"A DESPERATE CRY FOR US TO HEED" An Intimate Relationship with God is What We Need"

Good Morning to All!

I have been searching my heart for what God wanted me to post for you, in which I read several Devotionals, looked through my Bible and nothing came to me.  Nothing screamed tell them about this!  I decided to get on my computer and look for a specific software, but being the computer illiterate person I am, I have not really figured out how to maneuver around in Windows 8 yet. 

Anyway, I looked in documents and an old item which I had typed long ago screamed at me saying "Here I am!"  People need to see this!"  The time is drawing nigh and they have a need for understanding what I need from them!

 Needless to say, because I prayed before I started searching for my post subject, I want to follow the will of God, so here is the message for today. 
I originally wrote this as an article for Associated Content.com back in 2009, because it weighed heavy on my heart. It is actually the second article of a two article series if you will about Salvation and what God expects from us as His Children. 

" An Intimate Relationship with God"

It is so important for each individual person to have that special, intimate relationship with God for our Salvation.

Not just because it will help us to get through our troubles, depression, or darkest hours, but also being able to feel the joy of knowing that He loves us so much and all He asks in return is that we love Him enough to trust Him and do His will.

Our Salvation should be the "cornerstone" of our being, as it determines where we will spend our lives in eternity.

In my last article, I wrote about what you might call the "prerequisites" of Salvation, although I consider Acts 2:38 to be one of the most important scriptures in the Bible. The reason I say this is because those 3 steps Begin the process of "being saved". From the accomplishment of those steps, it
is a life-time journey and a life full of choices we must make as to whether we are going to live for God or not. These constant choices will determine whether or not we will stay in line with God's will and be saved.

Not only are we to repent, be baptized and receive the Holy Spirit, but we are to live our lives for God. This is where that "special" relationship comes into being. The more we get to know Him, the closer we will feel to Him and the easier it will be to live according to His will. It is not in the
"human nature" to make sacrifices, especially for something or someone we cannot see or feel in a tangible manner. This is the reason to grow into this special relationship with Him.

We are to show people His love through our love and consideration of others. He wants us to be "doers" of His Word and not just "hearers", putting His words into actions. He placed us here to do just that. The Bible says, 1And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'

God wants a two-way relationship with us. He loves us so much that He died for us and all He asks in return is that we love Him also. When you love your spouse you would do anything for them, you talk to them, and you are constantly getting to know them better and better each day. The same applies to God. To love Him, we must get to know Him by reading and studying His Word, as this is where we find His characteristics, His desires, and His expectations for us. To love Him means to pray to Him. He wants us to pray without ceasing. We should continually lift Him up by our Godly actions, speech, and attitudes. Also He wants us to need Him; to ask Him for things. 2And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by
Christ Jesus.

We must show our faith in Him, and things will come to pass for we cannot please God without faith. 3And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

People have said "I don't know how to pray". In God's Word, it states that 4there is a friend (Jesus) who sticks closer than a brother. It calls Him our "friend". Why then do people have trouble "talking" to God? If He is our friend, why can't we speak to Him like one in a regular conversation? It
has been done many a time and gotten results just like when prayers are spoken in the format of "dear Father", or Our Father who art in Heaven. As long as you talk to Him it doesn't matter how you say it.

The song "Unanswered Prayers" comes to mind. There is no such thing. He ALWAYS answers prayers. The trouble with people is if they don't see positive or tangible results, they tend to believe He isn't answering. He is. It might just be No, or Wait, it's not time yet. We have to remember, with God, there is no beginning and no end. He sees the past, He is in the present, and He sees the future. He always knows what is best for us because He knows where we came from, where we are and where we're going. Whatever the case, you will get answers whether they are the answers you are expecting or not.


