Right…….or almost right…….

Sorry, it has been a good minute since I made a post. Been really busy and well, just didn’t feel like God had laid anything specific on my heart. This morning, I was listening to the replay of the live at five morning prayer video that Amanda and Aaron Crabb have been doing this last week. Notice I say replay? Well that is because I didn’t crawl out of my warm, soft bed at 5 am so I caught the replay of the live video. There is so much content in this mornings video but the one thing that I honed in on was when she was talking about satan and how he makes things look almost right so that we are deceived. She made, what I thought, was a good point when she said that you do not need discernment for right or wrong, you need discernment for almost right or almost wrong.

I remember going through nursing school….many many years ago…..and when it came to test time, we had multiple choice questions. There was always an obviously wrong answer out of the 4 choices. Ok, that was easy, now I have to figure out between the other 3 answers, which one is the right answer. Out of those 3 answers, there were 2 that were almost right and 1 that was the right answer. If I did not study and know the facts, I could get tripped up on one of the almost right answers. If I picked one of those 2 answers, well, the answer is still wrong. Studying for nursing and knowing the difference in right and almost right is the difference between life and death. Just reading those answers and not really “knowing” the answer, I could just pick one out of those 3 left, because all three looked right. I have a 33% chance of getting the answer right at this point. But if I had studied just a little more, and I was sure of the answer then my odds go up to 100%.

Studying the word is a lot like this. Knowing the right and wrong and discerning almost right and almost wrong can be accomplished. But we have to be in the word….. a lot. We can’t just post the scripture memes on facebook or get our daily verse on our phone and call it good. We have to know!!!!! This is something that we have to be intentional about. We can’t just be flippant with the Word. I don’t always have time to read like I need to, but I always have time for other things I want to do. This is something that I have been working on lately. Discernment is very important for our spiritual lives. We have to be able to know the absolute truth in order to be able to discern. If we don’t know the absolute truth then we fall victim to satan’s lies and we end up like Eve did in the garden. I use the word victim lightly because, I don’t feel like we should be victimizing ourselves for something that we have complete control over…..i.e. studying the Word of God. But in this instance, I will use the word victim for lack of a better term.

In Genesis 2, God told Adam not to eat of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:15And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. That is pretty clear. If you eat it, you will die. No need for discernment here as God himself has spoken and made things very clear. But then if we skip ahead, we see where the serpent deceives Eve with his crafty way of twisting the word of God. Genesis 3:1Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 6And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

If Eve had known God’s word as well as satan does, then she would have known that satan was twisting the Word and deceiving her. But because she did not know the word, she was deceived and therefore, changed the course of humanity. When we don’t know the word, we fall prey to satans lies. We are gullible to believe whatever sounds the best. We can’t be living Holy if we can’t take the time to read the bible and know the true right from wrong. Earlier I mentioned the chances of getting my answer right on one of my tests. If I looked at all 4 answers, I had a 25% chance of getting the answer right on every question. Those are not good odds. But through studying, I can increase that chance to 100%. Now when it comes to Heaven or Hell, do you want a 25% chance of making it to Heaven or a 100% chance? I know what I would pick…………………..

God Bless……………Chandelly

When I am weak…..

Happy Friday! For some of you it is probably a great start to the weekend…..the weather is cool, wet and the leaves are falling. For myself, I was looking forward to the weekend with the hubs and maybe having him take me on a little drive tomorrow. But….sometimes the plans get altered. Yesterday I tested positive for Flu A! What?? Yes, I am home with the flu….who knew the flu was still around? I actually feel pretty decent but I am very weak and tire very quickly. He isn’t feeling much better so here we are, spending the weekend together, getting on each other’s nerves……wait, we do all that anyway. So I guess this weekend isn’t much different from our other ones. I just got home from grocery pickup, yes we still have to eat, and the trip really wiped me out. I didn’t make close contact with anyone so keep your shorts on. But the short little trip to town literally exhausted me. Then I got home and started unloading the groceries on the back deck. I knew Mitch would come out and start carrying them in and sure enough, he came out the backdoor and started getting them off the deck. I honestly had to lean over the back of the car and just rest for about a minute before I grabbed the last 3 sacks and headed up the ramp.

We are like me in this situation where we sometimes get too weak to go on. But then God comes out the back door and starts carrying our groceries for us. Sounds cheesy don’t it? But it’s the truth. Where does our help come from? Where does our strength come from? Song lyrics and scripture both tell me that My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 2 My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

The Lord said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:8–9). When our human strength is lacking, God’s strength is made perfect. Our weakness gives God the chance to manifest His strength in our lives. We have the easy part…..we just have to call on His name. Another song lyric comes to mind…”When you call on Jesus….All things are possible”. Nothing is impossible with God. It may be a little difficult but it is not impossible. Now tell me that you don’t find comfort in knowing that we are never alone.

