Good morning! It has been several months since I was able to post but I am back full force! So much has changed and hopefully I will be able to share some with you about that eventually. But for now, Mr. Fall has brought us some beautiful weather and such a crispness in the air.... and I am loving it! I hope 2014 has been kind to you. We are only 3 months away from Christmas!! Can you believe it? Time has flown by....for me at least. I will be writing more now and I am excited to be back doing my writing! Have a super Monday!!!
                                             Renee'

"I Don't Understand" ..........

Tonight, after CIMS class, David and I went with 2 other couples to get a bite to eat. Our waitress came over, and she wasn't her usual happy self. We asked her what was wrong and she began to share with us what she was going through at home, which was very sad. One of the ladies in our group asked her if she was a Christian? The waitress asked what that meant? My friend said, "Have you ever asked... Jesus into your life?" She said, I don't know what that means." I sat there amazed because I was raised up in a minister's home and was taught about the Lord all my life. We began to share with her about how Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and how much He loves us and wants to live in our hearts. My friend told her about the plan of salvation. When she asked her if she would like for Jesus to come into her heart and life, she said yes. Then we told her we would pray for her and she looked at us and said, " I don't know how to do that. I've never prayed before." We prayed the sinner's prayer with her and she received Jesus into her heart!
I sat there, just going over in my mind what it must be like to have never known the plan of salvation, never known how to pray, never been to church in my life.....I can't imagine..... My heart went out to her. She is a beautiful young girl, with a lot of turmoil in her life, and she didn't know how Jesus could help her. There are so many people out there that have no ideal what Jesus is all about! Sometimes as Christians, we take for granted that people know, they just don't want it. But this isn't true as I seen tonight. We need to seek God and ask Him to lead us to people that need to hear about Him so we can be a witness to them. I don't ever want to miss an opportunity to tell someone about the Lord. Even as I type this, I can still see her face as she said, " I don't know how to do that....I've never prayed" ......God help us to be a light to the world..... "The harvest is plenty but the labors are few"

"Are We Really Seeking God?"

  This morning, as David and I were on our way to Sunday School, we were going over our lesson and just talking about God and how He wants to bless His people, but yet He wants us to desire Him and His presence first. As we talked, God spoke to my heart and reminded me of this scripture. Jeremiah 29:13 says, " When you seek Me, you will find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." I spoke that scripture out to David, and God spoke to me strongly again and said, "You say you seek Me....but do you really seek me with ALL your heart? Because when you seek for Me, when you really search Me out, then that's when you will find Me. I testified to this in Sunday School this morning because it was so profound to me!
Think about it, and this might be a simple example, but David and I got on a kick a while back where we tried the maple flavored sausage, and we loved it so much that we went back to the store, and couldn't find it again, so we began to look in every grocery store trying to find it. One night we went to 5 different grocery stores...hunting this sausage. Why? Because we desired it! We wanted it so badly that we were willing to do whatever we had to do to find it. We were seeking it out. And we found it.
Well, God wants us to be that way with Him! He wants us to want Him so much, desire to be in His presence so badly, that we will seek Him out until we find Him! You may say, "Well, why would we have to find God? Isn't He always there?" Well of course He's always there, but I believe that we sometimes half heartedly desire to be in His presence. We half heartedly seek His will for our lives. But He's saying that when we Seek Him, with everything in us, desiring to be in His presence so badly that we won't stop praying and seeking Him until we find that place with God that we know He wants us to be in, and we are in tune with Him, and we're in His presence........ that's when we will truly find Him. My heart's desire is to seek God with ALL my heart, above any and everything in my life.......that is when He is pleased with me.......that is when I find Him in such an awesome way!
I don't know about you....but that excites me!!

