We went to my sister-in-law's wedding this weekend. It was wonderful! I am so very very happy for her! We got to visit with some relatives that we haven't seen in a million years, too. It was great!

Before we left for the weekend, I had prayed that I only speak words that God wanted me to speak. I knew that we would be around a lot of people. I knew that a lot of those people didn't know the Lord. So, I prayed that God speak through me.

If I examine all the conversations I had over the weekend I probably would not classify them as "spiritual." However, since I gave God my mouth before we went, I know that I know that I know He caused me to say some things that planted seeds. Now, it is His job to see that those seeds get watered.

God doesn't necessarily want you to lead every unsaved person you meet to the Lord. He wants you to be a willing and useable vessel. He knows what each person needs better than you do. He knows what word or combination of words will touch someone's heart.

We have to be ready all the time. In order to be ready we need to be filled with the Word. When we are asked questions about God, Jesus, the Bible, or other spiritual things we have to have answers. When we have read the Word over and over the answers are within us. The Word is within us. The Word is life and is alive within us. We will be able to answer questions that we didn't know we were able to answer if we have the Word solidly within us.

Also, to be ready we need to have a personal relationship with the Lord. We have to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. If we only speak the things we have been taught to speak then there is a possibility we might push a person farther away from the Lord rather than bring them closer!

You see, not all people need the exact same thing. God knows what they need. You need to have developed a relationship with the Lord so that you are able to feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit. God knows whether a person is saved or not. God knows whether that person needs to hear the entire story of salvation or if they only need a tiny reminder or a small nudge. It might only be your portion to plant a small seed. Then another person, later on, might be prompted to say something that will water that seed. It might take fourteen different people to bring that person to the point of salvation. We don't know. God does.

If someone told us they were saved then, in the flesh, we might accept it as truth and never speak another word of salvation to that person. Some people are not saved and only think they are. Some people don't know the real Jesus, but we wouldn't know that if we weren't sensitive to the Holy Spirit. In the flesh, we might accept their salvation as a done deal, but if we were walking in the Spirit we could be prompted to share a few words (or more than a few words) that would reveal the truth to that person and allow them to REALLY become saved!

If you are filled with the Word and are sensitive to the Holy Spirit then your actions, as well as your words, will draw people to the Lord. I do not have the gift of evangelizing, yet I am able to be used to draw people to Jesus. God will use each of us to draw people closer to Him, but if we step out in the flesh we may not hear the words, "Well done good and faithful servant!" but, "Why wouldn't you listen to Me? Look what destruction you caused with your "good intentions!"

God has given us jobs to do and He has given us the tools we need to do those jobs. However, if you do not pick up the hammer, can you pound in a nail?

Do you know a lot about God? Have you read your Bible all the way through? Do you have an idea of what God will and won't do? Have you experienced most or all of what God is going to do in your life? If you answered yes to all these questions then I would like to offer you the suggestion that YOU HAVE ONLY SCRATCHED THE SURFACE!!!

No matter how close you think you are to knowing all about God, you are like a person looking at an ice cube thinking you are seeing an iceberg! Try something. Start telling God you want Him to teach you. Keep telling Him you want to know more and more. Ask Him to show you the things in your life that are hindering your learning more about Him. Then, most importantly, be open to what He wants to do. You can't predict the things God will do. You HAVE to keep an open mind. Most people miss the things God is doing because they are looking through worldly eyes at spiritual things. It can't be done.

Never never never get comfortable in your relationship with God! Always be asking for more! Always be asking Him questions. Always be expecting more! Keep asking, "Is that all there is?" The answer, if you will hear it, is ALWAYS, "No, that is not all there is!"

Lots of people come here, read this, and go away without sharing what God is doing in their lives. No fair. I'm being robbed of blessings! Someone call the blessings police! I want to report a crime!!

Link to the 5/7/01 Bible study.

Oh oh oh oh oh! After tomorrow I will only have two more weeks left of administrating the band fund raiser!!! I am SO looking forward to getting my life back! These past two years have been way too long! It has been a major commitment on my part and now that the end is in sight, I am rejoicing in a big way!!!

All the spring rain we had this year has done wonders for the weed population around here. My allergies are worse than they have ever been. Hang on a second... there, that's better. My eyes were itching so I took them out and scratched them all over. Just kidding!

