​December 19, 2021
We’ve had such a beautiful couple of weeks celebrating Jesus. We went to the theater and saw the Chosen Christmas - Messenger. Then we were able to go to the production at Andrew Wommack’s Ministry, The Heart of Christmas. It was amazing. We enjoyed the day with snow, love all the brilliant lights as we drive, sing along with the Christmas music and had fun decorating our tree. We’ve had folks to our home and gone to other welcoming homes. I’m slow in the gift buying department, though. With 25 grandchildren (that includes the spouses) and a new great grandbaby, gift giving is a delight to me but shopping these days isn’t so delightful I will need a miracle in that department! One of my greatest joys is that Mom lives with us and we get to enjoy all these Christmas adventures together.
 
I’ve shared about having His peace that passes all understanding and His joy that lives in me that is unspeakable and full of glory. What He has shared with my heart this week is His hope. Hope is the earnest expectation of good. We hope for what is unseen. Once it is seen, we can no longer have to hope in that. “Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.” Hebrews 11:1
 
This week I was reading in a Christmas devotional about anticipation. This time of year, is an incredible time of anticipation. We focus on preparing for Christmas and anticipating what the season will be like for weeks before. We have hopes and expectations of good and anticipate, which is an excitement of something good that is about to happen, a peaceful, joy filled Christmas season. Yet, there’s always that little seed of doubt in our head knowing our expectations are not always realistic.
 
Whenever we have expectations on people, places, things or positions we have put our hope in what can fail. When people, places, things or positions fail us, which they will, we can lose hope in everything. We can only have our true hope in Jesus. No matter what plans you make, how well they are thought through, without them being the plans of our Father, they will fail to satisfy you. “For I’m releasing these words to you this day, yes, even to you, so that your living hope will be found in God alone, for he is the only one who is always true.” Proverbs 22:19
 
The only truth we can count on without doubt and put all our trust, hope, expectations and anticipation in is our Lord and Savior. Anything you expect, hope or anticipate beyond Him will not satisfy the longing inside you.
 
“Here’s what I’ve learned through it all: Don’t give up; don’t be impatient; be entwined as one with the Lord. Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope. Yes, keep on waiting—for he will never disappoint you!” Psalm 27:14
 
“Human strength and the weapons of man are false hopes for victory; they may seem mighty, but they will always disappoint.” Psalm 33:17
 
“He’s the hope that holds me and the stronghold to shelter me, the only God for me, and my great confidence.” Psalm 91:2
 
“Your future is bright and filled with a living hope that will never fade away.”
Proverbs 23:18
 
“But hold your hope firmly to the end and you will experience life and deliverance.” Matthew 24:13
 
“Glory to God in the highest realms of heaven! For there is peace and a good hope given to the sons of men.” Luke 2:14
 
“God sent his word to the Jewish people first, announcing the wonderful news of hope and peace through Jesus, the Anointed One, the Lord of all.” Acts 10:36
 
“Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected God to fulfill it. He took God at his word, and as a result he became the father of many nations. God’s declaration over him came to pass: “Your descendants will be so many that they will be impossible to count!”
Romans 4:18
 
“Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us a perfect relationship with God. What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our hope of experiencing God’s glory!” Romans 5:2
 
“And this hope is not a disappointing fantasy, because we can now experience the endless love of God cascading into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who lives in us!” Romans 5:5
 
“For this is the hope of our salvation. But hope means that we must trust and wait for what is still unseen. For why would we need to hope for something we already have?” Romans 8:24
 
“Let this hope burst forth within you, releasing a continual joy. Don’t give up in a time of trouble, but commune with God at all times.” Romans 12:12
 
“Now may God, the fountain of hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you trust in him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround your life with his super-abundance until you radiate with hope!” Romans 15:13
 
“Living within you is the Christ who floods you with the expectation of glory! This mystery of Christ, embedded within us, becomes a heavenly treasure chest of hope filled with the riches of glory for his people, and God wants everyone to know it!” Colossians 1:27
 
The next few days as you continue to prepare for Christmas day keep your mind and heart focused on the only true Hope. He is the only hope that is beyond a shadow of doubt. If you find yourself doubting Him and His love, then take extra time to get into the Word and know His love is true and never fails. Expect ONLY good from Him. Let all your hope and earnest expectations of good be in Him alone and watch how He will minister to your heart.
 