Back to Mitch, although he did come and help, that may not always be the case. Unfortunately us humans aren’t always dependable. We make plans and forget, we don’t recognize when someone is in need, we are just plain self-centered at times. But God! He will never leave us or forsake us-Hebrews 13:5. So the next time you are feeling weak, like you just can’t go on…..call on God. Let his strength carry you through the weakness because His strength is greater than any human strength. He is more dependable than anyone in your life. God loves you and He is just waiting for your cry for help……God Bless!

Let’s Be Real…..

Anyone out there remember the Coke slogan a few years ago? Can’t Beat the Real Thing? Remember that one? Well, my post today isn’t about Coke. Although an ice cold Coke Zero would sure hit the spot right now…..I have something even better to quench your thirst. But today, I want to talk about the word REAL! Real means something genuine, actually exists, not imagined or not artificial. So Coke was clever by using the word REAL in their slogan…making us think that the other cola’s were artificial.

As I was reading my Bible the other day I began to think about the word REAL. There is a song we sing at church called “My God Is Real”. It’s a catchy little tune and I love singing it. 🎶 But as I read my Bible, I also began to think of the story where Solomon tested two mothers to decide which one was the real mother. Right before he was faced with this situation, Solomon had a dream….

1 Kings 3:5 In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee 6 And Solomon said, Thou hast shewed unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. 7 And now, O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. 8 And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. 9 Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? 10 And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. 11 And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; 12 Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.

Solomon could have asked for anything but he asked for a wise and understanding heart. Ya see, sometimes I think we use God like a little genie in a bottle. We keep him bottled up in that little place until we want something. Then we start tapping the bottle and asking God where are you? Come out so I can get my wish. Why have you left me God? Aren’t you listening to me? I want this! I want that! We act like a bunch of entitled brats. And then when our magic genie doesn’t grant our wish…..we start to lose our faith. We start doubting God. We doubt that He is listening to our prayers. But are they actually prayers or just our shopping list of things we want? We question if God is even REAL! Yeah…I said it. Isn’t it the truth? How many times have we had a tragedy and heard someone say that if God was REAL then He could have prevented this tragedy?

NEWS FLASH: He is REAL! He answers all of your prayers, but there is no guarantee that He is going to answer them the way you want. We can’t just tap into our prayer life when we want something. God wants a true and authentic intimate relationship with us. He wants a REAL relationship with us. So back to Solomon……after he wakes up from his dream, he is faced with a very tough decision. Two women each had a child 3 days apart. One child dies, the other lives. They begin to fight over the living child with both saying she is the child’s mother. They go to King Solomon to make the decision of who gets to keep the child. So what does Solomon do?

1 Kings 3:24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. 25 And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. 26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. 27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof. 28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.

That sounds awful that Solomon was going to cut the child in half but, Solomon never intended to cut the child. He used that wisdom God gave him to discern who the real mother was. He knew the real mother would rather give her child up than to see it killed. The fake mother could care less about the child so she was willing to let it be killed. She wanted half of something dead. That was how Solomon figured out who was REAL and who was fake.

Do you want to know how God figures out whether we are REAL or Fake? I am glad you asked…..God knows our hearts. He knows what we think, how we feel, our thoughts, strengths and weaknesses. When we are faced with the decision of cutting something in half or giving it all away, God sees who the REAL Chandel is. Am I just gonna cut it in half and hold on to half of the sin or am I gonna be the REAL Christain and give it up?

Sometimes it is hard to give up the things we like. Something as simple as giving up a TV show or as important as giving up a job can show God that we are REAL. Or how about that grudge you been holding onto for so long…it is about time you gave that up instead of giving half away and keeping the other half. We don’t need to hold on to half of it because we are being a fake Christian. Remember, God knows us better than we know ourselves. He wants all of us, not just our wants. He just wants a REAL relationship with us. Not one based on what He can give you. A true and real relationship. He doesn’t want us to hold on to half of our dead sin.

I like the last verse where it talks about all of Israel fearing Solomon because the wisdom of God was in him. This is how the enemy should be with us! The enemy should fear us because we are not the fake Christian who holds onto half of their sin. Satan should fear us because he can’t beat the real thing. We have authority over him through Jesus Christ. He knows we do, but do we use that authority? Or are we too busy cutting our sin in half to be the REAL Thing? Are we holding on to that half of something dead.. My prayer tonight is that we can give our sin up and be the REAL Christian instead of holding on to half of it and being the fake Christian………God Bless!

