New Facets Of God

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Have you ever found yourself spending time with a really good friend, one you have known intimately for a long time, when out of nowhere you are surprised to see a new facet of who they are?  You find yourself bewildered because you were confident you knew your friend very well but on the other hand you are pleasantly surprised by this newness that has come about.  

I have been able to walk with God for a long time, through the ups and downs, I have seen His faithfulness and experienced His steadfast love. I have been satisfied with that because it didn’t occur to me that there was more of God to experience.
   
About a month ago, I was in a really bad place, my body was not well and my heart was broken over it.  I woke up in the morning with my joints on fire, my bones were achy and my hormones were all over the place. I felt like my head was going to explode. I wanted so badly to roll over, in my bed, and cry my day away. I knew that was not an option for me, as I have three children who need me. Their Dad was at work, kids needed to go to school and my three year old would need my attention.  I consider myself a strong woman and do not like to accept defeat easily.  However, this day I wanted to fall into someones arms, cry and just give up.  I didn’t want to push through, nor did I have the energy to do so.
Like any other mother would do, I got myself up, got everyone else ready the best I could, and just kept pushing through the day.  Later in the day, I found myself in a moment that was all consuming set off by, simply, not being able to find my other shoe.  I just stopped in the middle of my living room and put my head down, I shook my head and said to God “I’m so sorry that Im not well today, Im doing the best I can. I don’t mean to disappoint you”  Then as quickly as I said that, I heard the Lord, in the most gentle and comforting voice, say “I’m not mad at you, I have compassion on you” 
Up until that point I can say, without a doubt, that I hadn’t yet experienced the compassion of the Father toward me.  I had been moved in compassion and felt Gods heart for other people but I never knew the compassion of the Lord toward me personally. 
 
At that moment, I felt a weight come off of me and I felt His peace, that I love so very much. I felt relieved and restful, I found that my symptoms weren’t gone but my spirit was renewed with truth and blessing from my Father and I no longer felt that I needed to strive for anything. 
I stood in the middle of my living room and smiled while my little girl brought me my other shoe. As I continued through my day and drove down many roads,  I began to ponder what had just taken place. I was introduced to a facet of God that I had never experienced before, I wondered what else there was.  I called my friend and shared with her what had happened and I began to ask her some questions that I want to ask you as well.  
 
In your walk with God, what facets of Him have you experienced for yourself?  What are the facets of God you have yet to experience?  
Maybe you have yet to experience His divine protection over you or His friendship or faithfulness. 
God has always been compassionate toward me but I was unaware of it, until the moment that God revealed it and placed it on me.  I didn’t force it or even expect it because I didn’t know I was in need of it. I have always read that “The Lord is compassionate and full of mercy” but I either applied it to everyone else or didn’t go as far as understanding that, if He is compassionate and merciful then it is something I can experience as well.
 
I want to encourage you to tuck away with your father, who loves you so very much, and ask Him what new facet of himself that He wants to reveal to you and have you walk in. If you feel unsure about hearing His voice know that He has provided the Bible as a great tool to discover more of who He is.  He is a God of justice and authority but He is also a God of deep understanding and love.  
 
Isaiah 30:18 says, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”
In that verse I can see that the Lord is gracious, merciful and just.  I also see that He is kind and patient. That means that we can walk confidently knowing that, in our day to day, He is all those things to us.
The Bible says that we should give as freely as we have received (Matthew 10:8) So I want to encourage you to step out with the understandings you receive.  Since the day that I was introduced to the Lords compassion toward me, I found myself very sensitive to other people around me who needed to experience His compassion as well.  As you receive more and more understanding of His many facets, I encourage you to ask God what else He would like you to do with that understanding. Maybe He would want you to be a vessel of his healing or a vessel of His revelation.  The Lord is faithful and desires deep connection with His children.  You are loved. 
-Christine Canas

Guard Your Heart Women’s Conference

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We are excited to come together for a one day conference to discover what it means to guard our hearts.  Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”.   Join us as we take a day to engage this truth from God’s Word.  Together we will discover why it is important to guard our hearts and how to guard our hearts.  This is going to be a beautiful time that you will not want to miss!  You will be pampered, loved on and touched by an awesome God who loves you so much!

We will have live worship, 2 powerful sessions, connecting time, ministry opportunities and so much more.  Invite every lady you know.  It will be such a rich time together in His presence.  We trust you will be forever changed and glad you came.

All ladies, high school age and up, are invited to come.  The conference is $20.00 and includes a continental breakfast and a delicious lunch on site.

Visit our facebook page for updates and registration information:

Guard Your Heart Conference – Facebook

Newness of Life

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I am loving the warmer weather, birds chirping and seeing the trees begin to bud.  I’m already enjoying longer walks, bike rides and an open sunroof!  Spring is always such a beautiful reminder to me of our Savior.  Bringing newness of life where it was previously barren.  It’s such an awesome picture of who He is to us.  He brings life and beauty in the places of our lives where we once only saw darkness, struggles and pain.  How does He do it?  How can He bring us from brokenness to wholeness, from hopeless to hopeful, from empty to full, from sorrow to joy?

Because He’s Jesus.  Yep.  That’s why.  Because Jesus… 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  In Revelation‬ ‭21:5‬, it says, “Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”  POW-ER-FUL!!

