One Thing Leads to Another-Fundraising-Guatemala

The holidays are approaching quickly which leads to a new year. A new year leads to my thoughts and the reality that we are planning to take a missions trip to Guatemala in 2011. Since we are planning a missions trip~ we are actively and creatively coming up with ways to raise the money it will take to serve in Guatemala.

Here are a few things we have been doing:

• Collecting all of our pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in a container that sits on our kitchen counter. We have a can for dollar bills too.
• Collecting aluminum cans and recycling for .60 cents a pound. This will raise the money for meals most likely. Every little bit helps. You can help with this too!
• Yard Sale- We had a yard sale a few weeks back and will have another one in the Spring.
• Creating bottle cap necklaces that we will be selling for $5.00 each. More info to come.

Other Fundraising plans for 2011:

• Spring Yard Sale~ If you have items you would like to donate let me know.
• Lego Contest and Party for local homeschool kids! We did this a couple of years ago and it was a huge success. All the entry fees received will go towards the missions trip. Dates and details to follow.
• Cupcake class ~ All registration fees will go towards the missions trip.
• T-Shirts~ Awesome t-shirt designs for all ages to benefit the Guatemalan missions trip!

As you can see we are going to busy in the coming year. We are looking forward to how God will work in us as a family through it all! One thing leads to another...God is always working!

Orphan Sunday

Hope is Fading – Orphan Sunday from Allan Rosenow on Vimeo.

What is Orphan Sunday?

On Orphan Sunday, Christians stand for the orphan . We are a people called to defend the fatherless…to care for the child that has no family…to visit orphans in their distress.

From many sources, one voice. Hundreds of events across America and beyond, all sharing a single goal: that God’s great love for the orphan will find echo in our lives as well.

Each as they are led. Sermons and small groups, concerts and prayer gatherings—each rousing believers with God’s call to care for the orphan…and what we can do in response.

Orphan Sunday is your opportunity to rouse church, community and friends to God’s call to care for the orphan. (Taken from My Crazy Adoption)

(Part 2 of First Things First) An Amazing God

God is Holy. God is eternal. God is all-knowing. God is all-powerful. God is fair and just. God is Love.

So, I left off with a question- How Big is Your God? Here are some attributes of God to have a better understanding of the God we serve.

God is Holy~ A lot of people would say whatever you believe about God is fine as long as you are sincere. But that is comparable to describing a friend in one instance as a 6 ft. Japanese Sumo wrestler and in another instance as a 5-ft 2 in. gymnast. No matter how sincere you are in your explanations, both descriptions of your friend can not be true.

We have to have a standard to live by.

To say that God is Holy is to say He is set-apart, distinct from us… His perfect Holiness, assures us that we cannot contain Him.

Isn’t it comforting to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?

Revelation 4:8 “…Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."

God is eternal~ There is no way for us to ever grasp this concept ~Eternal. Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, at times, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something that we are capable of comprehending. He created us. We didn’t create Him.

Psalm 102:12, 27.”But you, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations…But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

God is all-knowing~ Isn’t this an intimidating thought? All-knowing. We forget this when we “hide” our sins from God.

Hebrews 4:13 says~ “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Now, I am one of these people and I hope you are to that I believe what the Bible says for what it says. We can dress up sometimes by calling our manipulation ~ “encouragement” or our gossip “sharing a prayer request”. We have all done it.

All knowing~ This can be a scary knowledge but it also can be comforting. There is not a problem or struggle that He doesn’t know about.

God is all-powerful~ Colossians 1:16 tells us that everything was created for God: “For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him.

Here are some questions I want you to ask yourself:

Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? He is all-powerful

Could it be your pride or arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation?

God is Fair & Just~ God is the only being that is truly good so the standard is up to Him…The creator.

You may not think the standard is very appealing. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. When we disagree with God let’s not assume it’s His reasoning that needs correction. It takes a lot for us to comprehend God’s hatred for sin. For instance let’s take pride. Yeah, we would all agree it is sin but we say…”We all struggle with pride. It’s human nature. It’s just life.”

God’s Word says in Proverbs 8:13, “I hate pride and arrogance.”

God never excuses sin. And He is always consistent with that ethic. There are consequences to it.

God is Love.~ I’ll post about this attribute next time. We could feel defeated if we didn’t have love. He is Love or we would be a hopeless human race.

