My favorite blanket

June 5, 2018June 5, 2018 carriedinthecross2 Comments

Sometimes talking to God is like wrapping up in a warm blanket. You know the moments? Those times when you feel like your heart can’t handle any more and you begin to pray. Maybe not immediately, but eventually you start to feel a security and a peace, a warm feeling that comforts you. Like sitting on your couch and wrapping a blanket around your shoulders. The prayer is a hard struggle at first, you don’t know what to say except, “help me God!” “God where are you?” “Jesus, you said you would never leave me nor forsake me.” Then you feel a release of the spirit that says, ” but may your will be done Lord.” Then you find yourself praising God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, telling them how amazing they are and remembering the times they’ve saved you and pulled you through, and now you’re smiling. How does God do that? Isn’t He amazing! Jesus is a professional at finding lost sheep and drawing them into shelter from the rain, He can find you and bring you into a place of shelter too.

He will cover you with His feathers and you will find refuge in the shelter of His wings- Psalms 91:4

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · free · Jesus · searching · Uncategorized

Defiant one

May 27, 2018May 28, 2018 carriedinthecross3 Comments

The most defiant words in the Christian vocabulary are “it is well with my soul!”

This statement stands us apart from the rest of the world. The devil tries to take us down using things that tear at our souls. Troubles that drag at our minds, sting at our hearts and eventually cause us to fall to our knees and beg for relief; these things the devil uses to try to hurt our souls. Our souls connect us to God; our bodies stay earthbound but our souls receive a new body in Heaven, that’s why the devil tries to get a hold of them. The moment we win against the devil is the moment when we are on our knees, head hung low to the ground, tears pouring down our faces and we hear ourselves say, “it is well, with my soul!” That’s the moment the chains shatter. That statement is an ultimate statement of Faith. It may not be well with any other part of us, it may not be well with any person who sees us but if it is well with our souls we win. God wins. God never leaves us in those moments, He is always there; but there are times when WE need to make the breakthrough happen. There are times when evil spirits hold our rescuer back and those are times when we need to pray until we feel the breakthrough. When we stare down the beast, though we are battered and torn and we look him in eye and we yell, “IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL!” That moment he will either turn and run or stare you down and snort out a hot breath of indignation and that’s when you keep repeating it, and repeating it and repeating it until it truly is well with your soul and then your beast will have no strength and he will flee. Weary after your prayer battle, when you fall with relief from your victory and you feel Jesus catch you, you will know that all is well, with your soul and that your comforter has made it to you to hold you safe and heal your hurt and take away your exhaustion. So make those 6 words your battle cry today. In the midst of it all stand defiant before the demons who bear down upon you and let them know that it is still well with your soul!

Devotional · encouragement · free · Jesus · Uncategorized

Love sets us apart

April 23, 2018 carriedinthecross1 Comment

The difference between Christians and many, not all, but many other people is that we love the person despite our differences. We may not always like what the people do, what they believe in, or even the people themselves, but we always love them because our God tells us to. It’s not always easy, to be honest it’s usually not easy, but we choose to love anyways. God says to love your neighbor as yourself. He doesn’t say love the nice person across the street but hate the guy down the road who purposely walks his dog to your yard to let them do their business. God says to love everyone. In this modern age where it feels like we as Christians are being persecuted from every side it’s very easy to start to hate the persecutors; but loving them (the hard thing to do) is what sets us apart from them. There’s an old song that says “persecuted not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.” In the midst of everything the Christians all over this world are going through we are still not abandoned, we are still not destroyed, because our God loves us enough to stand by us and lift us up and give us strength; He keeps us going when we can’t go on. Are we perfect and deserving of such love? Absolutely! Not! But God still loves us. Those around us we find hard to handle don’t deserve our love; neither do those who attack us and persecute us and imprison us and beat us and kill us, but because God loves them still we will also love them, even if it’s a forced love it’s love. God hates what those people do to us and we have every right to hate what they do to us too, but He loves the person and that’s the hard part, seeing the hurting soul past the hurtful deeds. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, a love we receive and show. We must give of the love we are given because those people need to be loved too and they need to be shown Jesus very badly. So have a love without chains and love beyond the deeds, love the person because Jesus loves them and never forget He loves you too

