Pardon me.

What kind of Instrument are you?

There are all kinds of instruments, stringed, wind, drums etc. Instruments can vary in different ways, some can be flat, some sharp, some off key, some beautiful tones like they were made to make.  My favorite is the organ, I love to play the organ, it is such a smooth sounding instrument and can offer the best in music, I think.  But when you come down to it, I love music, all kinds, I should say most kinds.  I don't like loud, harsh tones, tones that clash and crash and make no sense.

We are God's instruments, instruments of love, joy, peace or we can be Satan's instruments of hate, unhappiness, and unsettled, so what kind of instrument are we?  Do we put out beautiful tones of highest quality that soothe, strengthen and help others or are we putting out just the opposite?  It is very important that we are God's instruments of love, joy and peace.

Romans 6:13  "And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."

I bet you are wondering what ever brought up this subject, well there is a reason and you guessed it, it is something that I needed to learn and so what I learn I share with you.  I learned that I am God's instrument and I want to be but I have to be a humble instrument that He can use and speak through and not take any credit to myself and I am very willing to do that, but have to be very careful that no glory goes to me.  So the lesson learned is that in order to be God's instrument, it takes being humble and willing to share whatever He puts on my heart that I need and then to share it with you.  That's is what I am trying to do by God's grace.

Do you want to be His instrument too?  Then take to heart what He is teaching me and let Him make you His humble instrument to His glory and honor.  May we all be His humble instruments today.  Grandma Joan
Have a great day in the Lord.

All Things.

Spiritual darkness is a tragedy this day and age and it is all around us.  No matter who we meet or where we go it is there in some form or another.  It comes to us in thoughts, it comes to us by others hurting us, sometimes we bring it about ourselves by slipping out of God's presence so what is the remedy?  By now you can probably answer that question but I have some verses that will help you a lot.

2 Peter 1:3  "According as His divine power hath given unto us 'All Things' that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us to glory and virtue."

'All Things' that pertain to life and godliness. That means a lot, think about it, our whole life with godliness on top of it.  Is there any darkness in glory and virtue, I think not.  We need to keep the darkness away but we can't do it on our own..

Philippians 4::13 "I can do 'All Things' through Christ which strengthens me."  Keep in mind who it is that gives us the strength to do 'All Things'

Romans 8:32  "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us 'All Things'."  His sacrifice in our behalf was given so that we could be the participant in the 'All Things' that pertain to life and godliness.

Mark 9:23  "Jesus said unto him, 'If thou canst believe, 'All Things' are possible to him that believeth."
Belief is a hard thing to conjure up but we don't even have to do that but we do have to do something and it is found in Romans 10:17  "So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God."  So our belief comes by reading the word of God or listening to it this day and age on your ipod.  The more time we spend in the word, the more our belief in God will grow.  And the darkness will disappear.  You could say that the depression will disappear.

Mark 10:27  last part "For with God 'All Things' are possible."

With God we can stay in His presence and we can spend time in His word and build ourselves up in our most holy faith and with God 'All Things' are possible.  Drive the darkness in your life away with God's word and by staying in His presence this day, we only have one day at a time to live and that makes it a lot more simple than trying to live our life time on our own.  "For without faith it is impossible to please Him."
So stay in His presence and keep in His word each day and the darkness that haunts you will flee away.  I really believe that because I have experienced it.  Grandma Joan

PS.  I really needed this one today, and it did help tremendously and I hope it will help you as much as it has helped me.  God bless you.

Accomplishing nothing?

Do you ever feel like you are accomplishing nothing?  Do you like to worry about things?   Does it help you when you worry about it?  Most of the time it makes things worse.  Because things aren't working out like you thought they should you start wondering what is happening in your life and you can get all depressed and feeling blue and that isn't good either.

Because I tend to be a worry wort and need some help, I am going to pass on what I am learning to you.  It doesn't pay to worry.  I know that from experience but it is such a common thing to do when we do not stay in Christ's presence.  I have found the help that I need.

In Matthew 6:31-34  "Therefore do not worry , saying, 'What shall we eat? or 'What shall we drink?' or What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek.  For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

What are we to do to not have to worry about these things that He knows we need?  Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.  I believe that is the key to stop worrying.
I don't worry a lot anymore, but I do have a tendency to worry if things just don't happen when I think they should.  Sometimes I just call it concern, but it really is a cover up for what I am really doing.

I have found that when I practice what I 'preach'  and stay in His presence all day, I have less tendency to worry or to even think about things to worry about.  I am really stuck on staying in His presence all the time.
When I feel that I am wandering outside of His presence, I just pray, 'please keep me in Your presence' and things are much better.

You will probably get tired of me slipping in this subject every day but it really is the secret to a much happier life and God does provide the solutions when we provide the conditions and the condition to worrying is seeking Him first, I would say seek His presence first thing in the morning and then seek to stay there all through the day.  Happy seeking and then stay there.  Grandma Joan

No Good Thing.