(Part 1 of First Things First) - An Amazing God

This year I have had the privilege of speaking at two different women’s retreats.
I am not a natural "speaker". Nonetheless, the Holy Spirit has been leading me to share with other women the truths of God’s Word.
I will post over the next few weeks what I have been sharing as a foundation for our walk in Christ. The posts may seem a bit choppy because I am typing them from my notes.

Focal Scripture:
Matt. 6:33- “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Matthew 22:36-38 – “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.”

Watch the video before you read any further…please.

Taken from Crazy Love by Francis Chan

Speechless? Amazed? Humbled?

When I first watched those images I was completely humbled to the point I said to myself …”Who do I think I am?”

It’s wild to think that most of these galaxies have been discovered only in the past few years. They’ve been in the universe for thousands of years without humans even knowing about them. They were not created for us. They were created for God’s glory.

R.C. Sproul writes, “Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.”

Have you ever thought about how diverse and creative God is?

He didn’t have to put 3,000 different species of trees within one square mile in the Amazon jungle, but He did. How about the way plants defy gravity by drawing water upward from the ground into their stems and veins? Did you know that when you get goose bumps, the hair in your follicles is actually helping you stay warmer by trapping body heat? I could go on and on and have a science class but I will stop with those very few examples.

Whatever God’s reason for such diversity, creativity and sophistication in the universe, on earth and in our own bodies, the point of it all is HIS glory not ours. He didn’t even really create it for us. We are privileged enough to be a part of it.

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

² Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

³ There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

⁴ Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,”

No matter how many pictures we see of His glory in the galaxies and His creation... No matter how many sunsets we see... We still forget. How awe struck we should be of the Creator. We are suffering from amnesia: loss of a large block of interrelated memories; complete or partial loss of memory.

I need to let you know of a spiritual amnesia that is going around and none of us are immune to it and it is caused by our own human and sinful nature and the enemy.

Most of us know that we should to love and fear God; that we should read our Bibles and pray so that we can get to know Him better; that we should worship Him with our lives. But actually living it out is challenging. I think the biggest problem is not remembering whose we are.

This is where keeping First Things First comes into play. I am convinced only because it is in God’s Word that if we focus on the First Things in God’s Word will we truly experience all God has for us.

You know what? It is hard to keep that in focus. It confuses us when loving God is hard. Shouldn’t it be easy to love a God so wonderful? When we love God because we feel we should love Him, instead of genuinely loving Him out of our true selves, we have forgotten who God really is. Our amnesia is flaring up again and we need a cure.

We have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him.

We are programmed to focus on what we don’t have, instead of being content with what we do have. We are bombarded multiple times throughout the day with what we need to buy that will make us feel happier or more at peace. This dissatisfaction transfers over to our thinking about God. If we are a follower of Christ and have accepted Him as our Lord and Savior then we already have everything we need in Him. We just forget that.

We absolutely must entertain the magnitude of God’s grandness and greatness on a regularly basis because it will fuel how we act, speak and respond to the ones around us and to Him.

The first question to ask is...How Big is God to me?

Sacred Decorum (Part 2)

In the previous post Leslie Ludy described what I have heard a lot lately. It may have been described under different circumstances but the underlying dilemma was the same.

The reason for our dilemma is, “But we don’t abide with Him moment by moment throughout the day.”

Most of us are familiar with the word “abide” but I thought it was interesting to look at the actual definitions to get a better understanding.

Abide: (1) to wait for (2) to endure without yielding (3) to accept without objection

Wow! To accept without objection.

We must read His Word and do what it says to have the kind of abiding that is defined!

Each of us will have moments or days that we complain about how far away God is but in all truthfulness He is not far from anyone who actually seeks Him.

Acts 17: 24-27 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men,that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

One more excerpt from Set-Apart Femininity~

There is a sacred decorum of set-apart femininity, a pattern for daily living that marks a young woman as a true daughter of the King. When it comes to our clothes, words, actions, thoughts pastimes, and pursuits, we must be, as Amy Carmichael put it, “dead to the world and its applause, to all the customs, fashions and laws of those who hate the humble Cross.” We must be consumed with honoring Christ far above meeting our own selfish desires. Not out of duty, but out of delight. Loving Him with such ardor that we relish the opportunity to lay everything we possess at His feet.