In God We (Should) Trust.

"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people"

-Proverbs 14:34

"Dear God,

Why do you alllow so much violence in schools?

Signed, A concerned student.

Dear Student,

I'm not allowed in schools.

Love, God"

October 7, 1801

The Danburry Baptist Association wrote President Thomas Jefferson a letter

concerning the interferance of the government in religious concerns, doctrine, and practices.

"Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty — That Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals — That no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious Opinions — That the legitimate Power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor..."

January 1, 1802

President Jefferson wrote back.

He agreed with the Baptists and said not to worry

 "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

These letters merely state that the government will have no involvement in matter of religion.

NOT that religion will have no involvement in government.

The First Amendment never intended to separate Christian principles from government. yet today we so often heart the First Amendment coupled with the phrase "separation of church and state." The First Amendment simply states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Seperation, church, state... no where in that phrase.

"Our Founding Fathers set this great nation of ours upon the twin towers of religion and morality. Our first president, George Washington, said that anyone who would attack these twin towers could not possibly consider themselves to be a loyal American. Not only did they set us up as a nation under God, but a nation founded upon the Judaic-Christian principles summarized in the words, "The laws of nature and the laws of nature’s God," words that we find in the Declaration of Independence."

found here.

Jefferson's letter was misinterpreted.

And now America is suffering the consequences.

Since the seperation of church and state,

so many people are trying to take God out of everything.

God is what our country was founded on!

"The United States of America and Canada were founded by our Forefathers based on religion and thus should remain so! When we take prayer out of school or change 'In God We Trust' on American money or 'under God' in the pledge, then you are changing what your Forefathers fought for and your standard cultures.

When a person from another country comes to either the U.S. or Canada they should be expected to follow all laws of that country. As far as religious preferences they have the freedom to have their own religions, churches and temples. They DO NOT have the right to change the culture or laws of the new country they chose to live in!

Some higher person in Government is making changes that don't need to be made. When I went to school we sang the National Anthem of our country and all races in my classroom had to stand for that because they had chosen to live in OUR country. However, when the Lord's Prayer was said those of a different faith could remain in their seats. It was a simple solution; caused no fuss or muss and it should still be that way today."

found here.

Here we are in 2012.
Our economy is failing. Our government is corrupt.
There is more violence, sex, drugs, diseases, profanity, abortion, hatred, and killing than ever before.
And Americans want to know why.

YOU LET THIS IN WHEN YOU TOOK GOD OUT.

"Do not be deceived. God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. for he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith."
-Galations 6:7-10

So what can we do now?

P R A Y

"If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land"
-2 Chronicles 7:14

America needs a healing from God.
But he will not do it unless we ask.
We are so determined to push God away from us and to keep him away from all the we do.
So he doesn't interfere.

But not because he leaves or forsakes us.
But because WE move away from him!

So I ask you today good people of America...
What are you going to do?

"And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for you this day whom you will serve whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"
-Joshua 24:15

The choice is yours.
The time is now.


Dear Lord,
I pray to you the prayer in Psalm 57:1-3
"Be merciful to me, O God. Be merciful to me. For my soul trusts in you; and in the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by. I will cry out to God most high, to God who performs all things for me. He shall send from Heaven and save me. He reproaches the one who would swallow me up. God shall send forth his mercy and truth."
Father be with my countrymen. Be with all of them in our desperate times. Bring them comfort and healing. But also Father, open their minds and their hearts to receive your will. Show us all the way. Bring us out of this despair and corruption and show us how to get your light.
Show us what we need to do to fix what once was the greatest nation.
 Show us how we can take out those who wish to do evil against you and bring forth a leader whose heart is deeply invested in you Father. Please be with us.
Amen.

Lukewarm Christians

We've all done it.

Drawn a bath.

You run the water as hot as you can stand it.

Maybe put some bath salts or bubbles in it.

Maybe light candles.

Make it as soothing as possible.

Then something happens.

The kids start crying, the phone rings, someone knocks on the door.

Distractions.

So you leave that hot bath water.

To go tend to whatever it is that is going on in your life.

One thing after another...

Until finally we can return to our bath.

But then, it's not hot anymore.

It has become lukewarm.

This is what happens to our spiritual lives a lot of times.