If you think about the content of this article and maybe even implement some of what has been brought to light within the last article and this one, you will have a richer walk with God and if you don't have any kind of relationship with Him at all and start praying and reading, you will notice a
BIG difference within your spirit. Take "baby steps". Even God says babies have to drink milk before they can eat meat. You have to start out small and work your way up. Our God is so vast that a person could study their whole life and still not know everything about God. It is not meant for us to know everything. 

References: The New King James Version Holy Bible
1Matthew 25:40
2Philippians 4:19
3Hebrews 11:6
4Proverbs 18:24

This last picture I couldn't get passed. In having an intimate relationship with God depends entirely how much faith you have in Him.  He tells us in His Word that we must come to Him as little children.  Little children look at their parents for guidance.  They depend on their parents to make everything all right and make everything better.  To guide them through the rough times of their young lives.  We should give God the same.  He knows what is best for us because He created us.  In these last days, we must realize that we cannot serve two masters.  We either turn to God, and allow Him to take the reins of our lives, or we conform to the world's standards and immorality and be lost.  There is no middle ground.  I can't help but feel if God were standing here right now, He would say this common phrase:  "you're either with Me or you are against Me.  You can't be both.

It is hoped that you have been given some "food for thought", and that you enjoyed the meal. Receive many blessings from this article and God Bless You
ALL.


Have a Wonderful Day and May God Bless!

DON'T FORGET GOD

Good Evening to All!

For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns--broken cisterns that can hold no water.
(Jeremiah 2:13)

The above verse talks about How God's people had forsaken Him and served worthless deities. God, the fountain of living waters, offered a limitless supply of fresh, life-giving sustenance. Instead, the people chose broken cisterns, which were useless for storing water and useless for sustaining life.

Unfortunately, history repeats itself over and over again. We have not learned from our mistakes.

In terms of "today's gods" or things we place above the importance of serving and loving God are such things as money, entertainment, houses or cars. Yes, these are things that we need, but we as humans always try to live beyond our means. we are never satisfied. If God provides us with a modest house, then we always are wanting to "trade up" to a bigger or fancier one. The same goes for cars or all types of electronics. We all want the newest and best around. God provides us with what we need, but we seem to think we have to help Him to provide nicer, more expensive things by working longer hours or on Sundays when we should be setting that day aside to worship and thank our Creator and Provider.

Another "god" is entertainment as I mentioned. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with TV's, music, video games or any other type of entertainment depending on what it is you watch or play. As the old saying goes "garbage in", "garbage out". If you watch violence then you will press that into your or your children's minds. If you watch immoral things, the same principles apply. Not only that, these past--times are addicting and at some time or another it will get to the point where they will take up much more time than you ever anticipated. Time which should be spent reading God's Word, or praying, or even just talking to God. Spending some "alone time" with God will always put things into perspective if you will ask Him for His advice and input.

I have had quite a few people tell me that they are Christian, and when we start talking about the "relationship" with Christ. Their explanation is, "I believe He is my Savior", and I go to church. Well, I tell them, that's a start. The non-chalant manner in which they say it sounds like I believe He's out there somewhere, and I remember Him on Sundays and sometimes Wednesdays. Kind of like a child who knows he has a dad out there somewhere because he was born, but has never had any contact or knows nothing about him, let alone a relationship with him, until he needs something from him.

I guess this could kind of fall in line with what my Thanksgiving post was about. Being thankful for what we've got , but not being thankful for the Creator who gave them to us. I read several different "thankful lists", and the majority never mentioned " I'm thankful for God". It was, I'm thankful for friends, family, the ability to love God, and so on, but never just being thankful for God. For WHO HE IS.

We are so busy with our lives and thinking about our "needs", we don't think about God just wanting to be a friend to us. In the beginning, He walked in the "cool of the day" with Adam. He still wants to do that with us. It may be in a different way, because He talks to our spirit, but we can still have that special intimate relationship with Him.