Everything else in this world will disappoint and fail you. No matter what efforts you put forth in anything you do, it will never satisfy or fulfill the deep longing in your heart that only He can fill. Give Him a chance, the next dew days, to be your All in all. “So now wrap your heart tightly around the hope that lives within us, knowing that God always keeps his promises!” Hebrews 10:23
 
Have a blessed, peace, joy and hope filled Christmas season knowing that He came to give you life and life more abundant. Merry Christmas!
 

December 12, 2021
One of my favorite parts of the story of the birth of our Savior, is when the angel told Mary she would have this baby Jesus. “During the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent from God’s presence to an unmarried girl named Mary, living in Nazareth, a village in Galilee. She was engaged to a man named Joseph, a true descendant of King David.  Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Rejoice, beloved young woman, for the Lord is with you and you are anointed with great favor.”
 
Mary was deeply troubled over the words of the angel and bewildered over what this may mean for her. But the angel reassured her, saying, “Do not yield to your fear, Mary, for the Lord has found delight in you and has chosen to surprise you with a wonderful gift. You will become pregnant with a baby boy, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be supreme and will be known as the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will enthrone him as King on the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign as King of Israel forever, and his reign will have no limit.”
 
Mary said, “But how could this happen? I am still a virgin!” Gabriel answered, “The Spirit of Holiness will fall upon you and almighty God will spread his shadow of power over you in a cloud of glory! This is why the child born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your aged aunt, Elizabeth, has also become pregnant with a son. The ‘barren one’ is now in her sixth month.  Not one promise from God is empty of power. Nothing is impossible with God!”
Then Mary responded, saying, “Yes! I will be a mother for the Lord! As his servant, I accept whatever he has for me. May everything you have told me come to pass.” And the angel left her.” Luke 1:26-38 Passion Bible
 
Mary was startled and didn’t understand what the Angel was saying to her but do you notice what the angel said? “Do not yield to your fear,”. Your fear. Wow! When we have fear it is our fear we have chosen to yield to. That’s a powerful truth to mediate on. Mary believed. When she didn’t yield to her fear, Mary had peace. She didn’t struggle with doubt, ask friends what they thought about this word from the Lord, or ask the angel to give her a few days to consider this. Her heart was prepared. Her heart was already full of His peace and His promises. The Lord found delight in her and it had nothing to do with what she did but because of her relationship with her God. She was about to have a shift in life.
 
The last couple of years all of us have had a life shift, an actual “suddenly” that effected our lives in some way. The Word tells us what the reaping and outcome of a godless nation and world would look like. He has told us through His Word how to prepare our hearts for such a time. The world at the time of the birth of Jesus was much worse than now. Mary didn’t have a relationship with Jesus yet like we are able to but she had a relationship with the Father and wanted what He had for her. Mary was taken back by the angel, as most people were. When an angel appeared to anyone the following words were “Do not fear”. Mary didn’t yield to fear so her heart was open to say, “Yes! I will be a mother for the Lord! As his servant, I accept whatever he has for me. May everything you have told me come to pass.” As His servant, I accept whatever He has for me. That is how I want to answer Him when He speaks to my heart. That is my desire.
 
How can I prepare my heart to always answer like this? First, I must BELIEVE His Word and second obey His Word. The number one most powerful truth that I have had to receive and believe in my life is that I am loved and precious to my Savior. Jesus longs to have an intimate, close relationship with each person. He wants to be our closest friend. I’m believing this truth one day at a time. For 40 years of my life I didn’t understand a close, intimate, loving relationship with Jesus.  I only knew love by works and conditional love. I worked hard to do good, be good, so I could be loved - by God, by Jesus, my parents, my family, my husband, my children, everyone. I didn’t know love was unconditional, especially when it was from God and Jesus. So, it’s taken time and day by day changing my heart to trust and believe. Unbelief brings fear which brings lack of peace. Our world today is so full of fear. The enemy knows fear will dilute the power of His love in our hearts. His love cannot not be diluted down to nothing but the lie that we believe that brings fear effects how we see His love.
 
“Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection.” 1 John 4:18

“For God will never give you the spirit of fear, but the Holy Spirit who gives you mighty power, love, and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7
 
The last few months I cannot say that I answered as readily as Mary. I did yield to MY fear. We all do at some point but the answer is not to stay there but to spend so much time in His presence that you know that you know how much you are loved my Him. If He says we can do this, we can. He gave us a way to live and walk in all of His promises but we have to trust, believe and obey. When we give in to the power of deceit, we get going in in whirlwind of waves that tosses us to and fro, up and down. If we are not putting His truths in our heart, meditating on His promises, letting the Holy Spirit flow through us and not being still to know He is I Am, we end up with some fear.  Knowing without a shadow of doubt that He loves me no matter what and that His love is unconditional changed how I can come to the throne of grace.
 
“And since we now have a magnificent High Priest to welcome us into God’s house, we come closer to God and approach him with an open heart, fully convinced that nothing will keep us at a distance from him. For our hearts have been sprinkled with blood to remove impurity, and we have been freed from an accusing conscience. Now we are clean, unstained, and presentable to God inside and out! So now wrap your heart tightly around the hope that lives within us, knowing that God always keeps his promises!” Hebrews 10:21-23
 
I now choose to seek Him daily, hourly, minute by minute. I let His love saturate my heart so I can trust, believe and obey His words for me. “You’re my place of quiet retreat, and your wraparound presence becomes my shield as I wrap myself in your Word!”
Psalm 119:114
 
 “So, what does all this mean? If God has determined to stand with us, tell me, who then could ever stand against us? For God has proved his love by giving us his greatest treasure, the gift of his Son. And since God freely offered him up as the sacrifice for us all, he certainly won’t withhold from us anything else he has to give.” Romans 8:31-32
 
During this Christmas season take extra time to seek Him. Desire to be as prepared in your heart as Mary was. To trust the Lord with all your heart, to believe him and know not one promise from God is empty of power. Nothing is impossible with God! His love for us is beyond our comprehension but with Him living in us and through His grace and the Holy Spirit we can have all He has for us if we choose to. Don’t yield to your fears. Cast your fears on Him.
 
“We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.” 1 John 4:16  Mary knew God’s love. We can know God’s unconditional love through Jesus. I want to say to Him, “As your servant, I accept whatever You have for me.
 
 
 
 
 

December 5, 2021
I have so much on my heart this week and hope it won’t seem like a hodge podge of ideas but will flow together in Him. The words the Lord has been speaking to me for the last few weeks are “Joy unspeakable”. What does that mean? I finally listened and looked it up in the Word and it is in 1 Peter 1:8. “You love him passionately although you have not seen him, but through believing in him you are saturated with an ecstatic joy, indescribably sublime and immersed in glory”.  The footnote says, “a glorification that cannot be described.” Wow! Read that verse again. you are saturated with an ecstatic joy, indescribably sublime and immersed in glory, a glorification that cannot be described. That’s what the joy of Christmas and all year should look like. That’s what the shepherds experienced. Saturated. Here is the context that precedes the verse. “Through our faith, the mighty power of God constantly guards us until our full salvation is ready to be revealed in the last time.  May the thought of this cause you to jump for joy, even though lately you’ve had to put up with the grief of many trials. But these only reveal the sterling core of your faith, which is far more valuable than gold that perishes, for even gold is refined by fire. Your authentic faith will result in even more praise, glory, and honor when Jesus the Anointed One is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:5-9
 
I don’t know how those verses speak to your heart but they were such an encouragement to me. Sometimes I feel like “I’m failing” in the issues of my life but He just told me I’m not! It’s so vital to listen to Him and get into the Bible for your answers. Anything outside the Word is uncertain. His written Truth is alive and unfailing. “He answered, “The Scriptures say: Bread alone will not satisfy, but true life is found in every word that constantly goes forth from God’s mouth.” Matthew 4:4 The Word of God.
 
It’s the Christmas season and my heart is desiring to fill my home with lots of lights. I love lights but they do take time to put up. I wish I could freeze time right now and not it won’t rush away as it seems to do at times. I want each day of this special season to glorify Him and bring joy unspeakable, peace that passes all understanding, unfailing love and unshakeable hope.
 
