farm and marveled at the hundreds of beautifully fluttering wings all around us.  When they showed her the cocoons, my daughter couldn’t believe that something so beautiful came out of something so plain.  She didn’t see any intricate design or bright colors on the outside.  But inside, the creatures were being transformed, into something even more beautiful than what they once were.

It’s the same with what God does in us.  If we allow him to, we can have new life in every bleak and dark situation. Because He is our God. And through his Spirit he makes all things new.

Even an email account gone completely unruly! (If you want to contact me, I will see and respond, no worries, I just have problems with the delete button 😉

<<<SOMETHING FUN!  IF BY ANY CHANCE, YOU HAVE MORE THAN 6, 149 EMAILS, COMMENT BELOW, AND I WILL SEND YOU A COPY OF MY “LOVE LETTERS FROM GOD” STUDY FOR FREE.  🙂 >>>

Walk with Life Himself into new life today!

*This post correlates with Alive! Book of John Study.  See link below for details:

http://refocusedbiblestudy.com/2016/02/27/alivebook-of-john-journey-for-march/

Here’s my Write It Out:

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Here’s my AlIVE Journal page:

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ALIVE! A Bible Study Method

Bible Study, John

Happy first day of March!  Spring is on its way and new LIFE is soon to be seen springing up all around us.  I love how God gives us this reminder every year that he makes all things new.  Things that were dead will be coming back to life, just like Life Himself did!

God’s word gives us the opportunity to experience hope of new life every singe day.  Old, dead or hopeless situations in our lives can blossom when truth is breathed on them.  This is my prayer for everyone taking part in this bible reading and study plan for March!  Today we embark on a life giving journey through the book of John, using a simple pattern to read a chapter a day and write out and apply one verse from that chapter a day using the method in the video below.  If you missed the plan and journal, you can find them here:

http://refocusedbiblestudy.com/2016/02/27/alivebook-of-john-journey-for-march/

The video below walks you through the Alive bible study method:

 

Here is my #Write It Out verse for today:

 

Here is my ALIVE! Journal page for today:

 I pray you stay connected to the Source of Life and Light today as we start this new month and look forward to Easter!

Going to Church DIRTY (Mind ramblings of a mom getting her kids to church)

Motherhood

“Ok it’s 15 minutes later than I planned to leave, but if we back out the driveway in two minutes, we’ll be pulling in the parking lot when the service starts,” I was giving myself this pep talk as I turned the key to lock the door, run down my front porch steps to the minivan.  Then I saw him.

“Oh, crap! What did you do?! Why are you so dirty?!!!”

“Just get in, you’ll have to go dirty.”

Then I looked at his extremely muddy shoes.  And I reminded myself that we are in  America, and I was going to get a lot of looks if I took him like that.  (Plus the very Christian side of me thought about the people who would have to mop the floor after him.) Yeah, that’s what I thought 🙂

I had already started backing out of the driveway when I decided I better get him a different pair of shoes, at least.  So I pulled back in, ran inside to his room, saw them in the clutter on the floor, grabbed them, grabbed a wet sponge and paper towel, locked the door, ran back down the steps, and jumped back in the minivan.”

“Think something positive and smile.  Grace.  Grace. Grace,” I told myself.

I smiled, handed him his shoes, and said, “Here you go buddy.” It’s okay, we just probably shouldn’t play golf in the mud next time before we are about to leave the house.

Did I mention I took a picture so I could share this fun story?


Oh, Jesus, how do military moms do this?  How do single moms do this?  How do moms with unbelieving husbands do this?  My husband travels twenty something long weekends without me a year and I  can hardly do this.

Why do we have to act like we have it together to go to church?

Myself included, I’m not pointing fingers, I’m raising my hand in an amen, sister friend.

God’s spirit reminded me of this verse today in the midst of the muddy shoes and pants.

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

Isaiah 64:6

My son’s clothes were just a reminder of my desire to have our “Sunday best” on as our righteous acts.  But like the verse above says, our desires to look like we have it together on Sunday is just a filthy rag, as dirty as the orange clay on a little boy’s knees.  We all have these desires, that’s why we need Jesus.  That’s why Jesus told us we need church. We need each other.  We need to be honest and say, I didn’t want to come to church today.  I yelled at my kids and I had poor time management and I didn’t eat breakfast (yes that was my stomach growling during the prayer.)   And I did honestly tell some ladies today at church about these struggles. Why do we need to do this?

 

“9Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”

2 Corinthians  12:9

If I just smiled and said getting three kids to church by myself was a piece of cake, no one would know that  the power of the living God inside me was who actually deserved the credit.  Instead, they would think, Amy has it together (filthy rags).  Her husband works in full time ministry, traveling every weekend and she can just do it all (muddy shoes). “Ewe, get those nasty  clothes off me!!!”

How about instead, “Well, Amy has a hard time getting those kids to church on time, bless her heart.  Did you see the dirt on Sam’s pants? She must be struggling because Nick is out of town. I don’t know how she does it.”

But I told them how I do it:

imperfectly,

honestly,

with his grace.

And more grace

{Jesus.}

 On a wing and a prayer.

Just the fact that I was there today should be evidence enough 🙂

So dear mama, reading this, take off the fifty rags of having it all together.

Boast in your weaknesses so that the power of the grace filled God can rest on you.

Put on the beautiful,  clean, robe of grace.

We’ve been walking around with sparkling clothes and dirty hearts long enough.