That verse Luke 13:27 which says (paraphrasing) that people will call out Lord! Lord! and He will say depart from me ye workers of inequity, I knew you not. Keeps coming to mind. While we may not think we are doing anything horribly wrong, we are not abiding by God's Word, because it tells us to live for Him, follow His commandments, study His Word and hide it in our hearts, and many other things. When we do not do these things, we are in essence disobeying God, which is a sin.

The more we "ignore God" the further away from Him we become, and eventually we won't be able to hear His still, small voice, guiding us, and we will have forgotten Him because we will turn to relying on ourselves and our own understanding which is exactly what God tells us NOT TO DO. This in turn opens our thoughts up to all kinds of thoughts and ideas which are not from God. In the end, there are only two ways to go and we should all strive for the way leading up toward God and away from our own thoughts or those of the "god of this world". We must remember anything God tells us to do is for the good of our souls and of course the "god of this world" has his own agenda which is not good. Therefore we must keep the eyes of our hearts on the things of God and look toward the "prize" which is an eternal home with Him.

We must maintain constant contact with Him just like we do our family and friends if we want to keep our relationship with God going. We must show and tell Him how much we appreciate Him and all that He does for us. Even when we don't feel like it. Even if we pray for something and His answer is "no". We must appreciate that answer, because He knows us better than we know ourselves, and what we want at the time may not be good for us down the road.

God cares about everything that concerns us. We can feel free to talk to Him about Anything and He will give great advice, if our hearts are opened enough to receive it.

Good Night to All and May God Bless!

Roll Them Over

Good Afternoon to All!

Sorry for not showing a post last night. I did post, but I guess I had been on the Internet too long and it started acting up. It wouldn't let me save my post. I typed it the first time, and ended up losing it because my computer froze up, and even though it said it was "saving", when I closed it and re-loaded it, I had lost it. I retyped it and it did the same thing, so I gave up. That is why I am starting early today. Maybe, just maybe I will get to post.

***************************************************
Roll your works upon the Lord (commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. (Proverbs 16:3 AMP.) I had never heard it put this way, or remember reading it in this manner, so I looked it up in my KJV, and it is stated this way: Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. (Proverbs 16:3 KJV) Now that one I remembered. It is so strange that the same verse can sound so different in different versions.

If I had read my New King James Version (my reference) first, I would have understood better. It says that : The verb commit ...to is from a word meaning "to roll" . The idea is to "roll your cares onto the Lord." Trusting the Lord with our decisions frees us from preoccupation with our problems. Proverbs 3:5-6 lets us know to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. The words "trust in the Lord echo the command of Deut. 6:5 to love God with all our being. The verb trust is complemented by the word "lean". Trusting in God is a conscious dependence on God, much like leaning on a tree for support. The idea is reinforced here by the command to acknowledge Him, which means to observe Him and get to know Him in the process of living in doing so , a person finds time and time again that God smoothes out paths.

God wants us to be in an intimate relationship with Him. He wants us to love and trust in Him like no other.

Just think about it. You cannot have a loving relationship without trust. God wants us to "cast all our cares upon Him so that we will be free from worry to seek Him, worship Him and love Him without "things" or problems getting in our way, which would cause us to lose our focus on God. My life is so much better since I "let go and let God"! Now when I have a problem, I go to God and just talk to Him like I would a friend or confidant and say ok God, you say to cast our cares upon you, so here you go! It's all yours! You can handle it better than I can anyway.

If we want to be in an intimate relationship with God and live lives that are truly committed to Him, we have to take everything about ourselves and give it to Him. Not just parts of us but ALL of us! We have to give him our problems, our situations, even our relationships with others. I have found the more "I" try to fix things the worse they become. If I give it to God, then everything works out because God knows me better than I know myself. He knows my strengths and weaknesses. He knows how badly I want to change certain things about myself or my life, but I can't change myself. He has to do it. He has to change me. It takes a while, but when the "light comes on and we realize that it's God's job to change us, and our job just to believe He can and will do it, everything looks so much brighter and better.

