A beautiful day begins with a beautiful mindset. Do you have a morning routine? Maybe you work out, or solve the daily Wordle, or do your devotion in the Bible App. Is there something that you wake up and know you have to do with no room for negotiations? What happens when you miss that appointment with yourself? Does it throw your day off?
When I don’t do my morning routine I definitely feel off. My morning just doesn’t start off on the right foot. I’m going through a season where I’m trying to “reset” my morning routine. My girls have various extracurriculars that have them to school at different times each day of the week. On top of that, my husband’s work schedule changed for the past month, which altered our mornings even more! I need consistency in my morning now more than ever! I know that when I have a plan and stick to it, my mindset for the day is so much better. It sets the tone for the day, and feels like I’ve accomplished something, even if it was just the daily puzzle! Having a commitment, no matter how big or small, and achieving it first thing, is an immediate win. If you don’t already have a morning routine I encourage you to pick one thing to do before the rest of your day starts. If you’re like me and need a reset, this is your encouragement to do just that! If you're unsure of what to do, talk to God about it. Ask Him how he wants you to start your day. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” - Hebrews 13:8
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J Warner Wallace was a cold case homicide detective in Los Angeles. And he was not a Christian. His Christian friend told him to use his detective skills to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to find out if they are reliable eyewitness accounts. What happened? J Warner Wallace became a Christ-follower! He summarizes four tests that he was trained to apply to eyewitnesses. He applied these tests to the Gospels and realized that they are trustworthy accounts, and therefore Jesus really is God in the flesh who died and rose again. Here are the four tests:
Following Jesus is intellectually satisfying because the Gospels are reliable eyewitness accounts of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Check out the short video below with J Warner Wallace! I’m sitting in the dark writing this blog post by candle light. I came home to another power outage. There was only enough time to put my groceries in the refrigerator and light a candle, before the sun disappeared behind the hills and shot it’s colorful rays into the twilight.
As I sit here watching the flickering flame cast its dancing shadows across the paper, I can’t help but think of the blessing of light. It’s something I don’t always appreciate until I’m sitting in the dark. There is so much I can’t see! I lived a portion of my life that way- “spiritually” sitting in the dark. I didn’t know what I was missing, because I couldn’t see it. Darkness hides a lot of things. Just one candle lights this page enough for me to write, and it was just one Name that brought light into my life enough to cast out the darkness and expose everything hidden there. One Light shines bright enough to change a life and He is Jesus. He’s the light of the world and the light that shines in our hearts. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” -John 8:12 “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” -2 Corinthians 4:6 It’s one thing to sit in a dark house when the electricity is off, it’s entirely another to live in the dark. Jesus offers us life in the light. All we have to do is follow Him, and He lights the way! Charlotte ❤️ Is the Bible a reliable source of information about historical events? Many people would say “no” simply because the Bible records miracles: Walking on water, turning a few fish and loaves of bread into a feast to feed thousands, turning water into wine, and the list goes on. But as we already established, miracles are possible if God exists. And the evidence is overwhelming that God does exist! So if miracles are possible, are the miracles written about in the Bible historically accurate? All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. -2 Timothy 3:16 Below is a short video that answer the question “Is the Bible reliable?” I hope you enjoy it! If God is real and my eternal destiny depends on believing in Him, why doesn’t he prove Himself to me and to more people? This is not a new question. People have asked this question for centuries. The 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote regrading this question: "God so regulates the knowledge of Himself that He has given indications of himself, which are visible to those who seek Him and not to those who do not seek Him. There is enough light for those to see what only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition." -Blaise Pascal And more recently, C.S. Lewis answered this question in his book Screwtape Letters. In order to wrap your mind around this quote, it is essential to remember that this is written from the perspective of a demon giving advice to a younger demon: "You might have wondered why the Enemy (God) does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo." -C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters) The Bible says that God had already done more than enough to reveal Himself to us, but we choose to reject such knowledge as we are afraid of what the truth might mean for our own lives. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. -John 1:18 If you want to watch a short video on today's topic, see below. Happy October! This month the freedom writers are writing on harvest blessings. 😊
