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

Freshly perculated Faith beyond the church pew!

Monday, it seems to be satan's second favorite day of the week!  He loves to fill our to do lists with all kinds of busyness that doesn't include God.  If you're anything like me, your to do list seems to never all get done, but it tends to grow.  Your to do list might include shopping for groceries, running your children around, errand running, checking facebook two or three times a day, twitter, scheduling meetings....and the list goes on and on.

Every morning I have a cup of coffee!  It helps me wake up and gets me going.  Now can I do without it?!! Sure, I"m not the kind of woman that if I don't have my coffee, I become a monster the rest of the day.  There's just something about that cup of coffee though!  Just like that cup of coffee, is my need for time to be with Jesus!  I know it's hard as women to put aside half an hour to an hour out of our already busy schedules.  It's necessary!  If not Satan will have a hay day with us!

I'm reading a book called "Trusting God".  The other night I was reading it and I read this quote and it spoke volumes to me.  "Every morning I walk straight to the coffeepot and push the On button.  I"m a total coffee girl.  I like a piping-hot, extra dark roast with half-and-half, and I struggle to function before my first cup of coffee.  I crave that first sip and relish the warmth of the mug in my hands.  I jokingly call it my  "warm, happy friend.  My mornings just wouldn't be the same without coffee!  We should have the same attitude about our faith.  We should wake up each morning bursting at the seams to be with God, to be in His presence, to listen for His still small voice, to savor Him.  A faith that is brewed fresh daily strengthens us, renews us, and enables us to mount up with wings like eagles, to experience the power of God in our lives, to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint (See Isaiah 40:29-31)."  (Trusting God A girlfriends in God adventure, Multnomah Publishing).

That's the kind of faith we need beyond our church pews on Sunday morning!  We should wake up "bursting at the seams" to be with Jesus.  It grows our faith and it will send satan packing with his head tucked between his tail!

How about it?!! Spend some time with Jesus who can fill your cup to overflowing today!

God bless you!
Alicia

Do we serve God with Passion?

Lately, God has been speaking to me about my worship of Him.  There's one word that keeps coming up no matter where I am or what I'm doing.  Passion.  Miriam-Webster defines passion in the following way:  intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction " 

          When we come into His house for Sunday School, worship, prayer time, or participating in ministry of one kind or another do we do it with everything in us?  Yesterday was Easter! A day of celebrating our Risen Savior and His sacrifice for the sin of all man kind.  There came a point in our service where we sang Because He Lives.  Our song director stopped us before we sang the last verse and said, "If you really believe the words you are singing let the people in 7-11 next door hear you."  Well, when we started singing that last verse you could feel the passion people had as they lifted their voices to their Risen Savior!  You could feel the presence of Jesus in that place and it was so sweet.  I got a little choked up during my worship experience during that song.  Oh what a Savior!

Let's take this same concept and apply it to our everyday Monday-Saturday week.  What about your favorite hobby, place to go, thing to cook.  You normally do those activities with lots of passion because it's fun and enjoyable right?!!  What if we worshiped King Jesus in that same way as we did our favorite activities?  Oh, I'm sure the Master would be pleased.

Over in the book of Psalms David wrote:  "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good:  Blessed is the man that taketh refuge in Him."  Psalms 34:8.

When is the last time you worshiped Jesus with such complete abandon and fervor that you could feel His presence beyond your church pew?!!!!

This week I would like to challenge you to passionately worship, pray to, walk with, and commune with Jesus with everything in you!



Because He lives,
Alicia

Let's talk about FAITH

Have you ever seen a mustard seed? It's tiny and round. Jesus said over in the book of Luke "And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea'; and it would obey you." Wow. That's some serious faith!

We attend our places of worship every Sunday or at least most of us do! It's very easy there to practice our faith and say that we have faith. Here are a few questions to ponder:

1. What about when the checkbook says you have little left and you need to tithe?

2. What about when your job is on the line?

3. What about when a family member finds out horrible news?

Faith it's the biggest 5 letter word i the entire Bible and in the dictionary. Also in the new testament Jesus said, "Faith without works is dead. James 2:26. It means that we must put some action to that faith. No, I"m not talking about "name it claim it theology." Never in my Christian faith have I believed that I can say God I believe you're going to give me money and then dollars start falling from the sky. I don't believe that is scriptural at all. That is my own personal belief. I"m talking like tithing when we should despite what the check book says. It's God at work. He promised to provide for our needs. Faith, such a big word and so easy to practice on Sunday morning! If we all just had a little more faith huh?!!! Trust me, I'm in the boat with ya!

Here's an anagram I saw on Faith several years ago and it's never left me. I felt led to share it with you today!

F-orsaking

A-ll

I-

T-ake

H-im

So, I would like to challenge you to put your Sunday morning faith into practice all week long! Go ahead, trust God! He knows your need, He's just waiting on us to exercise a little faith!

Let's pray:

Dear Lord,
It's so easy to trust you on Sunday mornings while I sit in my pew. Your word says faith without works is dead. Help me to put my faith into action during this week. Most importantly let others see Jesus in me. In Jesus' Name I pray-Amen

When God says wait and things don't go your way!

Prayer! It's our direct communication with God! I don't know about you, but I've been guilty of asking God for stuff on an emergency basis and expecting Him to answer me right then and there. In my opinion, it's really sad. It must truly break His heart. On Sunday mornings we go to church and we give God all of our burdens and we expect Him to answer us on a dime depending on how dire we feel our situation is. Here's the other real clincher, you know God's Holy Bible?!!! Do you know that normally most folks have to dust it off to bring it to church on Sunday because it's the only day it ever gets read? Oh How we must break the heart of our merciful Savior.

Recently God has been speaking to me about these people in the new testament that I know very well. He keeps bringing it up in my life. I mean like about 12 times in the past year. He's speaking to me on different issues and using two different stories with the same people. So, I thought, why not...Let's have a quick look at it together.

The first scripture reference is: John 11:1-44. Yes, it's the whole chapter but there's so much to be found in those verses. There's a couple of verse I want us to look at though. Take a good look at verses 17-18....The first fact is:

1. Lazarus had been dead for 4 DAYS. That would've made Jesus 4 Days late to the average human.
2. Bethany was A FEW MILES DOWN THE ROAD from Jerusalem. Jesus was RIGHT IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD practically.

Now for a a final verse that really seals the deal! Look at verse 42. Jesus prays out loud in order that GOD gets the Glory!

Let's tie all this together! Remember those emergency prayers we pray on Sunday mornings?!!! Remember that Bible we are sometimes guilty of grabbing just on Sunday morning?!!! Jesus is always in the neighborhood! He's a prayer away and he's never to early, never too late but He's always on time! If you find yourself in a difficult situation, please know that He knows all about it, He'll show up at the appointed time and in just a way that His Father gets the glory.

Take a listen at the song below and let it bless you!


Let's Pray:
Father, thank you that you hear and answer prayer even when it's not in ,my time frame! Help me to see that when you're 4 days late you're always just on time! Forgive me for my emergency prayers expecting you to answer on a dime. Help me to be more like Jesus every day! In Jesus' Name I pray-Amen.