Psalm 37:5 says, "Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass" (NKJV). what does it mean to commit our ways to God? It means to "roll" them off of ourselves onto Him. When we roll our problems and human reasoning onto God, which means to trust them completely to Him, then He He changes our thoughts and makes them agree with His will. In other words, His thoughts become our thoughts so that we want what He wants. When that happens, our plans will succeed because they are in complete agreement with God's plans. Release yourself and all your cares today and relax so you can hear God speak to you.

It seems as though the more we call on God for help and depend on Him the better He likes it. Just like our earthly fathers (excluding exceptions) are there for us and like being called on for help, to feel needed, so does God. He is all powerful, all knowing and all seeing, so He knows what is ahead of us when we ask for certain things therefore He is able to give us what is best for us.

As for developing an intimate relationship with Him, casting our cares upon Him, calling upon Him for help and trusting Him are biggies, although they are NOT all that an intimate relationship requires.

More requirements for developing this relationship is reading His Word so that we will know what He expects from us, and how to go about it. Praying and talking to Him are some other ways. Prayers work wonders. Yet I have heard so many people say "I don't know how to pray." There is no set pattern for prayer. Now Jesus did quote the Lord's Prayer as a "template" if you will for praying. This is not to say to pray the Lord's Prayer in place of your own. It is a guide. If you aren't sure how to pray, just talk to Him. A lot of times, I will just start talking to Him like I would a friend. After all, as I said in a previous post, Jesus said He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. With this in mind, just start up a conversation with Him telling Him what you think of Him, and what you need. Always remember to thank Him though because according to His word, anything you ask in His Name (end your prayer with "in Jesus' Name") He will do it. God does not lie, so it will be done.

The more you pray and talk to Him, the more you Read His Word, the closer you will become to Him.

For more insight on an intimate relationship with God, check out my post titled "An Intimate Relationship with God". If you want some insight about Salvation, check out "Salvation or Misconceptions" . You can get to them either by these links or by clicking on the Inspirational Tab on top of my blog. Let me know what you think.

Good night to all and May God Bless!




Title and Amplified Verses were taken from Joyce Meyer's "Hearing GOD Each Morning"
New King James Version Holy Bible
KJV Holy Bible

My Favorite Post - From My Heart to Yours

Image by ashley.adcox via Flickr

Good Evening to All!

I was just thinking about one of my favorite posts and my mind went back to my article that I wrote for Associated Content called "An Intimate Relationship with God. Actually, the two spiritual articles which I wrote for AC spurred my interest in blogging. A good friend had a hand in it also, but ultimately, it was when I decided that I could use blogging to further my "calling" which is to get God's Word out.

I hope you enjoy the following article. OK, I was just thinking, I have brought it to you before because I even remember the picture I used with it. I hope you don't mind, but as I truly feel strongly about this article, I feel that it is a favorite of mine. I just can't remember what I titled it, and the keywords are not specific, so I would like to bring it before you again. Thank you.

An Intimate Relationship with God
"Food for Thought"

It is so important for each individual person to have that special, intimate relationship with God for our Salvation. Not just because it will help us to get through our troubles, depression, or darkest hours, but also being able to feel the joy of knowing that He loves us so much and
all He asks in return is that we love Him enough to trust Him and do His will. Our Salvation should be the "cornerstone" of our being, as it determines where we will spend our lives in eternity.

In my last article, I wrote about what you might call the "pre-requisites" of Salvation, although I consider Acts 2:38 to be one of the most important scriptures in the Bible. The reason I say this is because those 3 steps Begin the process of "being saved". From the accomplishment of those steps, it is a life-time journey and a life full of choices we must make as to whether we are going to live for God or not. These constant choices will determine whether or not we will stay in line with God's will and be saved.

Not only are we to repent, be baptized and receive the Holy Spirit, but we are to live our lives for God. This is where that "special" relationship comes into being. The more we get to know Him, the closer we will feel to Him and the easier it will be to live according to His will. It is not in the "human nature" to make sacrifices, especially for something or someone we cannot see or feel in a tangible manner. This is the reason to grow into this special relationship with Him.