"Some People Want a ..... Feel Good God.... "

Sitting here reading in Revelation today and talking with the Lord. In Revelation 11:10 "The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth."
In this particular reading, this is during the first part of the tribulation and God has sent these two prophets to the earth to prophesy ...for 1260 days. God had given them power to breath fire out of their mouths to anyone who tried to harm them. When they had finished their testimony, Satan had them overpowered and killed (only because God allowed it for a purpose), and their bodies laid in the streets, no one allowed to bury them, for three and a half days, and the people were gloating over them being killed, they loved it, and they left them there so everyone could see, not knowing God was going to bring them back to life and take them up to Heaven.
But why did they gloat over them and why were they happy they were dead? Because the prophets were prophesying the truth and they didn't want to hear the truth. Sound familiar? Isn't that like a lot of people today? They don't want to hear the truth. They don't want to be condemned, they don't want to know this way of truth. They want a "feel good God". They want to be able to do what they want, when they want, and how they want, and then want to use God as their " go to " buddy when things aren't going right or they need something. So many times I've heard, "Well I'm not a bad person." or "Well, God is a loving God so He understands me and He won't send anyone to hell." Guess what? He doesn't send anyone to hell. He gives us a choice to choose if we are going to serve Him .... or ..... serve Satan, so if we don't choose Him, we send our own selves to hell. I've heard people say, "Well I don't have to serve either one." Guess what? You do. Because you are either going to live for God .... or the devil. Whichever one, you are making a choice.
God is a God of love, but He doesn't tolerate sin no matter who you are or how good of a person you are. We cannot earn our way into Heaven! We can talk about God all we want to, we can post God sayings on here, we can talk about how good He is to us, BUT if we do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if we have not come to Him in prayer, asked Him to forgive us of our sins and come into our hearts, and then do our best to serve Him and stay away from sin and the temptations that the enemy puts before us every day, then He will not give us a pass into Heaven just because He is a God of love. We have to have a personal relationship with Him and read His word, and walk in accordance to His will for our lives. It's just that simple.
I want to be ready...don't you? I can't imagine wanting to live my life without Him anymore. PLEASE .... don't wait too long.... just please don't put it off... Don't make anymore excuses.... just choose to serve Him no matter what you have to give up or what you have to change in your life..... To know that your heart is right with Him, is worth everything! ~ReneeSee More

"Invisible Scars"

Husband and wife are sitting on the couch. Suddenly, the husband decides he wants them to go to the store or out to eat. The wife says, " Can I change clothes, or put on a little makeup first?" The husband says, "No! Besides, no one is going to look at you anyway." .... Slash to the heart.......

Wife is trying to eat healthy so she tries to change her way of eating. When it's time to go to the grocery store, the husband starts picking out what he wants to eat, and the wife is willing to fix it for him. But when she tries to get some things that she needs for her healthy eating, the husband says, "I'm not buying that! Besides, no one cares if you're fat. I know I don't." ...Slash to the heart........

Husband and wife are arguing, which seems to be an every day thing.... The wife says she's tired of him treating her that way, so she's going to leave. The husband says, "Do you realize I can have you killed and no one would ever be able to trace it back to me?" ...Slash -now fear has been applied....

Wife decides she can't take it anymore, so she's getting out, even if it means her life. The husband says, " You try and leave me and I will go after your family! I have ways that I can destroy them!" ...Slash- now fear for her family.......the abuse continues.....

Wife finds out the husband tells someone that he thought about putting rat poision in her food. .....Slash- fear again for her life......

The name calling, the cut downs, being yelled at, degraded, threats, being laughed at, being made fun of, lies, and the list goes on...... invisible scars.

Physical abuse is a horrible thing and the scars that it can visibly leave are terrible and sometimes fatal. The pain that a person experiences during being hit on is also horrible.

But there's another kind of abuse that people don't think about much.....and that is mental/verbal abuse. This kind of pain leaves invisible scars. Scars that you can carry around for a very long time, some carry it around for a lifetime. No one deserves to be treated like they aren't worth anything. Mental and verbal abuse can be and usually is just as devastating as physical abuse! The only difference is .... you can't see the scars on the outside, so no one knows. Everything may look great on the outside, but behind closed doors - it can be a mess. Sometimes, if you look close enough, you can see the pain in someone's eyes.

We live in a hurting world. A world that needs Jesus. I am thankful and blessed to have a wonderful, God fearing husband like David, who loves me with his whole heart and would never harm me in any way! I know I can trust him! But not everyone has someone like that.

