Who Are You?

“But to all who did receive him,

who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God,”

John 1:12

I pray that you will find encouragement in the words of this song today.

I know that life can be overwhelming sometimes. When it seems like life is moving faster than you can run, remember the words to this song. Life can never move fast enough to hide you from God and His love.

When you ask the question, “Who am I?” Remember that you are God’s child, and He loves you more than anything.

God bless you today!

 

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Urgent Prayer Request: Update on Garet

photo credit: Flickr

Update: Garets parents said that yesterday was very rough for him. Due to the surgery, he was sick most of the day. Please help us pray that God will bring peace, comfort, and rest to this little boys body.

Next week Garet and his family will meet with the tumor board to see what kind of cancer he has. The doctors said they have never seen it before. We serve a mighty God! We know that He is the great physician, and He is not puzzled or surprised, His plan is perfect.

Thank you all for praying over this family with me. Please continue to hold them up in prayer. I will update as I get more information.

God bless you.

 

ORIGINAL POST:

Dear Friends,

I would like to ask you to join me in praying for a little boy in our community named Garet. He is undergoing very extensive surgery today to remove a tumor on his brain. Please help me hold him, his family, and the doctors involved up in prayer today. We are trusting God in this situation. This family is a precious family in your community and I told them that I would be sharing this request with my readers. If you would like to leave them a message or comment, you are welcome to do that here and I will be more than happy to pass it along to them. Thank you in advance for your prayers. I believe that as fellow believers we are called to lift each other up in prayer.

God bless you all today!

Are You Ready?

^” For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,

and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,

to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

Jesus is coming!

Are you ready?

There is a story that my dad use to tell, about a dream he had one night. He said he dreamed that he was standing outside one day, and as he looked up into the sky he saw something forming in the clouds. He said that the clouds began to part, and form what looked like a long hallway. At the end of that hallway he could see a figure moving. He said that as he watched the figure move closer, he realized that it was Jesus! I can still see the look on my dad’s face as he told about how at that very moment he could feel his feet lifting off of the ground, and he realized that the rapture was taking place. He said that he woke himself up from the dream shouting with joy.

I was just a little girl when this dream took place, but the memory of my dad telling this story is still just as fresh in my mind as if it had just happened yesterday. To see the excitement on his face as he would tell this dream to those around him has always stuck in my mind. As a young girl, I could only imagine what he must have been feeling in that dream, but as I have gotten older and learned more about the Bible and what it says about Jesus’ return, the memory of this dream excites me even more.

What joy and excitement there will be on that day when Jesus comes back to take His children home. It is hard to even imagine what it will be like, but the Bible does give us a glimpse of what will take place.

The question I have for you is this:

Are you ready?

While there is much excitement and anticipation for that day when Jesus returns, there is also a seriousness that comes with it as well. If you have been covered by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and your sins have been forgiven then you are ready.

If you have never received Jesus Christ into your heart, or maybe you have, but you have wandered away from Him and begun to try things your own way, I ask you today, “Please get prepared. Jesus is coming!”  You may be thinking to yourself, “I have been hearing about Jesus coming back since I was a child.” Yes, that is true, we have been hearing about this for years, but that does not change the fact that it is true. I believe that it is proof that we are even closer now than we have ever been.

God’s Word tell us that we do not know when Jesus will come back for His children:

“For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

1 Thessalonians 5:2

While I am excited, and looking forward to the day when Jesus comes back to take His children home, my heart is burdened for those who are not ready. My heart breaks at the thought of loved ones, and friends being left behind.

I want to encourage you today to please take a moment and examine your heart. If in doing this you realize that you are not ready to go, if you discover that there is still the need for forgiveness in your heart, I pray that you will stop right where you are and seek that forgiveness. It is there for the taking. All you have to do is believe, ask, and receive it.

Jesus loves you. In fact, He loves you so much that He died on a cross for your sins. God’s Word tell us:

^” For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

John 3:16

All you have to do is call on the name of the Lord, and seek forgiveness for your sins: The Bible says:

“For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:13

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

1 John 1:9

God has given salvation to us as a gift:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23

“For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,”

Ephesians 2:8

Friends, when I think about Jesus returning and taking His children home, my heart wants to shout! I pray that you are ready as well. I may never get the chance to meet you here on earth, but I want to see you in Heaven some day.

God Bless you!

*If you have read this, and in doing so you have made the decision to ask Jesus into your heart, I would love to hear from you and pray for you as you begin your journey of walking with the Lord.

If you have read this and realized that there are things unfinished in your life, but have not made the decision to follow God, I would love to hear from you and pray for you as well.

You can email me at the address found here:  http://en.gravatar.com/encouragementforeveryday

God bless you today, I look forward to hearing from you!

Urgent Prayer Request

 

photo credit: Flickr

Dear Friends,

I would like to ask you to join me in praying for a little boy in our community named Garet. He is undergoing very extensive surgery today to remove a tumor on his brain. Please help me hold him, his family, and the doctors involved up in prayer today. We are trusting God in this situation. This family is a precious family in your community and I told them that I would be sharing this request with my readers. If you would like to leave them a message or comment, you are welcome to do that here and I will be more than happy to pass it along to them. Thank you in advance for your prayers. I believe that as fellow believers we are called to lift each other up in prayer. 

