Attitude~Joy Restored

This is a personal experience I am sharing of How the Lord is working in my life,
it may just be for me but, possibly you are going through the same thing and the verses God gave me will help you too! We do not have to stay in a miserable state because of our circumstances!! We need not blame others for our unhappiness either!


1 Tim 6:6
But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Proverbs 17:22
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:
but a broken spirit drieth up the bones.

Being content takes God's work in your heart! Our flesh is so weak that way. It would always ceased to amaze me how some children of God were so full of JOY? I know sad that it amazed me, but It has been a very long while since I have had the true joy of Christ in my heart!

As I lie in bed last night and pondered how the Lord is working in my heart, tears of repentance rolled down my cheeks. I have been miserable for the past few years in my Christian walk. I sometimes wondered........why, why, can't I get out of this funk? I would look at my situation and say well my life is just not what I wanted it to me...ie...my children, my marriage, my health? Complain and murmur is what I would do....... some of you know you kindly listened to it.......ugh sorry this is part of the healing for me of repentance, it is a sin. We are to be thankful in EVERYTHING. Lord help me in this area where I am terribly weak!

God had prepared several key messages for me to hear that started this turning point. We are such a pitiful people who want our own way and seek it in the wrong way? Well maybe you think your not? I tell you speaking from experience...Pride can be a HUGE stumbling block, don't fool yourself as I did!
The Lord tells us in his Word, Our ways are NOT his ways (Isa 55:8.).........so why are we not dying to self daily? We struggle because we don't ask God to help? It saddens me that I have wasted so much time idle!! Oh friend I missed out on so many blessings!

Oh Lord let me not wonder from thy path! For your will is the perfect place to be.

A long while ago when my husband and I did some marriage counseling my Pastor gave a
verse to us that, I really didn't grasp until now. Yes, I knew what it meant but I really didn't apply it in my life!

Ponder thy path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Prov 4:26
*that word Ponder here mean to 'make way, make level, even'

Prov 4:18
But the path of the just is a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
God says here that the path of a true Christian shineth MORE and MORE until we get called home.

Are we molding to Christ character or are we going our own way? Are we becoming more godly or more worldly? Do we know God's precepts but do not apply them? DO WE HAVE an attitude of gratitude? I sure have not, but Lord help me to change my wicked ways!

Oh boy, growing pains are hard but man they are so worth it! Remember he is the Potter, we are the clay.

I want to be a light for Christ in my life, I want my children to see that MY ONLY HOPE IS IN CHRIST ALONE! Oh to many times I have herd my children act the same way I do!! OUCH!

Lord,
I thank you for this devotion that you have laid on my heart to share, this is a very personal lesson I needed......sometimes the path of life is so difficult and we want to know why? This is where we lose the JOY, You have given us many examples in your Word one that comes to my mind is where Paul writes 'For I have learned for whatsoever state I am in therwith to be content' Lord we KNOW it is possible. I pray that you would continue to help me purge that ugly sin in my life called ungratefulness!! Restore my joy so I can be a testimony.
Help me to see the blessings and not look upon my circumstances. I can not see 'why' but I can trust you that you are preparing your perfect will in my life as long as I submit to you.
In Jesus Precious Name,
Amen

Confessions Of A_____________.

confessions of a __________.

Ha.... you, guess what that missing word is when I am finished with the blog post. And please due forgive me for typos because folks I left my brain at the supermarket! Ya, Umm... the day started off well, but all was lost at the grocery store. I know that those of you who know me are snickering right now! Why is it I always forget to bring my list of things I need?

I am slowly....I mean slowly walking down the first isle in the store, thinking Ok Brandie,you didn't bring your list, you did not eat before you came and, you have not had Doritos in a WEEK!!!! BAD COMBINATION!!

I tried ever, ever so hard to stop myself, I even prayed, Dear Lord you KNOW me, I am weak, I am craving Doritos and those chocolate donuts would go so good with that chocolate milk I just through in the cart! So I ran from the isle like 60 (hey you would have thought I was a professional runner). I said .............GET THEE behind me Satan!! I can not have the JUNK!
Well who do you think won that battle?? I am sitting here at my computer eating a nutritious banana...OOOPS TyPo I mean chocolate donut, trying to muster up the energy to shut off my alarm that is telling me to get off the computer. Now you know I confessed!!! So much for those hard earned, sacrificing 9 lbs that I lost!!! Sheeesh! Oh and the computer thing if you are wondering (I put a timer on so I can be reminded that umm sitting is not getting your housework done!) Ya call me childish, but it works for me.

