GUEST POST: Gianna Jensen

This is such a powerful video, I had to share it with all of you. It's not just that Gianna survived being aborted at 7 months, it's her bold declaration of Jesus being the Christ and the way she tells her enemies, "I am God's girl. I refuse to bear the anger and hatred that you hurl at me because Jesus Christ died on the cross to bear it all."

May we all learn to live everyday with Jesus the way Gianna has.

Oh God, grant us the courage to stand strong for what is right and give us a voice to influence our world.

If you had an audience today, my dear reader, what would you tell them?


Until next time,


Debbie

GUEST POST: Nona Freeman

(Good Morning and Happy Friday ! My week has been a little busier than normal and school starts Tuesday so I decided to drop my postings to 3 times a week. Mondays will continue to be about work related issues, Wednesdays about weight loss and self-esteem and Fridays will be anything goes.)

Iwas in a fantastic service last night with Reverend Travis Worthington. He taught that humility and servanthood is what brings the spiritual authority in our lives. For those of you who may not know, God promises He will give us power to tread on scorpions, to stamp out the powers of darkness, to pray for the sick and they will recover. And Reverend Worthington says that we can only access this kind of power when we are humble servants of God with no traces of pride in our hearts.

And Reverend Worthington is right! I have experienced this first hand. When my life is fully surrendered to Christ, I can operate in a dimension of Godly power that blows my mind. But when I am full of self and personal irritations, my ability to speak to the mountains in my life vanish.

Nona Freeman, in her book In The Bag confirms this. She tells of an angelic visitation she had that convinced once and for all the importance of keeping ourselves broken before  God. Here is an excerpt:

I opened my eyes to see a being clothed in exquisite light standing by my bed. I trembled, immobilized by fear. "Do no be afraid," a soft, yet vibrant voice answered, "I am a messenger sent from God to give you the secret to revival.... I am here in response to your outcry for a Pentecostal outpouring..."

[The angel] unrolled a large parchment scroll before me containing the words of Jesus in John 7:38: "He that believeth on me, as the scriptures hat said, out his belly shall flow rivers of living water." ... The angel said, "You preach about drawing water out of the wells of salvation with joy. You know you do not comprehend the limitless scope of the gift of God. Jesus wants to deluge you and the thirsty world with rivers of His Holy Ghost power. The will of God is not mercy drops or showers or even buckets full of blessings. It is torrential rivers of blessings flowing through you." ... [I asked the angel] What prevents the flow of the Spirit in me? The answer came gently. "A guise of spirituality and a mere profession of salvation are empty vanities without the flow of the spirit. I will name in everyday language the most common hindrances for you:

UNBELIEF. DISOBEDIENCE. FEAR. REBELLION. JEALOUSY. BITTERNESS. HATRED. STUBBORNESS. LUST. MALICE. GREED. ANXIETY-WORRY. JUDGING-CRITICISM. GRUMBLING-COMPLAINING. PRIDE-AMBITION. TEMPER. SELFISHNESS-COVETEOUSNESS. IMPATIENCE.

[The angel continued] "These are the evils that block the moving of the Spirit through you. When the flow stops, you usually fall back on your own resources... ask forgiveness often. Only the cleansing blood of Jesus can remove the barriers of your soul.... get the flow, get the flow... get the flow...."

I don't know about you my friend, but as for me, I want the flow of Jesus in my life! Operating in the free flowing power of Christ is a very important part of living every day with Jesus. Won't you pray right now for God to remove the barriers in your own life? It really is the secret to having bubbling over joy. Know I will be praying for you and I hope you'll do the same for me.

What are the obstacles that hinder the flow in you? For me, at least one area is ambition. I am a firstborn and over-achiever by nature. So I'm always wanting to be the best. God has been working on me with this alot lately and so I've been putting alot of energy into helping my peers succeed. This pleases Jesus and it keeps my own self-drive in check.

Let's live today for Jesus... and tomorrow and the next day. And let's share with one another our struggles to get and stay in the flow because bearing one another's burdens is also a part of living every day with Jesus.

GUEST POST: Lysa Terkeurst

(I stumbled across Lisa Terkeurst's BLOG about a month ago, and visit it  periodically. Lisa is the founder of Proverbs 31 Ministries which is an organization dedicated to  helping women become all they can be in Christ Jesus. Their site is user friendly and has alot of resources. It's definately worth checking out!)

Lysa is a prolific and very successful writer, and in a league way beyond where I am right now. I do not know her personally, but I wanted to share one of her recent posts (see below) because I think it will bless you. But also, because rejoicing in another's gifts is an important part of living every day with Jesus. 