I can see clearly now…

This morning as I opened my sleepy eyes to get ready for work, I looked out my bedroom window and saw nothing! Nothing but what was supposed to be the light of dawn, but only whiteness. Now, I have never seen that movie where there is fog and creepy things that come with the fog, but this mornings fog made me think about our relationship with God. It made me think about my Faith. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (KJV). How many times do we let the fog of the world cloud our vision when we are seeking the Lord? The fog this morning was so thick that I couldn’t see past the edge of my yard. It would have been easy to call in to work and tell them I couldn’t see past my yard so I’m staying home. I could have told them that it was to dangerous to drive because there was no visibility past my yard edge. Or I could have told them that I don’t know what’s out there in that fog and I am too scared to go through it. All of these excuses seem plausible but I didn’t use them. I got up, let my crazy puppies out and got ready for work. You know why? Because although I couldn’t see what was past my yard edge, I knew that in the past, when the fog came, that it was temporary. I knew that eventually the fog would go away. I knew that the things that were hidden in the fog were still familiar like the road I drive on, the stop signs, the houses I pass as I go to work. I had Faith in those things remaining the same because all the other times before, it never changed. My vision was not as good, I couldn’t see as far but I knew that the end result would be the same. So as I drove to town to pick up Ali for school this morning I thought of how our Faith is similar to this mornings fog. When I look out my bedroom window every morning I see Morgan mountain. This morning I couldn’t see the mountain because of the fog. Many times when you get up higher than the fog, you will see a mountaintop sticking up above it. The fog likes to settle in the valleys. Because warm air rises, the cooler air stays lower and this is what causes fog. Most times when we are in the valley, we can not see what is ahead. We tend to give up, we want to hide, we want to just exist. But as the sun comes up and sheds its warmth on the earth, the fog starts to dissipate. We start to see the mountain again and realize that we are climbing out of that valley. We can see further ahead of us. And as I got closer to town, I could see the sun starting to come through the fog and my vision starting getting clearer and clearer. Much like Faith, we have to be able to trust God although we can’t see what’s ahead. We have to know that although He hasn’t revealed all of His plan, that what He has planned is for our best interest and to glorify Him. This is a hard thing to do. We are humans and we don’t always understand the supernatural things that go on. That is why it is so hard to have Faith when we can’t see. But like my drive to work, I knew the outcome would be the same. I knew that although I couldn’t see very far ahead of me that the road was still there, there were no fog monsters and that pretty soon, the SUN would shine and that fog would disappear. The same thing happens when we trust God even though we don’t know what is ahead. Even though our vision is impaired and we can only see a little bit of His plan, we know from past times that HE is the constant in the situation. We know that HE will never leave us or forsake us. We know that HE will keep us safe from those fog monsters. And we know that when we see the SON shining, that the fog is fixing to be gone and we will get to see His plan to the end. We will get to see clearly again. We will get to be on the mountain top instead of the valley. So keep your eyes on the SON because He will help clear the fog…………………………..God Bless!!

Days of Fall

Welcome to my blog. Today is the 4th day of October. Wow….when did we get this close to Christmas? Don’t get me wrong, I love fall. It is one of my favorite seasons. But it also means the year is slowly coming to an end and then we will start a new year of unknowns in just a few short months. With the new year it gives us a chance to renew our resolutions, if you do that sort of thing. But this isn’t where I was going with this post today. I want to talk about the word Renew and what it means. In the dictionary, there are several things that the word renew means but the one that sticks with me is the meaning “to make new again”. We are all sinners saved by grace. And as life throws its punches, we tend to let it get us down and not focus on God. We start focusing on our surroundings. But Psalms 51:10 says “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and RENEW a steadfast spirit within me.” I could go so many directions with this verse but I’m going to stick to my topic. God has given us this verse to let us know that although we are sorely imperfect, He has the power to make us new again. Did you get that? He can make us NEW AGAIN! Isn’t that an amazing thought? That is so comforting to know that when we stray, and when we let the world’s distractions cloud our vision then we have this little verse that we can pray. This one little verse that gets God’s attention and catapults Him in to action.

Renew is an action verb. God is all about actions. Let’s discuss action for a moment…. 2 Kings Chapter 5 starts off talking about Naaman. He was a mighty warrior that was stricken with leprosy. Jump to verse 10 and Elisha sends a messenger to tell Naaman to go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But like us, Naaman wanted instant results. He didn’t want to work for his miracle and he didn’t want to wait for his miracle. He expected Elisha to come out to him and wave his hand and he would be healed. Naaman had it all planned in his head how he would get his healing. Like us, Naaman was trying to do things his own way and got mad when Elisha didn’t do it. As the scripture continues, Naaman questioned why he couldn’t just dip in some of the other rivers. Isn’t this just like us today? Always wanting the easy way out, the shortcut, the path of least resistance. But in verse 14 Naaman does go to Jordan and dips seven times and guess what happened…. He got his healing….he was RENEWED! His skin no longer had the awful leprosy sores but it was instead as a child’s skin. So think about a child’s skin…..smooth, soft, no scars or blemishes….and now it was Renewed. When Naaman followed Elishas instructions that were given to him from God, then and only then did Naaman receive what he was promised.

In closing, the fall season is the beginning of the cooler weather, leaves falling, the summer hay is bailed, the pools are all closed for winter and we know that soon the branches will be bare and the grass will die. But come spring time, all the dead grass, trees and flowers start to awaken. The frogs start croaking in the evenings, the rain comes and washes the deadness of Winter away. The water removes the leprosy and Renews the season and in turn, gives life to many things.

God Bless……Chandelly