All RIGHT, I will not tell anymore of my secrets because you may be judging me at this very moment...Ya you are, either you are thinking man she blew it, or your thinking........Brandie has done lost her mind!! LOL.naaa hope you had a laugh today ::::grins:::::

On a serious note. The Lord has been so good to me lately and is giving me peace about the fibro. I ask God daily to restore my peace, it can be difficult when your in pain. But the Lord is answering my prayers and I have a joy I didn't have before this all. Ya, I do feel misunderstood alot but I know my Lord knows just where I am, and He will give me the mercy and grace to get through it! I am learning to have some humor with this all. I am learning to live in the simple things, not to be so uptight about life. Praise God...man I was uptight !!!Well, the Lord is not finished with me there, I got a long ways to go!!!

Can you guess what that missing word was in the title LOL

Hugs, Have a blessed Day!!

Brandie

Attitudes

What is your attitude today towards your trials?

Do you see opportunities in difficulties or difficulties in opportunities?
Do you know every trial we have there is a choice, an opportunity?
We need to ask ourselves, how can I honor and glorify God through this?

Who is watching dear friend? Is it your children, is it your family?
Do they see a difference in you? As I sit here and type my husbands family
is dealing with a whole lot of finacial stress. How will I react when they come to me with
these burdens? They are not saved, and this stress, is really bringing them down. But there should be a difference in the Christian that has hope, shouldn't there be?
I don't have time to type out all these and for some reason I am not able to copy and paste these but if you are stsruggling in this area these are great verses to remind us!

Psalm 31:24
Psalm 33:18
Psalm 78:7
Psalm 146:5

Proverbs 10:48

Train Them Up.........

The Home A Place of Rejoicing, Fellowship, and Forgiveness

Home ought to be a place where love is recieved and given, a place for caring and developing sensetivity to others and learning to forgive and be forgiven. (Luke 17:3)

There is a huge difference between a relaxing, stimulating atmosphere and a place of tension and disorder. We need to teach the wisdom which comes from God (James 3:13-18)

More Next Time :)

Hello

You Are In My Prayers Friend www.gracefromhim4.blogspot.com  Your Sister In Christ, Brandie

Home Is A.......

This is an introduction to the series we will be doing.

The Home is a place to teach and saturate with Biblical principles.

1) That they understand the Doctrines. (Isaiah 28:9-10)

2) That we might secure the future.(Deut 4:9-11, 4:40; 5:28-29; 31:12-13, Psalms 78:5-8)

The Home is a place of refuge and protection:

We must build a' hedge of protection ' for our families sake. This means sacrificing to have them in a Christian school or homeschool (if God Leads), seeing that the TV and the music in the home are fully and totally controlled, and seeing that our children have the right kind of friend.

The Home should be the place we establish a heritage:

Children are an "heritage from the Lord" (Psalm 127:4)

The Home is a place to teach the fear of the Lord:

Psalms 34:9,11 Proverbs 2: 1-11

We will go over more tomorrow :)

Basic Character Traits~Children

For the next 6 weeks or so I want to do a series on Training Children.....the Character Traits that are vital in their Christian upbringing.

Character development must become a most important, and prominent goal in our homes if we are to mold our children for the Lord. You will be able to impliment these traits in your childs life through daily devotions and memorizing scripture with them. We will pick a verse a day to memorize and the we will review at the end of the week we can share our progress.

Please join me in this journey, if you can take a button and place it on your blog I would really appreciate it, as we are in this journey together.

Some Traits We Will Go Over From Birth To Age 6

To Be Attentive

To Be Obedient

To Be Content

To Be Neat

To Be Reverent

To Be Forgiving

To Be Grateful

To Have Faith

To Be Truthful

To Have Right Values

To Be Meek

To Be Unselfish

After going over each of these clearly we will move into the youth to teen years.

Looking forward to it :)

Brandie

Train Them Up.........

ATTITUDES.....

OH boy, the Lord has a sense of humor....or does he?

Have you been at the place where you just are tired of going through the same ole trials, and you finally say 'OK LORD.....what is I need to learn to STOP this cycle?
I am so there with my oldest right now. I feel like he just does not get it. Why is it I have to remind him 50 times to take out the trash, do is school work OR quit picking on his brother, or STOP with the attitudes?
Proverbs 29:22
An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.
I found myself today sitting on his bed today trying to get through to him why he seems to always be in trouble? I think for me the biggest issue is respect. I explained again that what is in your heart WILL come out and sometimes it does not even matter if you have spoken, but it can be all over your countenance.

