Cast me not away...

Pastor Watts preached an amazing sermon last night and this is just a few notes that I wanted to keep.

I Samuel 30:6 "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him... but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God."

Here David had followed the Lord's will and led the people of Israel into battle, but now all of their women had just been taken captive. This brought fear among the people and they were wanting to kill their leader because of this terrible captivity that had taken place. David has followed God's will and now his life is at stake by those closest to him. What does David do? He encourages himself in the Lord!

Hebrews 10:35-37
"Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will NOT tarry."

We follow God's will and fulfill what He asks of us and then others don't like the results so we question ourselves. And so our thinking goes... Did we do the right thing? Did we really hear from God? Are they right, are we failures? We have failed God because now they are trying to persecute us for it. Failure! FAILURE! FAILURE!!! We keep hearing it over and over the dreadful word... failure.

And there God sits just waiting on us to beckon unto Him.... and He says, "CAST NOT AWAY YOUR CONFIDENCE in ME!" Other peoples opinions of you, the outcome you experienced from following MY will (not yours), the after effect of it all is not what you think it should be... God just asked you to follow His will.

Encourage yourself in God and don't lose your confidence! The God who gave you direction before, who brought you this far, who has never left your side. He is still here, patiently waiting for you to put your trust in Him, not wavering but strong in faith. So now He gives you promises and what happens when they aren't fulfilled on YOUR time frame? You question Him, your faith starts to rock, the foundation of trust is starting to shake... but we can not lose our confidence in Him! "For ye have need of patience, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. He will come and NOT tarry."

When I got back home last night and started reflecting on all of these thoughts from Bro. Watts teaching, the Lord gave me this other scripture, "For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him." Isa. 64:4

And with my head on the pillow last night meditating on all of God's Word, I summed it all up with this thought. Patiently wait on the Lord, time has never changed God's promises!

~From a thankful heart of God's amazing awesomeness

Random Thought...

Lately I have been reading several posts from Christian friends that leadership should always be encouraging and always uplifting, which is true. (I have learned its best to always find a way to say everything in a positive way!) And the theme of the posts or favorite sayings is that there should never be corrective critisim or any type of correction given from leadership. People have been using little antecdotes or "parts"of scripture to back up their viewpoint. And frankly I have liked several of the posts. And yesterday a Dr. Seuss saying caught my attention and I liked it. The second I clicked like, I felt that pin-prick in my heart. "Be who you are and say what you mean because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Dr. Seuss I love reading Dr. Seuss books! But Jesus Christ and our leadership should matter; and I can tell you there have been times I have said or acted in way that God did mind! You see this little saying seems harmless but we carry this over into our relationships with Christ and our leadership if we are not careful. He has given leadership to all of us, to help lead and guide us into all truth, the narrow path that few find.

When people post only the encouraging parts about scripture I wonder if they forgot where Jesus was angry and turned over the tables in the temple because He was upset about what the people he loved were doing. Jesus taught about how He dislikes lust, adultery, divorce, greed, warns of false prophets, and reminds us to be careful what we put our treasures in. He also said, "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and FEW there be that find it." Matthew 7:14 Jesus gives us these warnings Himself; yet we try to stay as far away from the narrow path as possible. We want to make it only about the act of love He displayed on the cross and yes that is an amazing place to start but we as the church have got to allow room for Christ to grow in us. We have got to allow leadership to lead and guide us. Please don't misunderstand, I know we can independently make decisions but we need to make sure we have the COMPLETE mind of Christ and not just parts of His word hiding only what we consider the encouraging and loving parts. It is all there for our good and we would do ourselevs well to acklnowledge His whole truth.

Angel Pricks

Angel Wing Prick: Whenever the Lord needs to deal with me I describe it as such.

This is parts of my rambles... I have been crying to the Lord all week with my own sobbing tale of things that are near/dear to my heart and how I am genuinely nostalgic for those long altar calls of prayer and consecration, being next to someone that doesn't care how much I cry from God's amazing presence because they love it that much too and I guess to a certain extent I've "assumed" that every other Christian in the world feels this same exact way when it comes to serving a wonderful GOD! But much to my dismay this is just not so, and I wonder if a prayer went unanswered or emotional damage was done or life's ups and downs were too much and all of this somehow gets dumped on God like it's His fault.

But in "theory" this should make us run toward Him, not away! Life happens but God doesn't, He has always existed, He is constant, stable, unchanging and waiting. Waiting on us to realize He has already established His ways. I was all in a tizzy about this longing for Him and how this situation and that situation seemed hopeless and I couldn't see Him in ANYTHING else. This scripture "pricked" me, God is speaking through Isaiah and says, "Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have I not told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any."

God doesn't revolve around you or me, He has already established Himself. So whether we choose to respond to Him or ignore, it truly is our choice! It won't change the end result at the back of the book, it has been written for centuries. God will WIN. So my tizzy went fizzy and humbled itself. (lol) This probably is for no other person but me, that is ok, I get it now! God will forever be my God, no matter what anyone does or doesn't do, they can not remove an already established God.

~Ash

Welcome.

Much to some encouragement from friends, I have decided to jump off the ledge and write my thoughts, ideas, inspirations, trials and triumphs.  Hope you enjoy this as much as I will living it! Much love to my friends!

*Personal Disclosure* I will NOT use this blog as a place to express personal vendettas, play telepathic mind games, or to express "personal" remorse or judgement on any individual.  As most of you know, I am a Christian with strong views about God's Word and living a life that is pleasing to Him, not you, if anything I write in my blog comes across as offensive, please don't listen to my ramblings, go to God's Word for yourself and create your own relationship with Him. Please take what I say with a grain of salt and what God says as treasures to your heart! Much love friends!