We are On Fire in our spiritual walk with God

We get so excited and start indulging in everything we can to get our fill of God's love.

We go to church everytime the door is open,

we read our bibles and do our devotions everyday,

we pray non stop,

we sign up for everything on our church calendar, etc.

But then life sets in.

Things start coming up and we start getting distracted.

We stop having consistency in our spiritual lives.

And like our bath water, we leave our spiritual lives to tend to the other things.

One thing after another.

And by the time we get through all those things and get back to God

We have become lukewarm.

We have been distracted from God.

We have put other things before him.

And that On Fire determination we once had has now fizzled out.

The problem is, like we do with our baths, we leave it lukewarm.

We get in the bath anyways.

Just like we become content with our spiritual lives to be lukewarm.

Instead of running new bath water.

Reigniting our spiritual lives and seeking out ways to once again be On Fire for the Lord.

But God HATES lukewarm Christians.

"I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth."

Revelations 3:15-16

And if God hates when we lose our passion about him,

 why are we okay to become content with it?

We should hate being lukewarm just as much as he does!

God would rather us be COLD than lukewarm

O U C H.

So how do we fix it?

It spells it out perfectly in Colossians 3:2

"Set your minds on things above, not on things of the earth"

It's as simple as that.

Anytime we feel ourselves getting distracted from God.

When we feel as though we are making our earthly responsibilities more important than our responsibility to God...

We need to put ourselves in check.

We need to stop what we are doing and pray for God to forgive us for being distracted.

And ask that God ignite that fire in our hearts again.

Dear Lord,

Forgive me for ever being lukewarm. Forgive me for ever being distracted. Forgive me for putting earthly things ahead of you. For you are what my focus should always be on. You are the most important thing. And I need to live my life in that way. Father help me to be reminded of this constantly. Help me to always put you first. Help me to not become distracted by the world, but instead be distracted away from the world by you. Help me to continue daily to seek you and to always be On Fire for you Lord. Thank you. I love you. Amen.

God Gave Me You.

"God Gave Me You"

We've all probably heard this song, sang by Blake, to his lovely wife Miranda. 

It's a song written by a man about his wife. 

But also a song thanking God for creating them for each other. 

It's a beautiful, and sweet song. 

Many of us have set the lyrics as our facebook statuses.

We have the ringtone, and we text the lyrics to our sweeties. 

Cutsie stuff.

But has anyone ever stopped to think of what it really means?

Think of the power behind the statement?

God gave me you...

I did.

While laying in bed this morning, God put that line of the song on my heart.

And the power in those words resonated in my heart.
God created us for each other.
We were made with one significant other in mind.
He made us so that we could complete the other.
Soulmates.


Genesis 2:18-24

¹⁸ The LORD God said, 

“It is not good for the man to be alone.

 I will make a helper suitable for him.”

 ¹⁹ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. 

He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; 

and whatever the man called each living creature,

 that was its name. 

²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, 

the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

   But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 

²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; 

and while he was sleeping, 

he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 

²² Then the LORD God made a woman 

from the rib he had taken out of the man, 

and he brought her to the man.

 ²³ The man said,

   “This is now bone of my bones 

   and flesh of my flesh; 

she shall be called ‘woman,’ 

   for she was taken out of man.”

 ²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

I could use so many other verses to try and relate to this post.
But this one just seemed to be the one God kept leading me to.
It's the perfect example of how we are literally created for one another to be a partner.
Woman was created for man, to walk by his side, and help him.

Each of us have someone God created us for.
And on God's time in God's way, we will find that person.
And that person will give meaning to
"When you know you know"

Dear Lord,
Thank you for putting this on my heart. It has given me such a greater understanding on what love truly means. What is really is to find that one person you have created me for. The person that I am to complete. There is such a power and a beauty behind that. Help to open my eyes and my heart to receive that person. Help me to receive them and to walk side by side with them all the days of my life. 
Thank you. I love you. Amen.

Colossians 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Today, I planned on posting about something entirely different.

But God woke me up this morning and told me to get on facebook.

Weird right?

Anyways, once logged on, he directed me towards my boss's page.

And there I found the link to the newpaper article about her husband's uncle who had been killed recently in an accident.

He was hit by a drunk driver while riding his motorcycle in Florida.

From what I've heard he was a good man and came from a wonderful family.

