LOVE MAKES A DIFFERENCE

     How many times have you gotten caught in the web of other people's jealousy, belittling, criticism, and small-mindedness?  We are merely human, with emotions of the flesh which cause us to react to these types of people.  For whatever reason they do what they do, we need to stand our ground and remember that they don't control our destiny.  God does.  

    People who don't celebrate you, your successes and achievements, people who will try to make you feel small, people who are jealous of you.  These people are merely distractions in life designed to tempt you into their own shallowness to prevent you from God's best.  Your purpose in life is too important, time too valuable to get caught up in it.

   The ultimate judge in your life is God.  Only God.  God tells you that you are designed in His image, blessed you with his grace and glory, giving you authority over evil and the power to do His work just by using your words and prayers!  So if God says that about you, why listen and give credence to what the jealous, critical and small-minded people say?  Who has more authority in your life?  If you listen to those people instead, that poison will seep inside of you and you will find yourself fighting a battle that you were never supposed to fight to begin with!

     Isaiah 54 says that no weapons formed against me shall ever prosper!  God says that you will see His wonders, meaning; His protection, His vindication and His favor!

    You are not defined by your past, God says you are being prepared for the future.  The future lies within God in His Glory.  We need to shut the world's noise in our heads and start listening to only one God for He is AWESOME!!!!!

Until my next rant.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

SPEAK NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE

 

CHARCOAL AND ACRYLIC

Literally!  The solemn truth is that Jesus is just waiting for us to speak up.  Fact.  God created everything using his WORD.  Fact, in order for our prayers to be answered we have to speak it into fruition.  Yes, we need to pray for God to give us what we need.  However, with prayer, we also have to believe that we already have it.  There is a distinct difference, though.  The difference is that if what we are asking for is in line with God's will, He will definitely answer our prayer.  That is what we are called to do.  We are called to distinguish the difference between selfish prayers and prayers that furthers the kingdom of God.  Of course our flesh wants what it wants.  We are sinners to begin with.  We may want something we see others have.  A house, a car, a happy family, a great career.  We sometimes waste our time trying to take or desire someone else's blessings because we do not want to make the effort to achieve it on our own.

The Bible says it simply, in 2 Corinthians 4:13 says "But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, "I believed in God, so I spoke." The beauty in God's blessings are the words you speak into fruition.  Whether it is healing, hoping or happiness.  

If we don't speak up and ask God what it is we need, we will never ever experience the true love of God (agape love).  Jesus also said, in Matthew 7:7 "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives.  Everyone who seeks, finds.  And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."  If you believe this, ask.  God will answer your prayers and you know what's cool about it?  His timing is PERFECT!  Just as He is!

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

Go Ahead, Get Silly! Be Yourself!

 

Chacoal, Ink and Watercolor on Watercolor Paper

There is a misconstruction out there that Christians are square, boring and straight-laced.  Well, yes, some of them are.  But just because Christians are placed at a higher expectation, it doesn't mean it they cannot experience joyful acts like, being silly, dancing, playing, etc.

Real Christians are joyful.  Joyful in a sense that we are at a level higher than happy.  Why?  Because we are allowed to be so by the Holy Spirit in us.  Ever hear of the phrase, "high on oneself?" 

When the most dominant intention in one's life is LOVE,  joyfulness follows.  The fact that God is in control, in the driver's seat, and the carrier of our burdens, opens us up to a sense of freedom, liberated from everyday nuances and lies the devil throws our way.  Once joyful, true Christians are not ashamed to show their carefree attitudes and would never feel guilty for being joyful.  That's what God wants for us.  When we are walking in His will, all others can take hike.  No criticism is sharp enough to burst our bubbles.  We walk around with huge smiles on our faces, so big that people start to wonder what makes us tick.  To that the answer is simple... walk in the Will of God and God will handle the rest.

You see, giving into the flesh is not worth it.  Fleshly pleasure is temporary.  It is also very deadly, not only physically but spiritually and emotionally.

Case in point.  Premarital sex.  Sure it is exciting to do but ultimately, it is empty and not blessed by God.  When something is not blessed by God, it is bound to collapse and deteriorate because God is not in the middle nor will He EVER be in the middle of premarital sex.  A lot of people struggle with this.  I don't blame them.  There are people who would say, why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?  Or, before I buy the car, I have to test drive it.  Yes, that's funny but according to God Word, sex is meant for marriage because the sexual act unites two people as one.  This is why break-ups are so painful.  It is because for every time you have sex with someone, you become intimately one with him or her.  After a break-up, a piece of you has gone away with that person.