If you are out there, and you are being abused physically or mentally/verbally; please love yourself enough to get help. Get away from it! God loves you so much and His plans for you is not to be abused by someone that supposedly loves you. Years ago, I asked someone who was in my life at the time, this question: "Who are you? You are not the same person you were when I met you." His reply was, " I had to act that way to get you, but I don't have to act that way anymore to keep you!" ...... WRONG.........

Whoever you are, if you're hurting, if you have physical scars or the invisible scars, ask God to help you. If you haven't given your life to Him, ask Him to come into your heart, then ask Him to help you get out of the situation you are in and He will help you. He truly loves you! If you can't get out of the situation you are in by yourself, then ask God to send someone your way that can help you get out of your abusive situation. But please love yourself enough to get away from it!

......Physical or Mental/Verbal abuse ...... Either one or both can leave scars that last a lifetime...

God bless ...... Renee'

Facing The Enemy.....

Saturday night, David had already gone to sleep, and I was sitting in the bed reading my Bible. After I read, I laid my head back and dozed off. When I did, I seen a vision and there was this huge snake raised up, and it was looking at me...eye to eye. Suddenly, I woke up and I began to rebuke Satan and told him to leave. Shortly after, David got sick and I assumed this was the battle of the snake.... Well, it wasn't........
......Today, I have come face to face with this snake...the enemy. God showed me today that this is a huge battle I am facing with the enemy.... I called my Dad, and shared what was going on. He called me back and said as he was praying, God put it before him... "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord"....
God spoke to me in another way this morning also, and at the time, I had no idea what I was about to face. On my phone, I have it set up where every day, I receive a scripture from K-Love Christian station. This morning, my scripture was from Exodus 14:14 (NLT) "The Lord Himself will fight for you. Just stay calm."
God is Almighty....all powerful.....all knowing....He never changes...Nothing is too big, Nothing is too small for Him.....He knows how to work it out, when to work it out, and what it takes to work it out.....I TRUST YOU LORD! I BELONG TO YOU LORD!
.......Don't know what you're facing out there today, but God does......Don't face it alone....You know who you are...God told me to tell you......You don't have to face it alone.......
................I covet your prayers....... ~ReneeSee More

Can You Imagine???

Just wanted to share something with you that touched my heart today.
I was reading VOM (Voice of the Martyr's) today and as I read, my heart was saddened and alarmed at the same time. Here in America, even though we have things going on here that we don't like or agree with, and we look around us, seeing the things that are happening, and it makes us feel like the return of Christ is so close..........still, we are blessed in so many ways! I was reading today about a 13 year old girl that was beaten and tortured because she became a Christian. Her own father beat her repeatedly, then finally locked her up in a room in their mud shanty & kept her there for 6 months, without feeding her. The only food she got was when her brother would sneak her roasted bananas under the door after her dad ...left. She has since been rescued but not without physical damage to her body.
Another pastor there was on his way to church one night and heard a man call out to him, "Pastor". When he turned around to see who it was, a man poured acid on his face, and others joined in pouring it all over his body. He was burned so severely that he has already had 6 surgeries trying to rebuild his face, and still having more. In the meantime, these horrible men that did this to him, continue to send him threatening letters telling him they will finish what they started.
As I read on, I told David, we have no idea what our brothers and sisters in the mission fields face every minute of their lives! We read about it, hear about it, but it seems like it is worlds away...and for a moment, we will think about how terrible it is...but ...it's not us going through it....so we turn our thoughts back to other things. You and I both have been guilty of it....because we don't like to think about things like that. But if we belong to Jesus..... AND .... they belong to Jesus, then that is our brothers & sisters in Christ, & they are a part of our family! So we need to be seeking God for them and their safety. We are fortunate here in the US, even with all the bad things that are happening....still.... we have the freedom to read our Bibles, go to church without having to be afraid we will have to be tortured or killed for it. We don't have to face beatings, torture, giving our lives......we are blessed. And yet if you talk to one of them, they will tell you they are blessed too! Because they don't complain about anything they have to go through....for the sake of Jesus!
We need to uphold them in prayer all the time. We need to realize our blessings....and be thankful every day! Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful .....but the workers ..... are few..... ~ReneeSee More