Modern Day Outcasts

Yesterday morning I arrived at church in time to grab a small cup of coffee then get settled into my chair for Sunday School.  There was nothing unusual about this morning.  Since I am the secretary/treasurer for our Sunday School class, I got busy taking care of the administrative side of things.  Once that was done, Sunday School began!  Yes!  Time to learn more about Jesus and His Word!  Time to strengthen my relationship with Him!  All of a sudden there was a knock on the door followed by, "We need somebody to teach the youth class this morning their teacher isn't here."  Silence filled the room.  Nobody wanted to teach those young kids.  I said, "I'll do it."  I have very little experience working with youth but I knew they needed somebody.

I walked in and head their little sighs of disappointment that they weren't going to be left to themselves!  We began to take praises and prayer requests.  I asked them what they were studying and they gave me the book.  I started flipping through the pages looking for the lesson.  It was about their relationship with God via The Woman at the Well.  We dove into the lesson and got down to the fact that the woman was an outcast.  Jews and Samaritan's didn't associate with each other.  We discovered the woman had to go draw water in the heat of the day and that she had a long walk.  After we got through the details of the woman, the location of the well, and the distance she had to walk I asked them, "Who is your modern day outcast?"  "Who is the person that people stay away from, shun, and talk about because they don't dress like you, look like you, or have the clothes you do?" 

As Sunday School finished up I challenged them all to do two things this week:

1.  Read a bible verse each day.
2.  Go out of their way to say something nice to their modern day outcast or to do something nice for them.

It's easy to sit in our church pews and be comfortable with people who agree with us and who are like us.  What about you Christian?!!!  Who is your modern day outcast?!!!  I dare you this week to the very same challenge I gave those young teenagers.  Read one Bible Verse this week and do something nice for your modern day outcast.   We were the outcast all caught up in our sin.  Jesus visited us at the well and told us to go and sin no more.  So, get out there beyond your church pew and do something nice for somebody who is considered an outcast.

Blessings,
Alicia

How we treat others!

Every day God gives us opportunities to love others and show them His love.  Easy from the church pew isn't it?!!! Well, what about those who aren't so lovely and easy to get along with?  What about those brothers and sisters in Christ we sit in the pew with?!!

Come on Alicia, cut me some slack right?  After all Monday is the toughest day of the week right?!  Well, that was yesterday if you've forgotten and today is Tuesday!  Well, you don't know that a certain person I work with gets on my nerves, or  they act different.  Oh, and little sister seat-saver that sits on the second row piano side every week is always complaining about the music.  She just gets on my nerves. 

Luke 6:31-35 says: "If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount.  But love your enemies, and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.  Be merciful, just as your father is merciful." 

It isn't easy to always follow the Golden rule.  Satan is right there waiting each and every day to attack us where we are weak.  I too experience those same issues, trust me.

This week I want you to challenge you to ask the Lord to help you be mindful of His still small voice and to help you to treat others the same way you want to be treated!  It's a command!  It's in red letters which means it came straight from Jesus himself! 

Have a great day and God bless you!

In His unfailing love,
Alicia

Stay and away and there's a price to pay!

Have you ever said to yourself on a Sunday morning, "I'm just too tired to get up and go to church.  I'll just stay home and watch a sermon at home?!"  I"m sure we all are guilty of it.  I am.  I have done that before.  It's easy to stay away.  The devil is more than glad to help you find an excuse to stay away from God's house.  Satan hates Sundays.  As we all know, the longer you stay away the easier it becomes and sometimes the harder it is to go back to church. 

Well, I have a very modern day scenario for you.  Some of you know I've been loosing weight.  To date, I've lost 20.5 lbs.  Two weeks ago I was under the weather and didn't exercise all week.  Well, the following week didn't look much different.  I didn't exercise then either.  This morning I woke up at 5:45 and got on my exercise clothes and started exercising.  It felt like I'd just started.  You see, I  didn't have any excuse as to why I didn't exercise last week except pure laziness.  Yep, you heard me.  I was lazy for a solid week in my exercising.  Now, this week and next I'll really be paying the price for it. 

During the week you will pay some kind of price if you get lazy and don't read your Bible, don't pray, don't spend time with God, and don't attend corporate worship.  The devil will come in and have a hay day with you.  It will be for the entire week and you will feel MISERABLE.  1 Peter 5:8 says: "Be sober; be vigilant: because your adversary the devil, as a roarking lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."KJV
You will find yourself on Friday saying "What a horrible week."

So, this week I'd like to challenge you to:

1.  Have a quiet time.  Spend time with God
2.  Go to church! YES..go to church and worship God
3.  Spend time in prayer with God...AND spend time listening...Yes, that means you have to be quiet and wait on Him!

Whatever you do, don't stay away from God and His Word so long that the devil has his way with you.

Because He lives,
Alicia Roark

Are you REAL beyond the church pew?!!!!

At 4:00 a.m. (Yes, I was awake unfortunately at that hour) I grabbed my tablet and started looking throught my currents Christian blogs app.  I came across a Women's Ministry page that said R.E.A.L.  It stands for REACHING Encouraging And Loving life together.  It caught my attention.  The Spirit spoke to my heart about how real am I beyond the church pew? 

Recently, I've made some new friends and acquaintances.  Some of them are Christians.  Sure, I love the fact that we have Jesus in common.  It's what drew/draws them to me.  However, what I"m really interested in is, are they REAL beyond the church pew?  Are they the real deal.  Can you truly see Jesus in them beyond those brick walls where we put on facades on Sunday mornings?  