Do you like good things to happen to you?  I do, I get all excited when things turn out well and even better than I thought.  Sometimes it is a surprise and we are overwhelmed with the way things happen.  

What if no good thing ever happened to you, how would you feel?  It would be so disappointing to always looking forward to something and it turned out that it wasn't good at all.  I have been in both situations and know what disappointments feel like and I also know when a good thing happens what it feels like to be elated over it.  The good things are what keeps us going and when bad things happen we tend to get down in the dumps so to speak.  It is not a good feeling.

My verse today is a good one as usual,  found in Psalms 84:11  "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."  No good thing will He withhold, but there is a condition for this promise, what is it?
From them that walk uprightly.  If you are staying in His presence, you are walking uprightly.  I have found that when something happens to upset me, I just ask the Lord to 'keep me in His presence' and the thing whatever it was becomes insignificant and doesn't bother me anymore.  We can do that with bad thoughts, or mistakes that we make and we can stay in His presence all day long and then we are walking uprightly.

Then it is that 'no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly'.  I love this verse, it really meant a lot to me when I read it this morning.  I hope it helps you to walk closer to God and receive of His promises.  This particular promise is a wonderful promise, but it is not a frivolous promise, it has meaning to the one who is walking with God. So stay in His presence and walk close to Him this day so that He can pour out His good things in your life.

I hope that you are enjoying my worship times that I am sharing with you each day.  They are sure helping me to have a closer walk with God and the promises that I am sharing are bringing new meaning to my life, I hope they are doing the same for you.  May God bless you as you walk with Him.  Grandma Joan

In All the Wrong Places.

Have you ever gone searching for something and discovered that you did all your searching in all the wrong places?  I have and then when you find what you are looking for, you discover that it was just exactly where you put it.  Sometimes it is just laid down without thinking and it is in the wrong place.

I have discovered when searching for truth, the only place to find it is in the Scriptures.  We can search all our lives in the wrong places for peace, joy and love and all the other fruits of the Spirit and never find what really fills the heart up to overflowing, until we decide to go to the Scriptures for the help we need and then all of a sudden we see what we have been missing.  It was misplaced on a shelf, on the coffee table for decoration or to make people think we read it and we are Christians and we have to dust it off and bring it out to read and study to find those things we have been searching for in all the wrong places.

We are told to "Seek the Lord while He may be found and to call upon Him while He is near."  Isaiah 55:6.
It sounds like we may not always have this blessed privilege.  Also in Matthew 7:7 it says, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you."  A beautiful promise is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14 which says, "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 sin and heal their land."

The trouble with us as God's people is, "For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus."

The world really has nothing to offer us as far as the heart goes.  Only Christ can fill the heart with heavenly attributes and He is willing to do that IF we will humble ourselves and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways.  Then He will hear us and heal us of our deformities.

As we have been learning to come into His presence and now while we are in His presence, seek His face and not our own things, we will find what we have been looking for in all the wrong places.  The right place to search for what is missing in our lives is God's book, it is a letter of love to us who live in this dark world of sin.  So my friends, seek Him while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near and stay in His presence throughout this day, it works wonders in our lives.  I can testify to that.  Grandma Joan

Are your fears overwhelming at times?

Yes, fears can be overwhelming at times.  I have had several experiences through life that have caused me to fear and be afraid.  Most of the time it has been people that have tried to hurt me that has caused most of my fear.  And then the fear grows into something that is overwhelming and uncontrollable until you fear just about anything.  It isn't fun at all and it ruins life's greatest pleasures.  It can ruin our relationship with God and cause us to fear Him.  Satan loves to knock us down and try to keep us there, doesn't he?

I got to the place where I couldn't speak in front of people without shaking and my voice quivering and one time I even burst into tears.  And then we isolate ourselves because of circumstances unavoidable and that doesn't help at all.  Then you fear making friends, going places where there are people and like I just said it can ruin life's greatest pleasures which mostly involve people.

So this morning I am going to try and help my fears dissolve, are you with me?  These promises will help us overcome these prison house fears.

Psalms 34:4  "I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."

Isaiah 41:13  "For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee."

Hebrews 13:5  "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

Isaiah 44:8  "Fear ye not, neither be afraid."

These are great promises are they not?  Why do we fear when we have a great God that says He will be with us and help us.  Then there are two more verses that will really help us.

1 John 4:18  "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear; because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love."  Isn't that the truth, the Bible always points us to things right where we need it most.  Fear has torment, that is so very, very true.  If we are filled with fear we cannot be made perfect in love.

2 Timothy 1:7  "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love, and of a sound mind."

This is what we need, a spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  Wouldn't you agree with that?

This is our promise for today, so wipe away all your fears and let God give you power, love and a sound mind.  These things come from above and are a great blessing.  I am going to contemplate this today as I stay in His presence as we have been learning and pray that He will cast out all my fears and fill me with 

power, love and a sound mind.  How about you?  God bless you as you stay in His presence today and let Him wipe away all your fears.  Grandma Joan