YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SEE IT BUT GOD CAN

I want to start out this blog by saying "If you cannot see where your live is headed, please ALWAYS remember that God can". This blog stems from a question that I posted in one of my groups on Facebook, "The Belie(ve)F Plan". I asked the question " What is the best advice that you could give someone who is at a crossroad in life"? Although I shared my response, a little while later God dropped this in my spirit, "If you cannot see where your life is headed, ALWAYS remember that I can". So what does this mean? What do you think about when you hear someone is at a crossroad in life? The vision came to me of a railroad track with the sign that says "DO NOT CROSS". Two situations that come to me when I think about crossroads are first, the person who has everything and loses it and second, the person that has nothing and gains something! When you come to a crossroad in life you have three choices: you can either stand there and wait and not cross, you can either cross or you can get on the train whichever one that needs to be done please make sure you consult God FIRST.

Sometimes God will bring us to a point where we have no choice but to consult Him or seek Him. There will be a point maybe where we are always use to talking to our friends or family about something or getting advice from Him and one day there may come a time when none of them will be available and in return this may upset you and you may feel like they are not being there for you but its not that, its just the fact that God is trying to get you to the point where you will consult Him because He has ALL the answers, everyone else has advice, opinions, or suggestions. I have been to that point where I was used to talk to certain family or friends and one day they were not available and eventually I just prayed and this happened a couple of times but it definitely help me to rely on God and Him alone.

Then there may come a time when you may lose everything! When this happens this is definitely a crossroads because some may turn against God(for a moment,), some may grow closer to Him this is the crossroad. We wont understand why we are losing stuff, is God mad at us? Have we done something wrong? Does God hate us? What is going on? There answers is NO to all those questions. God is a loving God and He is slow to anger but yet again this is His way of showing us how to trust and depend on Him. Many times we are so focused on materalistic things, careers, school, friends, family, etc that we spend no time with God. My pastor(Pastor Munsey) always says that the things that you focused on the most are your god because thats who you give your attention to, that is who or what you invest in the most. So when things happen remember that they happen for a reason not to hurt you but to HELP you.

The reason why I brought up the person who has nothing but gains something because God tells us in his word that
   “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God"(Luke 9:23-27, NIV).

You see sometimes when we lose we really GAIN, there are so people who just live on FAITH, they are living paycheck to paycheck but they dont complain, they appreciate the little that they do have and because of that they are blessed. God blesses us all the time, we just have to open not only our eyes but our hearts to recieve. God does give and take away but only for our God! What we lose for Him, He will give back ten fold. Once we start walking, talking and building a relationship with God our we and our lives will change. We won't be with the same people, we won't go to the same places, we won't have the same ways or things but we will be better. We must apprecate the things that we go through in life and eventually God will show us why we went through it and most times we go through things not for ourselves but for others. Testimonies definitely help other people.

I would like to leave you all with this scripture Jeremiah 29:11 " For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you NOT to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and  FUTURE. Remember this scripture, mediate on it, say it to yourself daily and seek God daily.

God Bless you all and thanks for reading.

Nicole L.

Self Love

Mark 12:31 “The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

This scripture tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Jesus felt said this was important so I will write it again, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF. During this month, a lot of people will be celebrating Valentine’s Day. This is a day that we consider a time to we show our love for others. It seems to me that sometimes it is easier for we as humans to love others more than we love ourselves. If we pay attention to the way we do things, we constantly help others (which we are suppose do), we basically would do almost ANYTHING for the people we love but then guess what when the favor does not get returned we kind of get disappointed don’t we? We start to feel like nobody cares or nobody loves us, we get upset because we went out of our way to do something for somebody that we cares so much for but when we needed help or encouragement they were not there. Not only that, many times we do not even make time for ourselves. We run all around time doing things for every else, some of us are moms, dads, we hold full time jobs, go to school full time, we are always busy! When we are always busy we not only do not have time for ourselves but we do not have time for God.

That brings me to the topic of self-love because love does not require anything in return, it should not matter what someone did or said to us that should not affect our love for a person. That is why it is important to love others as we love OURSELVES. If we do not love ourselves we cannot fully love others. The Lack of self-love stems from a lack of self-worth. We deal with a lot of issues such as low self-esteem, maybe we are uncomfortable with our skin, uncomfortable with our weight, we don’t feel like we are nice looking, or we feel unloved. Maybe you were in an abusive relationship or you came from a family background of abuse whether it is verbal or physical, maybe you were tensed in school for some reason, well for one reason or another at times it becomes hard to love ourselves when we have experienced those things and we start to believe them.  

What else does God say about love though? Pay close attention to this scripture John 13:34-35 (New International Version, ©2010 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Wow in this scripture Jesus says LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU. How many of us know how God views us? How many of us REALLY know how MUCH GOD LOVES us? How many of us know that God loves us so much that He allowed HIS ONLY SON TO DIE FOR OUR SINS and Jesus Loved us enough to lay down his life for us. That’s REAL love.  

DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE WONDERFULLY AND FEARFULLY MADE? Mediate on this (psalm 139:13-18)

13 For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
   How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.

Isn’t that amazing! That is how God views you; He did NOT make any mistakes when He made YOU. Beauty is in the heart and the heart is the capsule that holds our love. LOVE YOURSELF AND ENCOURAGE YOURSELF because if you don’t, nobody else will. DO you know people can sense when you are unsure of yourselves? Sometimes we allow people to treat us certain ways because we don’t know are worth. We must always remember that God is love and He only wants to see us happy. When you start to think negatively about yourself begin to say to yourself I know my worth, God made no mistakes when he made me, I am FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY made, I am beautiful, pretty, handsome, I am fine by design  Never let anyone make you feel worthless, most importantly never let yourself feel worthless. God loves all his children so much; we are so precious to Him.