He makes ALL things new.  That means ALL things in your life…the little, the big, the easy, the complex, the spoken and unspoken.  I have found that when I experience newness of life, it is often or almost always connected to my heart.  He simply wants my heart.  An open, available, surrendered heart.

So, I would like to encourage you with this:  take a moment every day to take a deep breath and open your heart once again to Him.  Simple surrender.  And, while you’re at it, take time to enjoy the newness of the season.  Whether it’s a long walk on a sunny day or splashing through puddles during an unexpected shower, soak up the blessings of Spring. Let the sights, sounds and smells of a new season bring something new to life in you.

With love,
Kara Harper

5 Reasons Children Should Be in the Main Service for Worship

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I am an advocator of children’s church. I always have been. It is important to have children’s services that appeal to their age group for a variety of reasons. That being said, there is a movement in many churches today to always have children separated from adults for worship. Although children should have a children’s church where they can learn and worship God, they also need to regularly be in the main service to worship with the rest of the church body.

Here are five reasons I believe children should be in the main service for worship:

1.  Children should not be removed from the main body for convenience sake.
This is one reason churches remove children. They want a professional church service where adults can enjoy the worship without being disrupted by noisy children. This sounds good, but the Book of Acts never talks about having a professional service nor does the Bible talk about meeting our own selfish needs during church, but it does talk about children not being pushed aside.

Matthew 19:14—Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

2.  Children are a part of the Body of Christ.
There is nowhere in the Bible where it says children are a separate body. They are an important part of the church and shouldn’t always be excluded when the church meets.

During the Feast of Tabernacles, all of Israel would come before the Lord to hear the reading of the Law so that the children would hear it and learn to fear the Lord. In Paul’s letters to the Ephesians, he gave instructions directly to the children to obey their parents. He considered them a part of the church that he was writing to.

3.  Children need godly examples of how to worship.
If children never see adults in the main service worshipping, they won’t know how to worship or what is expected of them.

4.  Children need to feel like they are a part of the church community.
If children are always separated from the body of Christ, they will never feel like they are a part of the church community. And the members of the church will never get to know the children and be an example to them unless they work in children’s ministry.

5.  Children who don’t feel like a part of the church community will leave church when they’re older.
Imagine the culture shock of a child who has been in church all of his life but has never been in the main service. He has played games every Sunday, sang active songs, and had every message or Bible story illustrated with a skit, object lesson or interactive device.

Suddenly the child turns 10 or 12, or in some cases, 18 years old. He has graduated to big church. The music is strange. There are no games, skits or illustrations, only some guy he’s never met preaching for a half hour or longer. He doesn’t know any of the people. And there’s no candy.

Get the picture? That’s what happens to a child who is never in the main service. Within a few months, maybe even a few weeks, he decides he doesn’t want to be there. If his parents make him stay, he’ll leave as soon as he turns 18. If not, he’ll leave sooner.

He’ll look for a church that entertains him and isn’t boring. If he doesn’t find one, he’ll drop out of church. This may be why so many young people are no longer attending church. They never were a part of the church.

Why I trust the Bible: A young Christian shares why she has 100% confidence in God’s Word.

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The Bible is really not your average book. For a start it is more like a library with a range of genres. There are narratives, poems, letters, songs and much more. It has also been written over thousands of years by around 40 different authors! I think it’s safe to say that the Bible is truly something special.

The Word of God

Christians believe the Bible is the word of God. You have probably heard this before but what does this really mean? Does this mean that God himself has taken pen to paper and written the Bible as the ultimate guide to life and salvation? This would be amazing but it’s not quite like that. The Bible has actually been written by people but inspired by God. The Bible itself claims that all that is written within it has come from God.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16

This verse is talking about all Scripture, meaning the Old Testament and the New Testament books of the Bible. So according to the Bible we should believe that everything in it has come from God. As Christians, the Bible is a key part of our faith. What is written in the Bible is important to us and it is where our main beliefs have come from. So, do Christians believe that the Bible is 100% accurate?

What does accurate mean?

I think to really get to the bottom of how accurate the Bible is we first have to know what we mean when we use the word accurate.

According to the dictionary, the word accurate can mean a few things:

  • Faithfully representing or describing the truth
  • Showing a negligible or permissible deviation from a standard: an accurate ruler
  • Without error; precise; meticulous

So in summary, accuracy is about always being as truthful as possible without mistakes.

Is this something that can be said of the Bible?

Is the Bible true?

I don’t think the Bible tells us every fact about every subject in life but I do believe that everything it does talk about is true. This has to take into account the context, like when something was written and whom it was written to.

The Bible is also one of the most historically accurate books of all time. This is not just an opinion held by Christians but also opinion by leading academics. Time and time again Biblical accounts have been closely studied in its original historical context and have been proven to be true. This gives me great confidence in the Bible.

Does the Bible have mistakes?

If you believe that the Bible is the word of God then it wouldn’t make sense to also believe that the Bible has mistakes. The Bible is inspired by God and therefore I trust it to be true.

I know all too well that the Bible is not always easy to understand but this does not mean it is full of mistakes, therefore making it untrue. The main point and purpose of the Bible is to reveal God’s salvation plan, which is fulfilled in Jesus. Sometimes things in the Bible don’t make sense right away but this should not stop us from believing. Instead we should investigate further and look for the truth in what is being said.