abandoned to Christ.

The great comfort that comes from Psalm 14:6 (that I never noticed before) reminds my downcast heart of my Savior's great comfort, protection, and spiritual sustenance that I needed to hear today...and I didn't even know it. Truly, my God and Father loves me so perfectly in Christ Jesus my Lord, that He knows what I need, even before I ask. I was greatly comforted by this verse because as Dr. Steve Lawson teaches, the “poor” spoken of in Psalm 14:6 aren’t necessarily those who are poor in the things of this world, but it is speaking of eternal poverty—those who remain dead in their trespasses and therefore, have not the riches of eternal life in Christ our Lord. In the short clip below, Dr. Steve Lawson does well to teach us that  those who hate God's Word; regardless of their profession of loving Him (2 Tim 3:1-8, 12),  torment all who desire to live godly lives. Just as Satan masquerades as an angel of light, so do those who are enslaved to do his will (2 Tim...

God's timing is always perfect (cf. Is 30:18, Mt. 6:8). Needing to recover from a recent erruption of verbal friendly-fire (Christians assaulting Christians) , where I was greatly discouraged for sharing the Gospel with anyone the Lord leads me to (family, friends, neighbors, strangers, etc.), the Lord provided me with abundant comfort and strength through His Word, my darling husband, and my oldest son. And as if that weren't enough, my ever gracious Father also provided me more encouragement through soundly biblical and exhorting books*, sermons and articles. One of the articles (below) was shared today, at Ligonier Ministries . During this recent verbal attack, it was intimated that I was an unloving person because I didn't always seek to first "love" people through acts of service before I "earned the right" to share the Gospel with them. In our self-indulgent world, love has been desecrated and redefined to mean all that's warm and fu...

Though it's an icky thought to have an electronic device (pacemaker) in my chest and two electrical wires (leads) in two chambers of my heart (right atrium and ventricle), I'm grateful to the LORD for providing this medical intervention that's making my heart beat as often as it should and gradually elevate as necessary, with activity. I have a six week recovery that includes not being able to raise my left arm above my head, bear down on it, extend it back, etc. so as not to pull the leads out of my heart, which would require another surgery to put them back in. And for the first two weeks, I can't drive or do much of anything but rest, and possibly, some very light activity. Six weeks gives the tissue in my heart enough time to surround the leads and hold them in place. I never realized how many things I have to do that causes me to have to put my arms above my head (wash and brush my hair, getting dressed, reaching for a drinking glass, etc.), bear down o...

About a decade ago, I followed John Piper and his ministry "Desiring God", with great joy. I listened to sermon after sermon; purchased books for me, my darling husband, sons and sent them as gifts for friends and family. I shared links to their blog articles, retweeted their tweets, shared their materials over every social media platform I participated in, just to soak up and share what I thought at the time, was  entirely, soundly biblical wisdom. Having decided to no longer be a Jonah or Moses when they were first called by God, I was hungry for the truth as I was coming to terms with the spiritual gifts God has given me (Faith, Exhortation, and Teaching). With this hunger and resolve to have a heart more like Abraham and Isaiah, I wanted to obey God immediately —with joy, and use the gifts He so graciously bestowed upon me, for the purpose in which He gave them: For the encouragement and edification of those within the Body of Christ (Eph 4:11-16) without ...