Watching All Creatures Great And Small, we came across an episode where a beautiful spaniel had an absess in the skin of his ear. If your dog has long ears you need to clean them regularily to avoid this.
The vet was forced to drain all the blood from the absess and then sew buttons on the ear to cause the veins to distribute the flowing blood in the ear evenly. Gross yes, hang in there, here’s my point. Sometimes it’s like we have absess on our soul. We haven’t cleaned it properally, we havr let dirt and wet get in there and the infection has grown. Suddenly it hurts all the time so we run back to God and He drains all the inpurity out of our lives once again, but if we don’t let him clean it up and sew on the buttons then the infection will just keep coming back and growing. We need to let God distribute our lives in the way that He knows best, we need Him to be our guide and to control the flow of how we live, only then will the pain be gone.
Category: Devotional
No matter what
Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Colossians 3:11 NLT
Everyone has a place in God who wants one and is willing to ask God to be their Heavenly Father. Jesus led the demon possessed as part of His Deciples for crying out loud, but He cast out the demons first. No matter what your sin is you can come before Jesus and He will cure you and accept you. Trust me, you aren’t going to shock or horrify Him, He’s seen it all already. Come before Jesus and let Him love and heal you.
Credit to owner for cover image
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In the quiet
In the quiet.
With the new Covid lock down we are having to change things up. Walking my dog has been one of the things I have had to change, he still needs walks but I can’t take him where there are people. Last weekend I took him on deer paths instead of following the main trails. The further you walk down these trails made by generally shy and flighty animals you draw further and further away from the people noises around you. You can’t hear vehicles any more and the sound of noise fades away, no more construction or five different people’s music competing against eachother and suddenly the birds are the only song you hear, a bubbling stream rolls past you and you feel peace. That is the moment you can worship without even trying. We struggle to fill our souls with God and to be in the moment because there is so much noise pollution in the world, you can’t concentrate on God because there are too many distractions. So get out of the noise, go into a place of quiet and see if your soul doesn’t take a deep breath and starts seeking God hungrily, it’s not your fault if you struggle to seek God, you just need to get away from all the noise.
We follow the Bible here
Carried in the Cross is staying home, wearing masks and social distancing, as well as getting the vaccine. We here believe that God will protect us, but sometimes God protects us by giving the means to protect ourselves, that’s why we wear shoes isn’t it? God will protect our feet if we ask Him to, but he gave people the knowledge to make shoes so we don’t have to ask Him to keep is from stepping on a rock, now we can step on many rocks without injury and thank God that we have the shoes to make that possible. God gave us health experts so that we would have the knowledge of how to defend against disease, we pray for protection, yes, but we also follow the health rules and thank God for giving us people who study and understand our bodies and how to protect them from illness.
We also follow the rules because the Bible says to listen to those who are in charge over you, maybe some don’t know this, because they never attended Sunday School, but it’s in there. People say, ‘but Mosses stood against Pharaoh.’ Pharaoh was oppressing God’s people in slavery, he was beating them and working them, that is a very different situation than what we have now. If the government stood against us having church services on TV, or on YouTube, and took away our Bibles, then they would be oppressing us, but if we fight back against them now for no reason other than to make noise, they could shut us done completely and have full rights to do so. Everyone from every church that I know and talk to -via email- say how disappointed they are in the Churches that are protesting. Some Christians are receiving threats on their lives, and no that’s not persecution, this is people responding to the church risking lives and being selfish and very un-christian and people don’t know the difference between those who are and those who aren’t, they just see ‘church’ and blame us all. Read you Bible, what these protests are doing is breaking God’s laws. So please, don’t say you are a Christian unless you are going to act like it.
I am on lend from God
I feel I’m rich already, seeing as I own myself- Mark Twain
There are days when we feel like the world owns every piece of us, and what it doesn’t own it wants, and then what is left feels like we are lending out all time to others until we are tapped out.