Think twice or thrice or a few thousand times before indulging in acts that sin against God and ask yourself, "Was it worth it?"

When you are deep inside God's love, that is all you need to fulfill your very best joyous self, that you would not seek fulfillment from others for completion.  Really, God is all we need.

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!!

The Contessa - Today's Art

SHARING - "Contessa" Acrylic on paper

ARE YOU ON THE FENCE?

There is a saying most of us like to use when referring to big decisions we’re not so sure of and that is, “I’m on the fence about it.”  Almost persuaded but still thinking about it.  It’s ok if the decisions we are about to make are minuscule and insignificant compared to our eternal future.  I, for one, would not get caught dead (pun intended) without certainty of what my eternal future is.  Accepting Jesus in my life is the biggest decision I have ever made.  It was very easy because I was born and raised believing in God.  It wasn’t until 2001 when I made a decision to give my life to Jesus and be born again.  And it wasn’t until 2013 when I got baptized as a symbolic gesture that I have accepted Christ in my heart and made Him my Lord and Savior that I now stand before anyone on earth unabashedly admitting that I am saved and my eternal destiny has been decided.  It took me all this time to come to such conclusion.  What more those of you out there who are still “On the Fence” about it.  What about those who are not even close to the fence?

All my life I have been on the fence about everything.  I was the type of person who was average in everything I did.  I wanted to stay average so that I would blend in with everyone, not attracting attention on myself by excelling at something, for fear that as a human being, I could never stay excellent.  I also tried my hardest to comply at certain rules and strove to be knowledgeable, even smarter than the average person so that I would not be deemed a loser.  So lukewarm I stayed.  So you have to understand that to a lot of people, especially to unbelievers, promoting God and His Word is really not something I would normally tackle.  Why bring attention on myself?  Why risk the naysayers’ sneers and hurtful remarks?  Why put myself out there to be judged by fellow believers who see things differently than I?

All I can say is because God asked me to do so.  When God asks you to do something, you better do it.  He will purposely put you out there just like he put Jonah in front of the people of Ninevah, just like he put Moses in front of Pharoah, just like Daniel in the lion’s den, should I go on?  Yes, God will put you out there!  God put me out there but He did not throw me to the proverbial wolves and said, sayonara!  No.  When God puts you out there He says, I got your back!  You take a leap of faith for God and He will pour out His blessings on you.  He will let you experience feelings that you have never felt before.  You will be favored, because God doesn’t lie.  He told us in His Word that He will pour out the blessings to those who love Him.  We can’t see God.  All we have is His Word.  The bible will not last this long if what is printed in it isn’t the truth.

So you decide.  Will you stay on the fence or jump over it with a leap of faith? 

Until my next rant…. LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER

   

    Envy is not just a harmless human emotion.  The result of envy in our lives is a big deal.   It is a poison that slowly kills us while the devil takes a bow when it has finally stole, killed and destroyed us, one by one by one.

     It doesn't really matter where you are in life, envy does sneak up on us more often than we think.  When I watch Oprah give away those cars on her show, I often wonder why I couldn't be one of those people?  Or if someone wins the lottery and purchased it from a store that I often shopped at, I think why him or her, why not me?


If you think that you are not envious about someone, then you need to search your soul and you may be surprised at what you find.  It is not something we are conscious about because it happens often.  We feel it creep up on us but we dismiss it because we feel that it is human nature.  Envy doesn’t announce itself and therefore comes unnoticed.

     The most dangerous part of being envious, no matter how much you think it to be minuscule and irrelevant, it does something to your psyche.  As soon as you feel envious, you later become a little irritated or even depressed.  You may even put an undue burden of stress on yourself because the only cure for it is to be in the same position as the person your envy is directed to.  You could be having a good day earlier but now you find you have come undone.  What do you think happened?  Envy crept up on you and poisoned you with a feeling of ill will and discontent because of someone else’s success or favor.  Envy set in.

     The devil tries to pressure you into receiving it as part of your spiritual or even human nature.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  You can divert your thinking, your perception and quickly line it up with what God says you are.  You are favored, you are loved, you are special to Him.  You have to consciously rid of yourself of envy in order for the grace and blessings of God to manifest through you.  Envy chokes the life that God has purposely paved for you to walk through.  Never allow this devil devised scheme to enter your life.  Say it with your words and cast him out of your path, your life, and your future.  

Instead of putting yourself down because you feel you don’t have what the other person does, ask God to bless that person and be happy for them.  Only then will God be honored, and we all know that when you honor God, He honors you.  God may give you more than what your cup can handle and then you will realize that being envious with that person was such a silly thing after all.