It's not always easy to be REAL and be ourselves because the world is always stereotyping, judging, and paints a totally different picture than what the Bible says we should be.  The bible says that "We are the light of the world, a city on a hill can not be hidden."  Matthew 5:14.  If we are the light, then we need to be a true light for Christ beyond our church pews, and Sunday morning facades.  We need to let others see Jesus in our actions.

Being real means letting other believers know you have the same every day struggles they do.  I have my own struggles in this life.  The biggest one is wanting everybody to like me.  NEWS FLASH..I've learned that not everybody is going to like me and I'm just now learning to be somewhat o.k. by that!  I've struggled my whole life with self-esteem issues, but guess what?!!! JESUS THINKS/THOUGHT I was to die for!  HE took on an old rugged cross and the sin of the world and every sin I would commit..  That's the real Alicia Roark.  Also, the real Alicia Roark sometimes can go overboard with letting her friends know how much she cares for them....Yep, I'm working on that too....I"m not perfect, but I'm a Christian girl who believes in being REAL with others.

The question I'd like to challenge you with is:  Are you REAL beyond the church pew?!!!

In His Love,
Alicia

Let's talk about personal Bible Study!

On Sunday mornings we carry our Bibles under our arms and open it up during the sermon.  Why?!!!  Is it because it's what we're supposed to do, or do you do it because you sincerly desire to learn more about our great and mighty God?!!! 

It's a tough question I know.  What about Monday through Saturday?!!!  Does your Bible collect as much dust as the furniture in your house during the week?!!  Personal Bible study, it's important. I start my day off that way.  If I don't have that time my day goes HAYWIRE...trust me!  Spending time memorizing God's Word is how we defeat Satan day after day week after week.  It's putting on the full armour of God day after day so the enemy's darts won't hit us.

Here's how the week looks without personal prayer and Bible Study:

MISERABLE MONDAY

TERRIBLE TUESDAY

WORN OUT WEDNESDAY

TUMULTUOUS THURSDAY

FRUSTRATION FRIDAY

SAD AND DEPRESSED SATURDAY

DO you want your week to look like that?!!!   I don't ...So I would like to encourage you to go dust off your Bible and start spending time with King Jesus everyday!  Your week will go much better when you involve Jesus and the Holy Spirit as your teacher and guide!

God bless you,
Alicia

Let's talk about Prayer!

Often times in my young life I've heard well-meaning people at church say, "I'll pray for you."  Prayer, it's a powerful thing and each of us needs prayer!  We need somebody to lift our name to the Father! Here's a real hard question to answer.  DO YOU REALLY PRAY FOR THE PERSON YOU SAID YOU WOULD PRAY FOR?????

Feeling a little convicted?!!!  Yep, me too.  I've been there got the T-shirt, the postcard and the hat for that catch all phrase.  It's easy to mingle with our brothers and sisters in Christ on Sunday and say to their face I'll pray for you, but if we  never pray for them then the truth is, we've lied.  Satan loves to watch God's people use catch phrases such as "I'll pray for you, or even better satan's all time favorite "I"ll pray about it."  More times than not, when we use the later of those two phrases, we're using it as an excuse to make the person or circumstance go away at the time.  I've done it too, so I can say that.  I am certainly not proud of it.

Here are a couple of  verses on prayer for you to look up and earnestly talk to God about:

1.  Ephesians 6:18
2.  2 Timothy 2:1

So this week, I'd like to challenge you to earnestly pray for the people you agreed to pray for!  Watch God show up and work!  Then truly you can sit in the church pew on Sunday and tell them that you prayed for them!

God bless you!
Alicia Roark

Let's talk about weight!

This morning I woke up late.  It messed up my routine, or at least that's what I thought until I was working out!  You see my new routine is to get up at 6 a.m. have quiet time for about an hour then work out followed by breakfast and wifely duties...all this depending on my work schedule of course!

I started out on the elliptical machine, then the treadmill then the leg and arm machine...(I don't know what it's called so I call it the leg and arm machine!).  It was on that machine that I was thinking about how heavy the weights were when the Holy Spirit spoke and said :"just like those weights, Christians who sit in the pew Sunday after Sunday weigh other people's sin."  WOW...How profound.  As my legs began to stretch and bend against the machine I got to thinking about the aches of my legs.  The Spirit said, "you think that's pain, Jesus walked up Calvary for you all the while carrying an old rugged cross." 

The weight of sin is heavy no matter how you slice it. The penalty to pay for sin is even more heavy.  The Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  Romans  6:23.  We deserve to die because of our sin.  Jesus bore it all on a cross so that we could have eternal life.  I don't know about you but that blows me away.  Now that's some heavy weight with an eternal reward.

This week, I'd like to challenge you to ask the Holy Spirit to remind you of the price Jesus paid for you  every time you're tempted to "weigh in" on the sins of others from beyond the church pew.  It's a humbling experience trust me.

Let's pray:
Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the heavy price Jesus paid on the Cross.  Forgive me for weighing the sins of others when I have sin in my own life.  During this week, when I'm tempted to weigh in on the sins and shortcomings of others, remind me of my own sin and the fact that Jesus bore it all on  a cross so that I could have eternal life.  In Jesus' Name I pray-Amen