Think about that last statement just a minute - rejoicing  in another's gifts.  How comfortable is it for you to that? It's certainly not always been easy for me.  Our human tendancy can be to think about our own gifts, and how we want to be used; be in the limelight; make lots of money, or win hundreds of souls to the kingdom. 

But how often do we help someone else be in the limelight? Especially someone who is operating in the same gift we are? If you are a singer, do you wholeheartedly support the other singers in your church? Or if a teacher; do you enthusiastically applaud another teacher's presentation? It's the same for writers, or any other profession.

Sharing Lysa Terkeurst's post is easy for me. Afterall, she's already famous, and if anything, my posting about her can only help me.

So the real test for me, will be for me to give 'blog space' to another struggling writer just like myself. Someone who is my peer. And help them because  I want to see them shine. Even if it means they will shine more than me. Why?  Because that is what Jesus would do, and that is what he would expect of me.

So I have included the link for Lysa's post from yesterday. May you be blessed and may God continue to anoint all her efforts for His kingdom.

GUEST POST: This Terrible Duty

Sometimes living every day with Jesus means doing the hard things. Christ did them, and He expects us to do them. But He doesn't ask us to do them in our own strength. Instead He empowers us with his Holy Spirit.

One of the things I do to live every day with Jesus is to pray each morning, and read my Bible and a devotional book like Streams in the Desert or A Year With C.S. Lewis. These things edify my spirit and help me to have a more Godly attitude as I interact with others. Without this morning anchoring of my soul to the eternal God, my ability to show kindness and the love of Christ is greatly diminished.

Praying in the spirit with groanings which cannot be uttered, infuses my being with fresh, holy energy. Reading the quick and powerful words of God, lobs off the excess weights of bitterness or agitation that try to choke my psyche. And once my spirit is engergized and free of cloudy, carnal thinking I can drink wise words of wisdom from such spiritual giants as C.S. Lewis.

I wanted to share C.S. Lewis' thoughts on forgiveness with you today because it is an area that I often have to revisit and refocus on. So below is his post humorous post as it were.  I hope you enjoy it, and take something away from it that will help you live everyday with Jesus with joy.

THIS TERRIBLE DUTY by C.S. Lewis
[One of the most unpopular of the Christian virtues] is laid down in the Christian rule, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Because in Christian morals 'thy neighbor' includes 'thy enemy', and so we come up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies.

Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. "That sort of talk makes them sick', they say. And half of you already want to ask me, "I wonder how you'd feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?'

So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my relgion even to save myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do - I can do precious little - I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.' there is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms.

-From Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Rats in the Cellar

C.S. Lewis (one of my all time favorite authors) talks about having rats in the cellar of our inner self. This concept of digging deep into ones heart and mind has been weighing heavily on me lately. Who am I really? What kind of Christian woman would I be if my cognitive skills were diminished and I was no longer able to filter my reactions through common sense and the Holy word?

My impassioned goal is to be so full of Jesus Christ and His holy word that even if I didn't know my own name, I would be a sincere and loving Godly woman. I have dreams of being so saturated with scripture that if you were to just touch me, like one would touch a sponge, all that would come out with be Bible verses. Oh God, make it so in me one day!

Time is running out for me this morning, so I will leave you with this excerpt from C. S. Lewis' book, Mere Christianity:

" We begin to notic, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that I was caught off guard, I had not time to collect myself...
On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. Surely, what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light."

Sound Advice

Sometimes I come across someone else's post or newsletter that so inspires me I want to share it with all of you. Such is the case today.

I met Cec Murphey a few years ago at writer's conference and found him to be a very genuine, kind, humble individual. And since I already liked his writing, I decided to sign up for his email newsletters.

Each month, Cec Murphey's newsletters grace my inbox. And each month, I look forward to reading them because they always resonate with me, and often speak directly to some issue in my own life I'm dealing with.

For example,  I was telling my husband how overloaded I was starting to feel by being the listening ear to so many different friends. It's not that I don't care, I told him, but so often I feel depleted afterwards like there's not another worthy thought in my brain to offer up.

But after I read Cec Murphey's Newsletter today, the answer to my dilema became clear. Cec says:

"My role is not to solve others' problems;my role is to love them while they solve their problems."

That was it! That was the advice I was looking for! Just because I am a leader, a writer, and a speaker does not mean I need to be able to offer detailed solutions to my friend's problems. Instead, my job - my role - as  Cec puts it, is to continually point them back to the One who has all the answers:
 JESUS CHRIST.

The Apostle Paul gave similar advice in James 1: 4-8. He said:

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. "

And so, from now on, when I talk with friends in need, I will offer very little advice. Instead, I will pray with them and keep pointing them back to Jesus Christ, the one who knows all, sees all and understands all - Thanks Cec for reminding me of this important insight!