God bless you all today!

God-sized Dreams: A Work in Progress

 

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

*I know I am a day late writing this post, but life threw us a curve ball this weekend and I have been nursing a sick little girl back to health all week. Praise God that she is on the mend after a severe UTI (urinary tract infection). It has been quite an ordeal for a five-year old to have to endure,but God was faithful and brought us through. Please continue to pray for her as she continues to heal. We still have one more hurdle to jump and then she should be good to go. Thank you to those who have been praying for her and our family.

I find it a little bitter-sweet writing this post this morning. I have very much enjoyed being a part of the God-sized dreams team for the past couple of months, and I have met some wonderful people in doing so. I love that we can get together as a group of believers. I pray that God will open the door for us to do it again in the very near future.

I am pleased to say that my God-sized dream is going very well. I give all the honor and praise to God for everything that has grown out of one little dream to encourage and share God’s word with others. Little did I know that a nudge from a friend to sit down and write what was swirling in my head would turn into something such as this. Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would be sitting here, just a few short months later, sharing what God has laid on my heart with hundreds of people. That part of this journey still leaves me speechless every time I talk about it.

If I had to pick something to be the hardest part of  pursuing such a dream, it would be the kind of situation that we just faced this weekend. I am a mom, and that in itself is a full-time job, but I also feel that I have a calling from God to work for Him.  From time to time I find myself stretched pretty thin and there just does not seem to be enough hours in the day to get it all done. Once again, my God is always faithful to meet my needs right where I am, and He gives me the strength to move forward.

I am amazed every day to see this dream grown into something bigger than I could have ever imagined. I get so much joy out of encouraging others, and I look forward to hearing from my readers as they respond to different things that touched their lives.

I still have a lot to learn. There are many things I still do not know about running a blog, or where to go from here. But, I do know one thing, my God is bigger than all my failures, short-comings, and down-falls. I trust that God will continue to allow me to learn all the things I need to know to successfully run a  blog.

I have many dreams for the future of EFED ( that is how I have decided to shorten the name of my blog. It is a little easier to type.) As I have already stated, I would love to see “Encouragement for Every Day” grow into something bigger. I have the dream of  having it as my own web site in the future. I would like to be able to offer a resources page, that hold books and such things that I recommend. I have been praying about adding a “donate” button to the page so that the website may continue to develop into something bigger. I am still in prayer about the opportunity to write a book. There are just so many things that my heart desires to do for the Lord.

I would ask that you continue to help me pray as I listen for God’s voice and His direction. I firmly believe in my heart that God has more planned for the future of EFED and I want to keep my heart and ears open to all the possibilities. I would ask you to help me pray that God would send the right people into my life that will help me to gain the skills that I lack to run a successful website.

I would like to say a personal “Thank you” to Holley Gerth and her team for giving me the opportunity to share my dreams along with her readers. As a toddler in the blogging world, I feel that this opportunity has given me a chance to get on my feet and grow. God bless you, Holley. I pray God will continue to bless your  ministry for Him.

I would also like to say, “Thank you” to everyone who has joined me as I have taken this journey to a God-sized dream. My heart rejoices in the company of fellow believers and dreamers. My heart finds joy in getting to share, encourage, and pray with you every day.

I have to say a big thank-you to my family for supporting me as I get on my feet. My husband has been such a blessing to me. He is such a great supporter and he has encouraged me, and stood beside me every step of the way.I am excited to see what God has in store for us in the future.

I also have to say a big thank you to my parents. They have been supporting me on this journey since before anyone even knew it existed. I am so grateful for Godly parents who took me to church, taught me about God,and showed me what it meant to serve Him no matter what the cost. I am amazed at how all those years ago, when we were ministering together as missionaries, that God was laying the foundation for this ministry today. I also want to say thank you to my aunt who edits all my blogs. She has been such a big help in encouraging me to write, teaching me how to say what I really mean, and catching all my misspellings and broken sentences before I put them out there for the world to see.

Now I want to take a minute to encourage you. If you are living a God-sized dream, keep it up! There is no better place to be than right in the center of God’s will for your life. If you have a God-sized dream, but have yet to pursue it, I urge you to continue to pray about it and step out in faith. I understand how scary it can be, but I can honestly say without reservation that if God is leading you, you can never go wrong. If you are reading this and you are looking for guidance, maybe you feel a little lost in this world of God-sized dreamers. I also urge you to pray. Seek God and His will for your life. The Bible tells us in Matthew 7:7-8:

Ask, and it shall be given you;

seek, and ye shall find;

knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

 For every one that asketh receiveth;

and he that seeketh findeth;

and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

 

God has a great plan for your life. When you discover what that is, and you begin to take that journey, God will open doors that you could never even imagine were possible.

I pray that as you read this and continue throughout your day, that you will hide these verses in your heart. When you feel God tugging at your heart strings, when He whispers, “Come work for me”, I pray that you will answer His call.

God bless you today, friend!

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