This accident was tragic and very unexpected.

Anyways, I know that the family has been having a very hard time coping with the loss.

My boss posted the link to the article so that friends and other family could see what happened.

In the article they quoted my boss's husband who is the nephew of the man who was killed.

The exact quote was this

"Nephew,---- ------, said his uncle went to church every day and added: ‘As Christians, we can’t just throw blame and say she was drunk. You can’t have hate in your heart. You just can’t.’



... um can you say WOW.

If that were me, I'd be furious.

It's so hard to forgive those who have hurt us isn't it?

The Lord knows I've had my fair share of hurt in my life.

And I've also hurt others too many times in my life.

But we never want to forgive.

It means letting our guards down for someone who we just don't feel deserve that.

I'm the worst.

 If someone hurts me, I close them off and shut them out.

I never forgive, never forget.

That person is never allowed to be part of my life again.

This isn't God's way.

This isn't a good Christian.

The things that touched me the most by this article though, the thing I truly believe God wanted me to see and to share with you, is a comment made under the article.

If you've ever read a news article on a newspaper's website,

you know there is a section for readers to leave their comments.

Anyways, this comment was left:

"Sounds like the victim's family actually embody the TRUE meaning of Christianity - forgiveness and unwillingness to judge (in the face of great personal tragedy) - and I say this as an Atheist. I applaud their selflessness (not sure I could be so forgiving given the circumstances)

- ladybritish, Expat in NC USA, 19/3/2012 18:32"

EVEN MORE WOW!!

Isn't this, what we as Christians, should strive for?

For others to be able to look at us and just feel the power of God.

In our actions. In our words.

And for an atheist to say they "embody the TRUE meaning of Christianity"

That gives me chills.

I want to be that kind of Christian.

I want to be able to exude God's presence in such a way that someone can just be around me and know that the power of the Lord is around me and the love of God is in my heart.

I want people to just look at me and say "I want what she has"

Not the kind that the world has turned "Christians" into.

The hypocritical, judgemental, unforgiving, unloving, closed off, "body of Christ"

Y U C K.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for blessing my life so richly with your goodness and love. Thank you for bestowing your grace upon me. Thank you for forgiving me. You sent your ONLY son to this world to die for my sins, so that I could have a relationship with you. Help me to love like that. Help me to forgive like that. I want to be more like you Father. I want to be so much like you that people can just feel you surrounding me whenever they glance in my direction. I want to inspire others to come to know you because they want to experience the same divine intervention that I have in my own life. I want to show others what your love and grace is all about. Help me to be the Christian you desire me to be Father. Help me to love. Help me to forgive. Help me to not be judgemental. Help me to be selfless. Thank you. I love you. Amen.

A Godly Woman

"A woman's heart must be so hidden in God that a man has to seek him to find her"

-Maya Angelou

Every christian woman and some non believing women have heard of the

Proverbs 31 woman.

Her husband cherishes her.

Her children "rise up and call her blessed"

She is strong and hardworking.

She helps the poor and needy

She is brave and noble.

She is wise and faithful to the Lord.
She is a good mother and a good wife.

She balances her family, work, and home.

She is a God fearing woman.

She is God's perfect example as to what all women should aspire to be.

One verse throughout the whole chapter that has always stood out to me

is Proverbs 31:30

"Charm is deceitful, beauty is passing. But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised"

A M A Z I N G

It's somewhat confusing to those of you who don't understand.

And don't fret it you are that person who doesn't get it completely.

Different verses speak different things to different people.

And that's okay :)

It's whatever God puts in your heart.

But to me, it is as simple as this.

Let's look at

"Charm is deceitful..."

charm 1. a power of pleasing or attracting, as through personality or beauty

Anyone can appear charming. It's an easy trait to fake.

Just have a few manners, mind your p's and q's and anyone will fall for it.

People, women especially, put so much emphasis on charm.

They believe men should be "Prince Charming"

They are easily fooled by the sweet mannerisms and smiles sent their way.

The Wolf hiding beneath the surface, waiting to attack.

Deceitful

People tend to make charm such a big deal, that they forget what is really important.

Now let's look at

"...beauty is passing..."

beau·ty 1. the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind.

So many times in the World, people have been deceived into putting so much emphasis on beauty.

But it's a superficial beauty.

