A Heart Untroubled

Last week I came across a new song (well new for me).  It's beautiful and has been really speaking to my heart since I heard it. I've included it here, because I just am loving it. The chorus says "All my life you have been faithful.  All my life you have been so, so good.  With every breath that I am able I will sing of the goodness of God." As I sang along, the words filled my heart with gratitude, as I remembered time after time when the Lord has been good to me!  He has been good to me by saving me, filling me with his spirit, leading me, guiding me and most of all by his long-suffering love for me.  He has been good to me in my marriage, in our finances, in providing for us. He has been good to me in healing my body, keeping me safe, and bringing wonderful people into my life. Sometimes we can just narrow our field of vision to much until all we can see is the negative, the worry and the fear.  But when you stop and think over the journey you have made since you

John (my husband) always says that if God was water, how would people know that you had been with Him?  Well, the answer is, you would be wet.  The bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8) so in the same way, if we have been with God, that is the characteristic that should be visible to others.  In Exodus 34, we read that when Moses came down the mountain after meeting with God, his face shone.  There was tangible evidence that he had been with God.  In Acts 4:13  we read that "... And they realized that they had been with Jesus. " There was something about them that showed they had been with Jesus.  That verse mentions directly their boldness, but also one thing that the people marvelled at what that were untrained/uneducated and so I believe their passion and skill in proclaiming the Gospel stood out in the crowd.   The Passion Translations says that verse like this: Then they began to understand the effect Jesus had on them simply by spending time with him. We have th

A few years ago there was a man that attended our church. He couldn't read and he had very limited conversation, but every Sunday when we finished church, as we were packing up ready to go home, his parting shot would always be " Eat your greens! " "What has all this got to do with spiritual encouragement?" I hear you say, well I am glad you asked! Sometimes, we find Christians running around from this conference to that conference looking for that quick caffeine hit of spiritual input.  Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy conferences, but if we live for those moments that have months between them, we're going to struggle. It's like eating. You need to eat your greens! You need to put all the good stuff together with every meal, every day.   We need to put the word into our hearts. There's no short cut.  We need to to eat it up to give us life, strength, wisdom and heath (physical and spiritual).  Just as our bodies need all the good things to be hea

With Remembrance Sunday celebrated this weekend,  I want to talk about freedom. We should not forget that true freedom never comes without cost or sacrifice.  For Christians, we need to remember that we have a freedom that was purchased by Jesus on the cross.   Galatians 5:1 Let me be clear, the Anointed One has set us free—not partially, but completely and wonderfully free! We must always cherish this truth and stubbornly refuse to go back into the bondage of our past. Jesus purchased a freedom for us, that cost him.  We need to be ever in remembrance of this freedom otherwise we run the risk of being brought back into captivity. We have the choice whether we walk in the freedom that is available to us.  Many years ago, after slavery had finally been abolished, some people went into a more remote part of the world and found there were still slaves. They had lived in bondage long after slavery had been abolished because they didn't know they were free. Today many Christians live in