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Praise

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Jesus Did Mine ... Who Did Yours?

On Guard Duty

Out of Your Heart

Proverbs 4:23  KJV 
"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life".

Proverbs 4:23 says to guard your heart "for it determines the course of your life" (NLT). Think about that. Whatever's in your heart is eventually going to show up in your everyday life. Whatever's inside will eventually find its way out, where anyone and everyone can see it.

That alone makes it extremely important to monitor the things we allow to shape our hearts. I don't want something nasty, sinful, and selfish finding its way out and damaging my relationships with God and with those around me, and I doubt you do either.

A large part of guarding your heart means learning how to control your thoughts, your words, your disposition and your general outlook. What you think usually comes out in what you say. What you say affects how you feel, and that shows up in your overall attitude.

In the course of everyday life, this is what determines how you handle your circumstances, whether you'll have peace or fall apart in a stressful situation. It governs how you respond to others, either with compassion and understanding or with judgment and arrogance, especially when you disagree with them!

You can try and keep your inner thoughts from altering your words and attitudes, but I find it's much easier to have godly thoughts to begin with. Spend time in God's presence, and let the Holy Spirit fill your heart with His goodness.

I only want my heart to be filled with thoughts and desires that are from the Lord Jesus. As I spend more time in His presence and focus solely on Him, I know that my heart will change for the better, affecting the rest of my life in godly ways.  Won't you join me today in changing your heart for the better?

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Right Spirit

Fresh and Clean


“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”  Psalm 51:10


This is THE “Upright Heart” cry; a prayer I have learned that I must pray each and every single day if I am to enjoy peace, joy and all manner of blessings within and without.

Each day of our life we collect clutter in our hearts. The clutter that comes from the cares of the world, and emotions we feel when people hurt or disappointment us and when things don't turn out exactly the way we planned. Harsh thoughts and bad feelings can pile up like a mountain in just one day if we let them.  You must release them, you must let them go, and you must take every thought captive - each and every day. 

The Lord is waiting for you to whisper the “Upright Spirit, Clean Heart” cry of prayer right now.  And He promises  "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26)

We can lift our heart to the Lord every night, and within a few moments, we can release the burdens and disappointments of an entire day.  When we release all the disappointments of yesterday, we clean out the closet, making ready for the blessings of the new day.  God is a loving Father, and He always has blessings in store for those who are ready to receive them. 

If you are a parent think how it would feel, if you told your children to clean out their closet, and make room for all brand new gifts and yet they choose to hang on to what they have - in spite of the majority of it being  junk. Packing the junk down tighter in the closet so that they may continue to add even more junk to it. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense; does it? Children know that is far better to have new gifts than old junk but adults ... not so much.

Why would anyone choose to keep old junk instead of receiving new gifts? The short answer is fear.

“Fear” will stop you from cleaning your closet. The spirit of fear is in charge of all the junk.  Fear created it and doesn’t want anyone to mess with it! You won’t get rid of junk until you kick fear out the door and tell him to go. Until you release the power of Jesus over the fear in your life then you are going to stay trapped in a closet of junk. 


A fresh, clean closet makes room for a whole lot of new gifts. Let's start cleaning today! Amen?!

When we unpack our closet of junk and release our burdens to the Lord, it prepares our heart to receive His daily blessings; a fresh Word, a divine opportunity, or who knows what? I mean; really! Our Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10) so it is nothing for Him to rain down all kinds of blessings on your head- but only if you have the room to receive them.  How much room do you have in your heart for God's blessings? 

John the Baptist cried out; “Prepare ye the way for the Lord.” (Mark 1:3, Luke 3:4, John 1:23, Matthew 3:3, Isaiah 40:3) and his voice resounded mightily through a thousand deserts and valleys. We prepare the way for the Lord when we first prepare our hearts to receive what God has for us.

Open your heart; release all the junk in it and make way for the Lord!

Love Beyond the Chocolates

Love Beyond the Chocolates

If you want to capture someone's heart for a lifetime, it takes more than a box of chocolates. They need the kind of love that ignites the fire and keeps it burning throughout the years.

In the reading of Titus 2:3-5 in which it says, "Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

You see that little spot there where it says, "to love their husbands?" The Greek word for "love" there is "philos" meaning to be friends or to be friendly to someone.

The English language is complicated. We only have one word for love. I can "love" my husband, and I can also "love" those divine red shoes I spotted at the market the other day- the ones that sported a hefty price tag. Obviously the "love" of my husband is so much more important to my being than the "love" of a pair of red shoes. That's confusing for anyone. Don't you think?

The Greeks; on the other hand, have more clarity in their language. When they're talking about love, they spell it out clearly using one of several different words.

Here are a four of them:

Agape - This is a sacrificial love, like the one we read about in 1 Corinthians 13

Eros - This is passionate love. The kind that makes your heart race.

Philia - Friendship or showing affection

Storge - Affection usually within family relationships


While a strong marriage should have all of these characteristics of love working together I want to focus in on the one from Titus 2: Philia.

When God created man he noticed something about him, and that was the fact that Adam was alone and being alone was not a good thing for him. He needed someone to spend time with, someone he could confide in, someone he could laugh with, someone who was loyal, someone who would value him, and someone who would show him affection. God saw that He needed a companion and friend.

"And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." Genesis 2:18

God's gift to man in the Garden that day reminds me that I'm not just someone that my husband fell in love with. I was put on this earth with the purpose of being his helper, his companion and his friend -someone he can laugh with, someone he can confide in, and someone who values the man that he is. My husband is so much more than a yearly heart shaped box of chocolates. He is a priceless gift- my personal gift from God. Made just for me and me for him.

That's agape love. Beautiful; isn't it?