We are to show people His love through our love and consideration of others. He wants us to be "doers" of His Word and not just "hearers", putting His words into actions. He placed us here to do just that. The Bible says, 1And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me

God wants a two-way relationship with us. He loves us so much that He died for us and all He asks in return is that we love Him also. When you love your spouse you would do anything for them, you talk to them, and you are constantly getting to know them better and better each day.

The same applies to God. To love Him, we must get to know Him by reading and studying His Word, as this is where we find His characteristics, His desires, and His expectations for us. To love Him means to pray to Him. He wants us to pray without ceasing. We should continually lift Him up by our Godly actions, speech, and attitudes. Also He wants us to need Him; to ask Him for things. 2And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

We must show our faith in Him, and things will come to pass for we cannot please God without faith. 3And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

People have said "I don't know how to pray". In God's Word, it states that 4there is a friend (Jesus) who sticks closer than a brother. It calls Him our "friend". Why then do people have trouble "talking" to God? If He is our friend, why can't we speak to Him like one in a regular conversation? It has been done many a time and gotten results just like when prayers are spoken in the format of "dear Father", or Our Father who art in Heaven. As long as you talk to Him it doesn't matter how you say it.

The song "Unanswered Prayers" comes to mind. There is no such thing. He ALWAYS answers prayers. The trouble with people is if they don't see positive or tangible results, they tend to believe He isn't answering. He is. It might just be No, or Wait, it's not time yet. We have to remember, with God, there is no beginning and no end. He sees the past, He is in the present, and He sees the future. He always knows what is best for us because He knows where we came from, where we are and where we're going. Whatever the case, you will get answers whether they are the answers you are expecting or not.

If you think about the content of this article and maybe even implement some of what has been brought to light within the last article and this one, you will have a richer walk with God and if you don't have any kind of relationship with Him at all and start praying and reading, you will notice a BIG difference within your spirit. Take "baby steps". Even God says babies have to drink milk before they can eat meat. You have to start out small and work your way up. Our God is so vast that a person could study their whole life and still not know everything about God. It is not meant for us to know everything.

It is hoped that you have been given some "food for thought", and that you enjoyed the meal. Receive many blessings from this article and God Bless You ALL.

I guess this is my favorite post, because this completely comes from the heart. It's different from the Bible Seed Devotionals, and the Inspirational stories, or the travel posts. This is from my heart to yours.

Good night to All and May God Bless!

PJ

Putting Things into Perspective

Image by Anita363 via Flickr

* Before I get started, please take note: If anyone knows anything about the progress on people on my prayerline, please let me know so I can do a praise report, and if they are healed so I can take them off when God has answered our prayers. I know there is bound to be some good things happening. My prayer line is really getting long, and I hate to have to limit it to just names and a couple of words. They deserve more and so does God. He deserves all the credit.

* Also, to Yaya, and Free Spirit Haven, I am going to talk to Lynette and Nessa when I see them and see if we can revamp my blog template to accomodate large or wide buttons on the side bar. Yaya, I'm sorry you barely showed up in the button. I hope to get that remedied soon. I don't know how we'll be able to do it and have my prayer line also, but hopefully I'll be able to .

Good Morning Everyone!

This makes two morning posts in a row. Let's hope I can keep this going. I'm not a person who can get up at the "crack of dawn" and start typing like some of my blogger friends, (hi Lynette and and hi Yaya!)LOL! I'm sure there are others. I quit being a morning person when I had to quit my regular jobs ( 9-5 and 6-2). I really do need to get in the habit of posting in the daytime though because I have another very important project I really need to get back to at night which I h ave been horribly neglecting and my spirit is really speaking to me about it. I'll just have to be more careful about what I'm doing until I fully wake up in the morning. This is why I get so frustrated. I am trying to "wrap my text around my pictures and no matter what I try it doesn't work. It just lowers the pictures, or deletes them. Any suggestions are welcomed. I would like to make my blog look as nice and professional as the others I've seen.