Devotional · encouragement · Jesus · searching · Uncategorized

All this from my king

April 8, 2018April 9, 2018 carriedinthecrossLeave a comment

It is for us that Jesus died; it is for us He rose again and it is for us that He prays and He works. Why would a king work for a slave? Because in dying He set us free and we are no longer slaves of this earth. Why would a king die to set a slave free? Because He is a true King and ruler, one who loves His people and does everything for them. He shows us our failure and mistakes so we can fix them before it’s too late and He helps us fix them. Sometime He allows us to fail so we can learn from our failure and fall on Him who rises us up again. He never leaves us and comes to us even from the depth of death He rises again and comes for us. Love is the message we were given and the message we share. Because love is what this world needs and Jesus is love.

Devotional · encouragement · Jesus · searching · Uncategorized

The fourth man

March 25, 2018 carriedinthecross1 Comment

Every time we go through a fiery furnace, if we have faith , we will see we are not alone. When we go through troubled times we have to have courage that God will be with us. We will be privy to the world standing astonished at the glory of our God. Our bounds will be broken and we will walk freely, He will break us from all fear and we will be cleansed. God knows what we are going through. Even if we are going through fire God is with us, even if we feel alone we have a friend standing with us. A friend who looks like a son of the gods, because guess what? He IS God’s son.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · Jesus · Uncategorized

Love is?

March 13, 2018 carriedinthecross2 Comments

We all know the song. ‘Wherever you go, whatever you do I’ll be right here waiting for you. Whatever you say, though my heart breaks, I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

That song easily applys as a love song from Jesus. No matter what we do or say, even if it hurts Him He will never stop loving us. How many times do we break His heart? How many times do we make Him cry? He never holds it against us and keeps on loving us. He waits for us to come back to Him and He holds us close against His heart and tells us it’s going to be okay. That’s what true love is. It’s not flowers, it’s not chocolate, it’s forgiveness, and no one knows forgiveness like Jesus. He took our sins upon Himself and made it so we could be forgiven, that’s amazing! We keep falling away and He keeps reaching out to catch us when we call. No matter what He loves us, truly loves us.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · Jesus · Uncategorized

Nightmares

March 9, 2018March 9, 2018 carriedinthecross1 Comment

Fear ye not and see the salvation of the Lord- Exodus 14:13

How many of us have been in a situation where we were completely and totally terrified? Where, as Victor Hugo puts it, we ‘breathed fear’?

The times when uncertainty overtakes reason, and possibilities, (no matter how irrational), come storming into our minds and filling us with complete fear. We become an embodiment of fear, and thus we become an embodiment of evil. Fear is not of the Lord, fear is of the devil, when we become filled with fear we become filled with the devil.

Is it a sin to fear? I would say no, it is a lack of faith, but fear is a very hard thing to overcome and should not be categorized with other, more controllable emotions. All emotions are part of us but fear is placed in us, it is caused by something. Like hearing a thump in the office when you’ve just watched a really creepy movie, out comes fear. Or when you see a massive spider crawling up your pant leg, fear, (or fascination, some people like spiders). You were fine and then something happened to make you afraid. There are much much bigger fears too. The fear of losing a loved one, the fear of financial insecurity, the fear of dying and so on. Some fears are completely overpowering and take hold of their victim in a life altering manner. Fear always has a cause. The devil loves to see us afraid, it puts us off our gaurd and makes us unstable, then he can really get to work. God warns us about fear because He knows how overwhelming it can be. He tells us not to be afraid,

“easy for you to say, you control all and see all,” we respond,

but don’t forget that Jesus knew fear that few of us can imagine. God almighty, one who sees all and knows all, most powerful being EVER, was so afraid He sweat blood. We must not ever downplay the fear Jesus felt because He is God, His fear was very real. Jesus understands. He knows your fear and He doesn’t judge. He has a nail pierced hand reaching out, He’s saying “walk with me, I will protect you and go through this with you, you are never alone.” We never need to be afraid, we have a right to be afraid, but Jesus makes it unneccsary because we are not alone, we have God with us and legions upon legions of angels ready to fight on our side; with God numbers are never a problem, His army is always greater and always stronger and we always have Him because He always has us. So fear not because Jesus has overcome the world and He can help you overcome the causes of your fear.

Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · Jesus · searching

Sometimes the beast turns out to be the dream come true.

February 22, 2018 carriedinthecross2 Comments

I love how in Beauty and the Beast Bell’s greatest fear becomes her one true love. How often is this the same for us? I know none of us tend to get lost in a forest and then locked in the dungeon of a dilapidated castle. If you do you may want to consider new hobbies. What I mean is look at your life. How many times has the road ahead of you seamed like a big, scary monster? The chance to sing professionally, the attempt to send your manuscript or art work off to a publisher, sometimes even the struggle to stay put at the job you’re at even when everything in you says there are greater possibilities out there. Any dream, desire, want, need can seem like a looming dragon with fire oozing from it’s scales and the promise of destruction etched into it’s gleaming golden eyes. But look close at those eyes, you will see yourself looking back. You may even see the fear the dragon holds as he looks at you, because he shares your fear. Even though it may seem as if the dragon is your fear in truth he is just your excuse. If you walk toward him you will see him move aside and transform suddenly into a beautiful road leading to your future. Like I said sometimes your future is where you are, doing what you are doing, and sometimes it’s out there behind the horizon, because no matter what your future is it is almost always beyond what you can see. God has this huge, amazing plan for you that may seem like nothing as you live through it; but somehow that plan is doing amazing things for the world wheather you see it or not. You may be the single difference that makes the most important change. Only God knows what you will cause and do while on this earth, you just have to not be afraid of the beast and realize that he is your dream come true.

Devotional · encouragement · Jesus · Uncategorized

You break it you buy it

February 18, 2018 carriedinthecross1 Comment

We have all seen the signs while shopping warning us that if we break anything we have to pay for it. The same is with people, if you break them you buy them. If you cause someone pain it’s up to you fix that pain. A simple ‘sorry’ doesn’t always fix things but if it’s with the heart then you tried and that counts right? Sort of. Not really. You have caused a crack in that person, a pain and it needs fixing. You need to do your best to cause the fix to the break you have created. Words last painfully longer than physical harm, even if those words weren’t meant to hurt, or weren’t even meant to be said, they still hurt and hurt a lot. It’s sometimes very hard to cure the pain you’ve caused but the pain the other person feels is your responsibility to fix none the less. We need to pray hard about how to fix the pain we have caused other people. We can’t always fix the pain but we have to try. Our best bet is to never say anything that hurts anyone, but when we do hurt others we can’t just say ‘oh well’ and move on we must realize our fault and fix the problem the best we can and then leave it in God’s hands.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · Jesus · Uncategorized

Just a littke bit warmer

February 14, 2018 carriedinthecross1 Comment

I spent today like I spend most days off work, with my dog. This week so far has been particularly cold so long walks were out of the question. But today when I stepped outside I was pleasantly surprised by a warm breeze and a bright sun. This warmth encouraged me to take my dog all over town; we went through the snow on some hiking trails I hadn’t explored in years, and when we finally turned to go home it wasn’t with an anxious heart to get back inside, it was with a satisfied step which showed how nice a time we had had. This walk made me think how just a little warmth can go a long way. The warm air outside encouraged me to walk farther and do new things just like the warm encouragement from a pearson can make us want to continue on and take another step. The word encouragement is defined as the action of giving someone support, confidence or hope. In life we often face ‘cold’ days, times when the sun doesn’t shine and everywhere we turn we are hit by a blast of ice crystals. In these times it’s amazing how one person can make a difference. One person can take that day and either make it better or worse. When someone feels low and we try to lift them up, wheather we know them or not, we make God smile. That’s why God made so many people He knew we would need each other when the road grew too long. A word of support is like a warm breeze, it makes you want to add more footprints to the path of your story instead of stopping where you are. A simple “it’s going to be okay” or “you can do it” can be just what we need to carry on. So always try to be encouraging, who knows, your words may be the difference between someone’s success or failure, so choose them wisely and make them kind and encouraging.
Galatians 6:2 Carry each other’s burdens, in this way fulfilling the law of Christ.