The worst part is that I am very tired every day. My body is waging war against the pollen in the air and it is wearing me down. There are lots of things that have not been getting done around here because I just haven't had the energy. That then causes me to feel guilty because my family has to dig through the clean sock basket because I have had to prioritize things and matching socks and put them away was not high on the list. There are other things that have been put on hold. The worst part is that they are all sitting there waiting for me to feel better.

Believe it or not, there is a good side to this. I have spent a lot more time in the Word and in prayer lately. God has had to put up with my coughing, sneezing, sniffling, and nose blowing, however. Thank God for thick and soft tissues!

Questions, questions, questions... I have so many questions for God! I want to know more more more about Him and about His kingdom! I am not just asking, seeking, and knocking any more. I am asking, seeking, knocking, kicking, and scratching!

I have been asking God to tear away the things in me that hinder my walk with Him. I've been asking Him to take away all my opinions and replace them with His.

For a very long time I was guilty of promoting my own opinions as fact. I would take things I had been taught, or conclusions I had drawn, and state them as fact. In a lot of cases I was probably right on the mark as far as being factual, but my methods were ALL WRONG! I had stopped searching for the truth about a matter as soon as the information I had collected sounded good to me and made sense to me. The thing I neglected to do was to find out what God's opinion was. He is the only one who knows the absolute truth about anything!

It is easy to take information, compare it to what we already know or have experienced, and come to a conclusion about its validity. That is why there are so many Christian denominations! God intended for us all to be one body, the Body of Christ. As it is now, we are divided up into different denominations and groups based on our interpretations of what God meant by gaining salvation, losing salvation, baptism, gifts, versions of the Bible, and other traditions and doctrines. Why don't we all find out what are God's opinions on those matters?

Unfortunately, we are too easily falling into the "figure it out for yourself" mentality. It is how the scientists discover things, the scientific process. You make a hypothesis, a guess, based on a brief examination of what you know already. Then you begin researching the problem.

Much research is only gathering the opinions of other people. You may be able to run an experiment or two which may or may not provide you with perfect results. The last step is drawing a conclusion based on everything you examined, which usually imbeds itself into your brain as being fact.

Then, from that point on, you may promote your conclusion as factual to anyone who is interested. Then, other people may begin spreading the same conclusion as factual because they respect your opinion. How many times is God left out of the process? From the number of conflicting "facts" floating around, I would say most of the time!

Let's look at some examples using only scripture. If you wanted to collect scripture references to support a theory of "once saved always saved" you could. On the other hand, you could also collect scripture references to support a theory of losing salvation. You could collect scriptures on both sides of many opposing viewpoints. Some people do just that. Sometimes the scriptures are taken out of context, but many times they are presented after some deep and thorough Bible research.

What is needful is that we examine EVERY SINGLE THING that we believe in the light of, "What does God think about it?" Ask Him. Don't allow yourself to have opinions about something until He shows you His. It isn't needful for you to take a stand until you know how God stands on that issue.

I would like to point out again that lots of people come here, read this, and go away without sharing what God is doing in their lives. No fair!!! Someone call the blessings police! I want to report a crime!! I'm being robbed!!

Link to the 5/14/01 Bible study.

It's almost over!! After tomorrow I will only have one more week left of administrating the band fund raiser!!! You can't tell I'm excited, can you? Last week I was putting together a "how-to" manual. I even put pictures in it. It is important to me that the fund raiser continue since it brings in over $10,000 a year to the band, so I don't want anyone to quit administrating it because they are confused about how to run it or how to work the program. One more week... one more week... one more week...

Ow ow ow ow ow! I pulled some weeds in my back yard and one must have been something along the lines of a stinging nettle. It didn't look prickly, but it immediately hurt like a bunch of needles stuck into my hand. The stinging feeling is gradually getting better. I thought stinging nettle (Tee hee, when I typed it the first time it came out stinking nettle. I should have left it that way!) grew in damp or cool areas. We live in a desert-like climate and this particular plant was growing where it gets nothing more than rain water.

Here I go, I'm getting a picture of how stinging nettle relates to my life! There have been quite a few times when something that looked innocent and felt innocent turned out to be a very bad thing.