Make up, hair do's, fancy clothes, shoes and purses.

Who can be the skinniest and look like Victoria Secret models.

We've forgotten that in time, all of this will fade away.

Passing

In everyone's life, we age.

Our youthful looks fade and we beging to get wrinkles, dark spots, and grey hair.

(not saying age isn't beautiful, im referring to the superficial beauty)

All of a sudden the World forgets about us and no longer considers us beautiful.

But here's the most important thing

"... But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised"

A God fearing woman is something to boast about.

Women who have a strong walk with God are a magnificent thing.

They are often prayer warriors, spiritual leaders, missionaries, teachers, etc.

They bring God's word into their homes and teach his ways to their families.

To me a God fearing woman is the backbone to a strong family.

She sits at her man's right hand and fights satan away with him.

Nothing is more powerful than that... except God himself.

A God fearing woman should be recognized.

She should be praised by her friends and family.

Obviously, women who have an On Fire relationship with the Lord are important to humanity.

God put it in the bible.

So should we as Christians worry about being superficially beautiful or putting on a facade of being charming?

Or should we strive to be God fearing, On Fire, Christians with a strong walk with God?

Dear Lord,

Thank you for putting this verse on my heart. Thank you for allowing me to find it and thank you for allowing it to touch my heart and mean so much to me. Being On Fire for you is the most important thing to me. I strive to be closer to you everyday of my life, and keeping this verse in my heart is a wonderful daily reminder to strive to do just that. I want so badly to be like the Proverbs 31 woman.

I want to be that strong, courageous, brave, faithful, loving, caring, God Fearing woman you intended me to be. So Father, help me. I know I can't do it alone. Continue to remind me of your love and the sacrifice your son made for me on the cross that day. Burden my heart and weigh it heavy when I fall short of your glory and remind me to rejoice daily for all of your wonders and your mercies. Thank you for blessing my life so richly Father. Help me to stay on the right path, so that I may continue to walk with you. Thank you. I love you. Amen.

Introduction

For a long time, I've been passionate about writing.
My biggest problem is always that I can never find anything that I'm passionate to write about.
Well all of a sudden God put it on my heart and made me realize exactly what I need to be doing.

Everyday, I seek God.
I look for him everywhere.
I have been on a journey to find God in all the different aspects of my life.
Seeking to find a more passionate, ON FIRE, relationship with him.

I want so desperately to be in love with God.
To be so passionate and so deeply induldged in his word that the only way anyone can understand me is to seek him for themselves.
I want to live my life for him completely and inspire others to do the same.

I think I've finally found my calling.
I have finally found what I feel in my heart God wants me to do.
I've prayed and prayed that he would use me for his greater good.
Whatever talents or passions, whatever gifts he blessed me with, I wanted to use for him.
And now I am.

God put it on my heart, randomly at work this morning.
I need to use this little blog world of ours to share his words.
I needed to use my blog as an outlet to spread the word of salvation, love, understanding, and caring of our savior with the rest of the world.
I'm not the world's best writer, but that doesn't matter.
Because everything I write will be coming straight from God himself, into my heart, and out onto the "pages" of this blog.

I found the inspiration to do this while reading my daily "Proverbs 31 Ministries" email.
I get the email everyday and read it first thing when I get to work.
I love the way it's set up.
They use a scripture that God put on their hearts and then relate it to a story in their own personal lives.
And then at the very end, they pray.
It's beautiful and so touching.
I want my blog to be set up somewhat similar.
Not exactly the same.
The format might change from day to day, depending on how God lays it on my heart to write it.
But it will be my daily devotion, published for the public to read.
It's also a good way to hold myself accountable to do my devotion daily, which is good for me, because sometimes I tend to forget ;)

ANYWAYS, now that my ranting is over, here is my blog ON FIRE.
Hope you enjoy :)
And please leave feedback, its always appreciated!

-Kristen S

                Dear Lord,
Thank you for bringing this idea into my heart. Thank you for leading me to find what I could do to spread your word with the world. I pray Lord that you use me and this blog to touch lives. I want so desperately for you to use me up in every way possible to bring your children to you Father. And also, help this blog help me. Help me to keep an open heart and an open mind when writing this blog and studying your word. Help me to have understanding and lead me in whatever way you desire me to go. Thank you, I love you. Amen.