Psalm 10:4
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek [after God]: God [is] not in all his thoughts I explained to him, it was my job as a parent to teach him in the ways of the Lord and it is like unto being under an umbrella...we all have an umbrella of authority in our lives.
Hebrews 13:17
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that [is] unprofitable for you.
1 Peter 5:5
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all [of you] be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

We also talked about the tongue and how wicked it truly is and how much it can get us in trouble when we don't let the Holy Spirit lead. Austen has done studies on the tongue this past year but we needed to go back over some of those verses.

I guess for me, I can take parenting very personally.....it breaks my heart to see him walk away from the truth. But here is where I also get into trouble. I must remember it is my JOB as a parent to teach him, and lead him in the right direction. That my friend takes TIME and sometimes we moms are just to busy to stop to teach and we just get aggravated and dish out the discipline. These dear children of ours need to KNOW the Fear of the Lord and the only way they are going to be taught is through our instruction, guiding them back to the Cross. Yes, there is forgiveness..but there is always a penalty for our sin.

I did get through it, and it was a good reminder that I need to stop to teach and instruct instead of just dishing out the discipline.

Happy Father's Day~ Prayer

Father’s Day Prayer


Lord, please bless our fathers,
these men who mean so much to us,
who are greatly responsible
for who we are and who we are becoming.
Bless them for having the courage
to do what’s necessary to keep us out of trouble,
for making us do the right thing,
for helping us build our character,
even when it makes us angry;
and bless them for pushing us to do our best,
even when they just want to love us.
Bless our fathers for being our protectors,
for leading us through stormy times to safety,
for making us believe that everything will be all right
and for making it so.
Bless our fathers for quietly making a living
to provide for those they love most,
for giving us food, clothing, shelter
and the other material things that really matter,
for unselfishly investing time and money in us
that they could have spent on themselves.
Bless our fathers, Lord,
for saving some energy for fun,
for leading us on adventures
to explore the outer reaches of ourselves,
for making us laugh,
for being our playmates and our friends.
Bless them for being our secure foundation, our rock,
for holding on tight to us...until it’s time to let us go.
Lord, bless these men we look up to,
our role models, our heroes,
our fathers.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.


By Joanna Fuchs

New Scripture Tags I just made :)

FEEL FREE TO SNAG AND POST IN YOUR BLOG :)
Hugs.Brandie

Room Mates VS Soul Mates

How much do you really want to have a great marriage? Do you want it enough to take God at His Word and place your confidence in His plan for love and marriage?
So many today are miserable in their marriage. For me I struggle in my own. But thankfully I have a God who restores if I trust and obey him. This ole' flesh want to be pleased but I must choose to die to my own wants!

Would you say you and your mate are soul mates OR room mates? Why is it that there are so many broken families these days? It is pretty simple.......They dismiss God's plan for a marriage.

Today's views are such a contrast from God's! It is all about 'Self' what pleases me. Do you want your marriage enough to STOP demanding your "rights". We must stop believing that we will be happy if only our mate changes something.

Are you motivated by LOVE or by what you want? Love is sacrificial, it does NOT depend on what you mate does or says. Love seeks to meet the true, legitimate needs of others, not the whims and destructive demands of others.
A wife is to obey her husband willingly as an act of faith in God. Are we pleasing our own agenda or God's?

Romans 13:10a Love worketh no ill to his neighbor
This means that every decision or action should be for no other reason than the good of one's husband and always to the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We tend to say..."But Lord you don't understand, my husband doesn't show me that he loves me, he doesn't do anything for me...why should I do for him? This is the worlds thinking. "Love is Sacrificial", it does not depend on what the other person does!

The bible says in 1 John 3:18 'let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth'. Mathew 7:12 records "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Notice how love is an action involving a deliberate decision.

Do you want your soul mate back? God has a PERFECT plan for our marriages IF we will follow his blueprint, and not our own.

Lord,
I pray today that you would help us stay focused on your plan and not our own. I don't want my own desires......they do not bring me happiness, I want your desires!
Help us love sacrificially as you do. May we remember what you did for us on the cross. help us in our marriages.
In Jesus Precious name,
Amen.

Your Spiritual Garden

Isa 58:11

And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.