Well, this is one reason I do my posts at night. I had a good size post written and stopped to add a picture, put it in the wrong place, tried to correct it by going the edit screen and deleted my post as well as the picture. Not one of my better days of posting. Anyway, here we go again.

I was talking about how wonderful it is the way God works. I wrote a post the other night about the worlds little gods, (money, computers, tv) anything that keeps people too busy to allow God into their schedules. That was several days ago that I planted that seed. Then as it would have it, God comes along and brings up this scripture today, after readers have had time to hopefully soak and retain some of what I wrote in that post and just reiterate what I spoke on. He is so great! I'm not saying that we have to quit doing any of these things just make sure we add God into the mixture. Besides, anytime we include God everything turns out better than we expect. Today's world seems to put too many things above our relationship with our Creator. We tend to put Him on the "back burner" for Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. I 've always heard "Seven days without God makes one Weak". I've found so does five. That is one reason I never doubt about writing about God, because He can turn what my little brain and fingers write into something memorable to others.

I'm guilty of putting things above Him at times also. I usually have my Bible read almost all the way through by now, but not this year. I'm gonna have to get busy if I planned to have it done this year. It's hard for me to read the regular Bible, so I read and listen to it on line. It helps me to retain it better if I hear it read as well as reading it myself. Anyway, I'm gonna have to get "crackin'" if I plan to get it done. This year at least the last 3 to 4 months, I've been concentrating on writing articles for AC and my blog. Associated Content hasn't panned out because I lost my passion for it after writing 3 articles. The first 2 were "Spiritual" and I felt really good about them, and the last one was about my Tennessee vacation, which I thought was very informative. Anyway, I just didn't do what I expected. I guess I expected too much. I only got a couple hundred page views and $1.50 for performance. I know I shouldn't have expected much in the way of money, but it was really a let down. I did however make a few new friends and fans. They were great at building up my confidence and self-esteem. I may try again after our Branson trip. The thing with AC is the articles are supposed to be informative and not personal. Everything I write is personal because it comes from my heart, and I don't know any other way. Before I started blogging, and I had just written my first article for AC, I turned it in for critique to the forum and I had a "contributor" tell me that it sounded like something I should blog about instead of putting it in as an AC article. At the time, I wasn't sure if she meant that as a "dig" or because it sounded personal. Anyway, I changed it up, and made it less personal and turned it in as a "display only" which meant they would print it no matter what it sounded like. I got the story out there, that is what mattered. That story was "Salvation or Misconceptions". Of course it was placed in the Spiritual and Religion section, so unless people were specifically looking for that type of article, it didn't get read, except by my "captive audience" readers who I hand-picked there e-mail addresses to send it to. I did the second article the same way. It was "An Intimate Relationship with God". It also got put in the same place. Same results. My third went to Travel. I don't know I'm sure I just didn't give it long enough, but patience is not one of my virtues. I'm hoping that my blog will start doing better also and gain some more followers. I just haven't figured out the "niche" yet, but I will. Well, I guess I'd better save this for now and get going. Off to the church to clean. I might add some more later, or just take notes for tomorrows blog. It will probably be an afternoon one or night, as I have a house to clean and this one takes me up into the late afternoon (3ish). I really enjoy doing it though. She is a very good friend and a joy to work for as well. Anyway, my blog will be later tomorrow. I'm not sure which I like doing more night or morning blogs. They both take me about the same amount of time, but at least at night my mind is working full throttle and I don't delete my whole post and have to start over again and another plus, is that y'all always know when it will be changed. With my day posts the time will be varied. I might just stick to the night ones and study my Bible in the afternoon after I get home from cleaning. We'll see how that goes. I'll get back to my normalsy tomorrow.

Have a great Day and May God Bless you and be with you in every thing you do.

PJ