This past week 6 of us went back to Arizona to work on our cousin’s home and have a memorial service for her. My brother and his wife and Ed’s sister and husband, Tamme and Gary, went on the adventure with us. I may have shared this before when we first went to the house the 1st time, but the Lord showed me her place was a picture of the world. I’m not being disrespectful to Candy, who we loved dearly, but her house was a horrible, hoarding, unbelievable disaster. It represented someone without hope, peace and joy. It was full of sickness and darkness. Someone so lonely who felt so unworthy of love, and looking for answers besides Jesus had lived there. Everything the world is full of. Candy knew Jesus in her heart and we wish she would have let us in her world so we could reassure her of His love and light. But what the Lord is showing me is how 6 people in their 60’s rolled up their sleeves and dug in. In 2 days, we filled 2 30 yard dumpsters. The amazing part He wants me to share with you is we did it with joy, peace, seeing hope for the place and experiencing His love for Candy and us the whole time. It was nasty, dirty work but that’s what the world is without Him. The first time Ed and I went there we cast out the evil and it’s been a place of peace, not fear. Even the rattlesnakes we found in the garage were so nonresponsive that we had their heads before they knew what happened.
 
So, what am I saying? I can’t totally describe what I’m feeling but He’s showing me how we can’t fear and back away from the trials of this world. We can dig in and get rid of the junk and distractions and know His joy that is unspeakable and indescribable in every situation. We all know Christmas isn’t about what the world has made it. It’s about the birth of our Savior. We can also learn so much from those God used to bring this miraculous birth to pass. The love, joy, peace, hope and faith that Mary and Joseph had. There is also the shepherds who listened and did as the angels said and did it with joy. The life of Christians was not an easy road back then. Christians were persecuted, killed, burned at the stake. That’s when the Messiah was born.
 
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother, Mary, had promised Joseph to be his wife, but while she was still a virgin she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Her fiancé, Joseph, was a righteous man full of integrity and he didn’t want to disgrace her, but when he learned of her pregnancy, he secretly planned to break the engagement. While he was still debating with himself about what to do, he fell asleep and had a supernatural dream. An angel from the Lord appeared to him and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, don’t hesitate to take Mary into your home as your wife, because the power of the Holy Spirit has conceived a child in her womb. She will give birth to a son and you are to name him ‘Savior,’ for he is destined to give his life to save his people from their sins.” This happened to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through his prophet: Listen! A virgin will be pregnant, she will give birth to a Son, and he will be known as “Emmanuel,” which means in Hebrew “God became one of us.” When Joseph woke from his dream, he did all that the angel of the Lord instructed him to do. He took Mary to be his wife, but they refrained from having sex until she gave birth to her firstborn son, whom they named “Jesus.””         Matthew 1:18-25
 
“Now I’ll listen carefully for your voice and wait to hear whatever you say. Let me hear your promise of peace— the message every one of your Godly lovers longs to hear. Don’t let us in our ignorance turn back from following you.” Psalm 85:8
 
This is what Joseph did, he took time to listen. This is what Mary and the Shepherds did. The promised Messiah came in full glory and power to reveal God, to rescue, revive and restore us. Because He came, now nothing can or should hold us back or stop us from going forward in what the Lord has called us to do. “And he said to them, “As you go into all the world, preach openly the wonderful news of the gospel to the entire human race!” Mark 16:15
 
I want to add that we found treasures in Candy’s home. She made beautiful beaded jewelry. We found jewelry she had made that just sparkled. She had hundreds of kits of jewels and beads that she had planned to make and share. We shared those with her closest friends. She loved Christmas and we found beautiful Christmas ornaments. The same is in this world. There are hidden jewels – people needing help and Jesus. As we sort through the garbage, we look for the jewels and treasures. Some people thought we should just pay someone come in and huck the junk. No, we were looking for the treasures of Candy that we could share with others. This is what brings the joy, peace, love and hope into our life and this Christmas season, finding treasures in the mess. Treasures and jewels that are crying out to be found.
 
I’m so thankful that Joseph didn’t back down but listened to his call from the Lord. Nothing should stop us from doing what the Lord is calling s to do. No mess, no persecution, no fear, no evil government. If over 2000 years ago people would have run from a horrible mess, we may not have Jesus today. We have so much more than they did because now the Savior has come and lives inside of us, guiding us, helping us doing everything we need through us if we let Him. Are we willing and obedient to do as He asks us? He’s preparing us now for what is to come. I want to hear, listen and obey. I want to go out and find the treasures and jewels in this world and help them see the hope, joy, love and peace that only comes from the gift given to us and that we celebrate during this Christmas season. Let this Christmas season be so intimate with your Savior that you can experience that joy that is unspeakable and full of glory!!