Satan can disguise things to look good. He's a master of disguise, you know. 2Corinthians 11:14-15 tells us, "And no marvel; for satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works." If we are not careful we can be easily fooled.

I can think of a lot of examples of how satan is fooling people. Look at how many different denominations of churches there are. Each one has scripture or other "proof" of why their denomination is the "correct" one. Satan has blinded them to the fact that there is only one Body of Christ. We are all brothers and sisters and we follow only one thing... Jesus.

There are a lot of people that are on a mission against something that they have decided is important. Have you ever had someone get angry while arguing about something that was not an important issue? I had a man sign one of my guestbooks once (I had seen where he had been going around signing other guestbooks as well) and he was on a "the King James Version of the Bible is blasphemous" campaign. He was spending a lot of time doing what He felt was right. Satan convinces people that they have a job to do and it takes their minds off of seeking what their actual job in the Body of Christ might be.

There are people who say they are too busy to spend time reading their Bibles. Yet, if you question them, you will find areas where they spend time doing something else such as reading the newspaper, watching TV, or other things instead of reading their Bibles. Yet, they honestly feel they are busy taking care of their families and making money and don't have time to get into the Word. Satan has them convinced that they are doing the best they can.

So, what is the solution? How do we know what is a trick? If we do not seek a close relationship with God then we will be hindered in our spiritual sensitivity. We won't be able to feel how the Holy Spirit feels about something. It is important to keep seeking a closer relationship with the Lord. He knows the truth and He knows what we should be doing and will share that information with us. He doesn't want to keep that sort of thing a secret!

Philippians 4:8 gives us some guidelines, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." If we do that we will be less likely to be drawn into something that isn't of God.

The stinging nettle looks like an innocent weed, no different from the other weeds in my yard. However, due to my lack of knowledge about weeds I ended up doing something I now regret. I can easily be drawn into something that looks like something God wants, but find myself regretting it later. I need to examine everything I encounter against what I have read in the Bible. I also need to ask God's opinion before I jump into anything. God has an opinion about everything. I better find out what it is or I might end up getting stung!

It's funny. I don't know if it is the gift of teaching or the gift of prophecy or both, but I often see lessons in everyday things. It came in handy at the church I used to attend. We did a children's sermon every week and sometimes nobody was prepared to do one. With about five minutes notice, I could find something using any item that was lying around.

God gives everyone some ability that is useful in the Body of Christ. What is yours? Have you thought about it? What comes easily to you? What can you do that other people can't? Perhaps those are the things you are to be using to edify the rest of the members of the Body!

I'm glad you came to visit me. It's kind of a funny thing. Lots of people come visit me and they don't know me and I don't know them. Isn't the Internet an amazing thing?

Link to the 5/22/01 Bible study.

I've been kind of busy lately. My mom had hip replacement surgery three weeks ago and I've been trying to go to her house and help her in any way I can. I've been doing a little running back and forth (OK OK, I didn't run . . . I drove my truck!) and am getting behind on a few things.

My mom is doing really well! Every day she is doing more and more and gaining strength! Hallelujah!

Before my mom had her surgery I had a vision of God holding a new hip in His hands. It looked like it was made of bone. At the time I thought that He was going to heal my mom and give her a new hip so she wouldn't have to go through the surgery. I was a bit confused when it didn't happen.

Maybe He was letting me know that the surgery would go well and the $10,000 titanium hip (can you believe the cost? That's just for the hip, not the rest of the hospital bills!) would be like a new hip. That, and a lot of other things, I don't understand. At least I know that I am not meant to understand everything about God. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD." Isaiah 55:8

This is going to be a short introduction this week. I have to go grocery shopping so my family has some food while I am back at my mom's tomorrow and Thursday. I also have to finish up the band fund raiser. Tonight is my last night of doing it. After making the bank deposit tomorrow morning I will pass the whole thing on to my successor!

I also have to do some laundry and clean house. My in-laws are coming Friday to spend the night. Plus, some of the rose bushes are hanging over the grass and my husband can't mow in that area. Well, as you can see, I better finish up the Bible study and get busy!

See you next week?

Link to the 5/29/01 Bible study.