When thinking about harvest blessings the first things that comes to my mind are apples, pumpkins and persimmons. But what about special things that occur to make an ordinary day extraordinary? A Story… Mom and I have lunch together on Fridays. We were finishing up our meal at a local restaurant and she asked if I could go to the counter and pay the bill. The woman behind the counter looked sad, so, I asked her how she was doing and she said “okay”, but not very convincingly. I decided to ask a few more questions and she shared that she had had to do a hard thing that morning but she knew the outcome would be good. I felt compelled to tell her that if she was doing a hard thing with a good outcome then she was showing a lot of courage. The woman’s eyes instantly filled with tears and she said that “She needed to hear that.” She allowed me to console her with a hug… Spending time with God allowed me to show up with love. I noticed and asked questions and He gave me a word that I couldn’t have known that she needed to hear. My harvest blessing. A Scripture… Going out from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So, he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. – Matthew 12: 9-13 An observation… Harvest blessings. They abound! – and if we look a little deeper and act with God, they provide meaning and purpose to our lives in all season of life! Harvest Blessings to You! With Love, Christina Many people dismiss the accuracy of the Bible because in its pages we read of miracles. The skeptic thinks, “Miracles aren’t possible; therefore the Bible isn’t true.” The mistake many make is that they think that supernatural events are impossible. As I wrote about several weeks ago, the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God shows that it is reasonable to believe that the supernatural does indeed exist. Why? Because the scientific and philosophical evidence is overwhelming that the material universe is NOT all that there is, and that there must be a spaceless, timeless, immaterial cause of the material universe. And if God exists, then miracles are at least possible. And if miracles are possible, then the miracles we read about in the Bible are also possible. The parting of the Red Sea. The flood. Jesus walking on water. These are all at least possible if God does indeed exist. In the coming weeks I’ll be writing more about why it is reasonable to believe that miracles are not only possible, but actual. And of course the central miracle in the Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, it is most certainly intellectually satisfying to follow Jesus. If you want to watch a short video on miracles, see below. I am not a trained philosopher or scientist, but those who are say that one of the most foundational questions is this: Why does anything exist at all? Philosophers speak of contingent existence and necessary existence. Things that exist contingently are things that don’t have to exist. Things that exist necessarily are things that cannot not exist. There are very few things that necessarily exist. Most of the things we are familiar with are things that exist contingently: cars, houses, people, and even the universe itself. It is possible to conceive of any of these things simply not existing. All of these things that exist contingently are caused by something else. So there must be something that exists necessarily (and is uncaused) in order for anything to exist at all. To me, this is strong evidence that God exists. In the Bible we see that God calls himself “I am.” And Jesus repeats this claim, saying “before Abraham was born, I am.” The Gospel of John also opens up with the famous prologue: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. -John 1:1-5 So why does anything exist? Because God exists. If God does not exist, we are hard pressed to explain why anything exists at all. Believing in the existence of God is a very reasonable belief. If you want to watch a short video on the Contingency Argument for the existence of God, you'll find it below. My brother-in-law was hurt in a work-related accident. My heart was compelled to go visit and sit with my sister as she faced this new reality. My heart said “go” but my head did not want to enter that ICU room with her and see the state of my brother.
When I walked into the room, I look towards the hospital bed and noticed that sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and I experienced myself pulling away both with my body and my emotions. Then, I paused… and asked myself: “Is this how I want to show up for my sister and brother-in-law in their time of need?” As a result, I was able to decide to act the way I would want someone to act if I was the grieving wife or the injured husband in the bed. This month the freedom writers are writing about the idea of “abide”. How can one little word be so simple and yet so full? Some of the definitions from Webster: to bear patiently; to endure without yielding; to wait for; to accept without objection. intransitive verb: to remain stable or fixed in a state; to continue in a place: SOJOURN So…abiding in God, would be a way of waiting patiently for God and yielding without objection to what He shows us with stability and consistency. WOW! I was able to pause and notice because God was with me in that room. He had asked me to be there for my sister. I was able to pause because I was acting in love. I was able to pause because of God’s great love for me. It has been my experience that I am only able to “wait patiently for God and yield without objection, when I make time to invite God into my day and ask what He wants me to do. I am then able to truly know that He is with me in the day to day. And I can hold my sister’s hand as we together pray for my brother’s healing in an ICU room. I sat by my sister’s side that day and was even able to talk to and touch my brother’s hand. Time with God made me aware of His strength and enabled me to love. Mother Teresa said, “There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. She added, “Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.” With Love, Christina Warmest greetings beautiful women of Cold Springs Church and community,
It's my joy to share with you this encouragement that's been on my heart and mind this week. As women, we inherently have a tendency to judge ourselves harshly and hold ourselves to a very high standard of conduct and performance. Perhaps it's because we are so many things to so many people at the same time. What a gift that is! We are each made up of varying degrees of mother/daughter, professional/career, woman and spiritual being, among many other things. This can easily turn our minds to the desire to do more, achieve higher, love more sacrificially. The great news is that this guilt-evoking self-talk undermines the very foundation of our Savior's GRACE for us! Our Heavenly Father wants us to REST in the assurance of his perfect love. He approves of you and I continuously for we are made in His image and clothed in His righteousness. Take a deep breath in that there is now no condemnation for you sister in Christ! You are enough and you're doing a great job! Caution yourself against the tendency for anxious works to creep in and steal the joy that God intended for you and I. "I delight greatly in the Lord, my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Isaiah 61:10 |
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