Until my next rant… LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

Obedience to God

As a young child we are mostly taught obedience by our parents.  It’s kind of a funny double-edged sword because what we are being taught to obey may not be the best thing for us because the rules are coming from imperfect people like ourselves.  For the most part, parents teach us to obey what they teach to be the right thing to do in different circumstances.  When we become adults however, we sometimes question those rules and determine in our maturity whether to relinquish some of those rules to fit our own agendas.

There is however, one person we absolutely need to obey no matter what, and that is God.  Obedience to someone who is perfect in every way shape and form and always has been a rule maker who will never lead us astray.

God’s guidance requiring our obedience is not a straight line.  When he requires us to obey His direction for us, we learn a good lesson from it which in turn becomes our testimony that others may become inspired to do the same.  Let me give you an example.

I lived in Antioch, CA since 2008 during the housing market crash.  I was able to purchase a 600K house for under 300K.  When I moved into that house, it impressed me as the neighborhood was nice, manicured, clean and pretty.  You would never peg it to be a bad neighborhood.  Six years later, crime rose to a fever pitch wherein random gun violence became a regular occurrence around our neighborhood.

My husband was originally from Napa.  This area is upscale although there are parts that are medium to low income but never as bad as what can be found in Antioch.

We decided to start looking for another house, perhaps two towns over from Antioch since Scott’s job was local.  We then found a house in Oakley we both liked.  We started working on the purchase in February.  Three times there was something that deterred the purchase from going through.  Every single time I knew it was God’s intervention that for some reason we could not get this house to close.

God impressed it in my heard (I call it speaking to me) that we had to move into Scott’s house in Napa and forget about the house in Oakley.  It didn’t really make sense to me because my flesh-mind told me that it only makes sense to stay local for Scott’s job and I got a job in Walnut Creek as well.  My commute would have been a half an hour.  From Napa, it will be an hour each way.  I fought it out with God but eventually He won, He always does.  I figured I should be obedient.

Our plan went like this.  One, give Scott’s tenants notice to vacate the property within 60 days, roughly by June 12th, then prepare the house to sell.  Two, we move into the Oakley house at projected closing date of May 30th.  Third, sell the Napa house and the Antioch house and the proceed goes into the Oakley house. Well, we can plan all we want but ultimately, God’s plan prevails.  


So this is how it actually went.  The Antioch house sold first.  Then the renters moved out and we tried to get the house prepared to sell.  BIG HUGE ROADBLOCK.  But at the time we were fixing the house, God told me we need to move into it.  WHAT???? Oh Boy!  I dismissed it in my mind, maybe it was satan telling me this, lol!  Then the problems arose from the Oakley house.  We couldn’t close because the original owner made a handshake deal with someone else and died before the title could clear that the other guy was paid in full for something that occurred in the 70s.

This was the final nail on the coffin.  I could not possibly delve into something that could potentially cause us a big headache later on when we decide to sell the house.  It took a lot of convincing for Scott to agree to let the Oakley house go and move into the Napa house.  It was the best decision yet.  Why?

First, what was owed on the house ate up the equity for what it was worth in the area meaning we would not get as much as we think we would had we sold it because the value around the area is still catching up to the rise in housing.  Remember, houses in Napa are much higher in value than anywhere else which means it would be a much higher investment for a buyer.  Second, the house is an older house and needed major work and major upgrade.  It did not have air conditioning and the furnace is 40 years old.  We didn’t know this until we moved in.  Our electrical utilities alone would have been $400/month because the furnace is not energy efficient.  That was a major expense.  The pool needs major work because of the age, there are pipes under the concrete that needed to be replaced from a leak.  I could go on and on but there are things we haven’t even discovered yet.

This is what obedience is.  God deterred us from moving into Oakley because it will only take a matter of time before the high crime will slowly creep into that area.  Even though our house in Napa is currently a money pit, the area is safe and we now plan to stay here until God takes us home.

My bones are super tired from fixing up the house.  Our savings is slowly being depleted.  It is a weekend project for us every weekend since we moved in but eventually the price of obedience will pay off for us.  I thank God everyday for His motivation and guidance.


How have things turned out for you when you resist God in the past?  Have you seen your circumstances change for the better and find yourself saying “that was a blessing in disguise?”  If the answer is YES then you have been obedient to God and He will always save us from ourselves.

I use every circumstance to share with all of you so stay tuned to see the progress of the house upgrades with the new/old house.  I am blogging about it.   Be patient as I sometimes am too tired to do updates.  

Until my next rant.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!