Plant Three Rows Of Peas - For The Garden Of
Your Daily Living;
1. PEACE Of Mind
2. PEACE Of Heart
3. PEACE Of Soul

Plant Four Rows Of Squash;
1. Squash gossip
2. Squash indifference
3. Squash grumbling
4. Squash selfishness

Plant Four Rows Of Lettuce;
1. Lettuce be faithful
2. Lettuce be kind
3. Lettuce be patient
4. Lettuce really love one another

Now No Garden Should Be Without Turnips;
- So Plant 3 Rows Of Turnips;
1. Turnip for meetings
2. Turnip for service
3. Turnip to help one another

Finally Dear One, Your Garden Must Have Thyme;
1. Thyme for each other
2. Thyme for family
3. Thyme for friends
4. Thyme for prayer

Water Freely With Patience & Cultivate With LOVE.
There should be much fruit in your garden, after all "We Reap
What We Sow." Therefore "Happy Gardening!"



Pastor Scott

The Holy Spirit

You know we always here the saying..

If Life deals you lemons, make lemonade!

Well lately things have been a bit array in my life.

It is so hard when times like that come to walk in the Spirit.

However I think we make things so much worst on ourselves by the way

we react to what life throws our way, don't we?

Do we stop to reflect to ask God to help us, or do we go about

our way being frazzled and worried?

As I am looking back over the past oh..... few weeks,

I have to say I failed at letting the Holy Spirit lead in my life.

The Bible tells us.............

Eph 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Galations 5:16

[This] I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Instead, I looked at the situation in utter disbelief, and let my mind wonder as just how

I would handle these situations myself. .

God has taught me many lessons, ... and also gives me unmerrited grace!

What happens to us when we DON'T walk in the Spirit?

THE WORKS OF THE FLESH

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

Gal 5:20
Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

Gal 5:21
Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the Bible does say I can have victory.

How?

Philipians 4:8

I am to think on THESE things

1> What is TRUE

2>What is HONEST

3>What Is JUST

4>What is PURE

5>What is LOVELY

6>What is of GOOD REPORT

So we need to judge our thoughts on these things above, and if they don't measure we then throw them out!

Now let's also take a look at the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

When we yield to the Holy Spirit these are the FRUITS of it!

Galations 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is

love, joy, peace, longsuffering,

gentleness, goodness, faith,
Meekness, temperance:

against such there is no law.

Dear Lord,

Forgive me for turning my back on the most valuable tool you have given us as Christians.

Help me to listen carefully to your way, so that I may not have my own way!

I thank you for your love and mercy that is so undeserved. Help me to serve you today 100%

In Jesus Precious Name,

AMEN

Sunday's Blessing

It is ALWAYS refreshing to be in the House of God!

Yesterday was full of blessings: Great sermons that I can ponder this week, great people to be around, and spending part of the afternoon with my grandma and grandpa.

It was so nice to see Carey(which I didn't get a chance to visit with) was able to be there because her mom and Travis are both out of the hospital, Praise God for answered prayer.

I have so much more to share but today is going to be very busy, as Monday's are always busy for us. I am meeting some sweet ladies from our church to walk at the lake, and then I will swim for just a bit., and then it's off to the dreaded Dr's appt! I probably won't be home until around 3:00 or so.
Blessings,

Brandie

Homeschool~

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8).





Just like other school children, homeschoolers also use excuses for not completing their schoolwork on time. As my children grew older, they learned several pat answers to justify their procrastination, including their favorite, "Don't worry. It's no big deal." Of all their excuses, this one probably annoyed me the most. Failing to acknowledge their wrongdoing and to take responsibility for their actions, this glib remark downplayed the importance of planning ahead and the significance of keeping a promise. I quickly realized if I didn't hold them accountable in small things, my children would also not be accountable in larger things later in life.





When dealing with the matter of sin, we also attempt to downplay its significance in our walk with God. Justifying ourselves, we consider character flaws and little white lies "No big deal." After all, who's going to notice or pay attention? In Psalm 5:4-5 we read the answer, "For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity."





God is holy and the standards He sets for those who walk according to the light are measured by that holiness (1 Peter 1:15).Obviously, God doesn't mess around with sin and neither should we. If you find yourself in opposition to God's Word and ignoring the Holy Spirit's promptings to abstain from an "insignificant" activity, be careful. You may think that it's no big deal, but it is to God. "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1:14-15)





Father, I know there's no such thing as a small sin in Your eyes. Cleanse my heart today and help me to walk uprightly in the strength and power of Your love. In Jesus' name, Amen.





AOP devotional