But what we forget is that we don’t belong to the world, nor to other people, we belong to ourselves and God and not in that order. God gave us dominion over our lives, meaning the only one who owns us is us, as Christians we give ourself back to God so He is our only true master, but this world and all in it are not our rulers nor do they own us. When we serve we do it because that’s what Christians do and it makes God happy, but the world has no right to demand until you are drawn, you are sharing the gift of yourself with others, not giving it away. God gave you you. And He is the only one who has a right over you. Yes it is good to serve others, but don’t let them own you. Trust me, they couldn’t afford to buy you away from God no matter how hard they tried. You are rich because you own a valuable gift from God, you.
Bear with me as I try to do the video thing again. I’m not very good at it but I want to switch things up every once in a while just to add variety.
What’s in the mirror
When I am asked how I see myself I usually don’t have an answer. Taking the time to see oneself past everything else we take in during the day is hard, not to mention it feels pointless. Also, why do people care how you see yourself? I think the answer is, because they aren’t sure what traits or qualities they should look for in themselves. But perspective changes from person to person. My dog sees me as his friend… I think…. or perhaps as his personal pet who is still being trained to obey. My horse sees me as the treat and cuddles giver, who sometimes forces him to work when he would rather sleep. My cats see me as the over friendly slave, not employee, slave! Do as they tell you to or they will trip you in the yard.
In the end what does it matter how others see you, or even how you see yourself? All that matters is how God sees you. How do you know how God sees you? Read your Bible. He sees you as His beloved, His prized treasure, His children worthy or sacrifice. No matter your sin or failure, He sees you as someone worth chasing after. Why would you serve people who don’t care about the true you, and not serve God who loves you inspite of your mistakes? Who are you? How do you see yourself? You are God’s beloved, see yourself as His and you will always see yourself in the best light.
Just like mom
Mother’s day.
The tones of laughter drifts up the stairs and a small bark from a white poodle shows the little girl that her mom is taking care of her dog so she doesn’t need to rush. It’s Sunday, Mothers Day, and she wants to look good for mom. Her black satin shoes click as she climbs on to the stool at the bathroom sink. She has her mommy’s makeup kit, and had watched mommy put it on so many times that she was sure she could to do makeup on her own face, she wanted to look her best for Mommy. So she leans in close to the mirror and ‘poof’ face powder sparkles over everything, ‘it’s like fairy dust’ she thinks as she poofs more powder on to her face. Next mommy would use the red stuff, she finds the blush powder brush in with the powder and dabs some on each cheek. What next? Now the stuff for the eyes. She can’t find the eye shadow brush, frustrated but determined she grabs her tooth brush and uses it for the eye makeup. She looks at herself, ‘close enough,’ she decides. ‘Now, how do you work the curling iron?’ Thankfully this is when mommy comes in, alerted to her daughter’s bad idea by the silence from the bathroom. “Oh no!” Mommy shrieks, “sweetie what have you done?” The question is rhetorical.
The little girl smiles big, “look mommy, I made myself pretty for you.”
Mommy is a mix of emotions, she is relieved, horrified, a little irritated, but loves her little girl so much. She picks her daughter up and kisses her -inch thick powdered- cheek, “you are always pretty sweetheart!”
Mommy sits the little girl on her knee and wipes her face clean, as she removes the cloth from the pouting lips mommy does what mommies do and offers to show her sweetie how mommies put on make up. This brightens up the disappointed face and mommy and daughter laugh as they put their ‘faces’ on together. Though they walked into church a little late, the little girl in her swishing cream dress with soft pink flowers, holding to mommy’s hand and smiling loved mommy all the more for her kindness that day. The day was about mommy, but that didn’t stop mommy from taking care of her little girl that day, and they had such great memories.
Thank you Jesus for our mothers. We have ups and downs as parents, but if we cling to the happy memories than we will see that our lives really were good.
Feeling a little splashed?
Jesus being in your boat doesn’t mean you won’t face storms, Him being there means that your storms will not overcome you❤
-Pastor Dennis Shram
I don’t know what storm has hit you, or if you’ve gotten to the – ‘but I have Jesus, so why is this happening?’ – Point or not, but I hope that this encourages you, because it often encourages me. Jesus sometimes has to let is see the storm and feel the waves before saving us so that we are more aware when He causes a breakthrough, now we will see His miracles more clearly because we are looking for them. Sometimes we have to ride out a storm too, because God knows that it is growing something necessary in us. But never forget, that Jesus will never let you drown.
Carried in the cross 