The Makools

I've shared with you a bit of our history concerning our journey from 13 years of living outside of Christ to our walk with God that lead us to now 20 plus years of ministry. We were at the end of our marriage.  Divorce was imminent.  Our lives had fallen apart and there was no hope in sight.  At least I didn't think so.  But God used this to bring Rickey to Him and as a result Rickey brought us along with him. A decision that  I will be forever grateful for to both God and Rickey.  


What I want to share with you today is who He used to help keep us on track until Rick was ready for the call God would place on his life, our lives. 


The Makools.


When Rick and I began our journey with Christ, we had to give up a lot.  Our life style had to change.  Our friends had to change.  Most Christians don't know what it takes to do that.  Leaving your friends behind is a hard thing to do because you feel alone and if someone from the church doesn't step in to replace those friendships, a lot of people return to what they know to avoid that loneliness. That's exactly what the Makools did.  They replaced what we had given up with something better.  A couple that had our best interest at heart.  A couple that had the same goals that we now had.  Friends that would be there for us through thick and thin.


 8Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.  1 Peter 4:8-10 


We did everything together.  If we weren't at their house, they were at ours. We were together every weekend and often with other Christian friends fellowshipping, eating, playing games.  We just loved being together. We became more like family than friends.  Their children called us Aunt and Uncle. Our children loved their children like brothers and sisters. They are a big part of who we are and where we are today. 


I can honestly say that if we hadn't had that relationship I don't know if we would be in the same place spiritually that we are today. They will never truly know how much their love meant to us, how instrumental they were in our spiritual growth.


There's so much more that I could say about them and their children.  How much we love and appreciate them.  But, I will simply ask you a question.  Who are you helping to walk that path to freedom? 


It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Galatians 5:1


13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Galatians 5:13-14


I thank God for sending us the Makools and pray God's abundant blessings on them for eternity.


Who were "the Makools" in your life?  Leave me a comment.




~Sharon

FRANCINE RIVERS GIVEAWAY

Today is the last day to get the free e-book "Leota's Garden" by Francine Rivers.

Be sure to sign up for the giveaway of the complete Francine Rivers library as well as prizes for 1st - 4th place winners.

Grand Prize—complete Francine Rivers Library

Subsequent Prizes –

First Place Prize (1)—1 copy each of Her Mother’s Hope/Her Daughter’s Dream

Second Place Prize (2)—1 Mark of the Lion boxed set

Third Place Prize (3)—1 copy of A Lineage of Grace

Fourth Place Prize (4)—1 copy of Sons of Encouragement

http://www.tyndale.com/blog/?p=1042

~Sharon

It's All About Love

The Closer, 4th season finale, Brenda to Fritz on their wedding day, "I love you with all my heart, the problem is sometimes I think my heart is only "this" big."

Our capacity to love is limited by our humanness. But, when we make the decision to follow Christ and live his example our capacity to love grows.  It grows not because of anything we do but because God Is Love.  If it weren't for God's love we wouldn't know what love is.  We wouldn't know what it looks like, feels like or that it even exists.

Matthew 22:36-40 says,  36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  37Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^b 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^c 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Why?  Because God loved us so much that he sent his Son to die for our sins, sins that belonged to us and not him.  Because Jesus loved his Father so much that he was willing to do what was asked of him, no matter what.  Who else has love like that?  Not me.  I would die for my family, I dare to say we all would.  But for someone I don't know?  Someone that has hurt me deeply, ridiculed me, beaten me and accused me of being evil?    I don't think so.


My son, Michael, spoke to a group of teens, at a church we were working with in Arkansas telling them, "If your boyfriend/girlfriend doesn't know God, isn't living for Him, they don't know how to truly love.  A wise statement that was.  


1 John 4:7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love............16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him........19We love because he first loved us.

Without Him we have nothing, we are nothing.  At what capacity do you love?


~Sharon


"Love One Another" The Greatest Command- A Capella

Book Review:   Not God's Type by Holly Ordway




Title:Not God's Type

SubTitle:A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith

Publisher:Moody Publishers

Imprint:Moody Publishers

Pub Date:05/01/2010

ISBN:9780802431943

                       Author:Ordway, Holly

                       Category:NONFICTION - ADULT: Biography & Autobiography

My Review:

I was so blessed by this book!!  Those of us that were raised in Christian homes have no idea what it’s like to not have, that knowledge of and connection to, the Lord readily available to us. We take so much for granted. 

It’s obvious from her writing style that Holly is highly educated and while some of us may not share her love for the same type of literature or poetry, she doesn’t go above our heads with her words.  She has made it so easy to see things from an non-believers perspective.

Even though I have been a Christian for 20+ years, Holly showed me things that I may not have learned otherwise.  I was reminded, from her perspective, just how God uses things, circumstances and people, through the Holy Spirit, to affect someone for His cause, His purpose. I’ve learned to call those Godincidences instead of coincidences.  For Holly, poetry was her awakening to God.  Her fencing coach was the catalyst that helped bring her face-to-face with God’s truth.  God knew he was the best person for the job.  He didn’t push Christianity on her or make her feel less than him because she wasn’t a believer but lived it for her to see so she wouldn’t feel intimidated or even disgusted but his faith. He waited for her questions, her interest in the truth. 

Once Holly made that leap of faith she didn’t sit back and wait for opportunities to live out her new Christian life but went looking for them.  We all can learn from her in this avenue.  It’s easy for us to reach a point of apathy when we make Christianity harder than it is.  Not that it’s easy but by living the greatest command we don’t have to worry about the do’s and don’ts.

God uses many avenues to reach the lost.  What works for some wouldn't work for others.  God knows just the right thing or person to use for each individual person he is drawing to Him. "He knew our members before we were born"  "He knows the number of our hairs". He knows everything about us.  What if her coach hadn't been open to letting God use him? But because he did there is yet another champion for the Kingdom.  How many times have we missed the opportunity that God put before us?

This book is definitely one that I will keep on my bookshelf.

~Sharon

Mike Eppes with:

5 Things God Uses To Grow Our Faith

Slow To Speak, Quick To Listen

Maybe I should have called my blog,  "Confessions of a Preacher's Wife", considering I am once again about to make a confession to my weaknesses and sin. But, that's the whole point of this blog. Women sharing so others won't feel alone in their sin and will understand that all sin is forgivable, short of blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, and even that I still don't quite understand.

Ephesians 4:26 tells us not to sin in our anger. 

And James 1: 19-26 says, "19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless."

I have failed this charge at least twice in as many months.  You might say, that's not so bad but when we fail to recognize the sin in our lives we are doomed to repeat it. Which is what I did. And if truth be told, it probably has happened more than twice. I just haven't recognized it quite as clearly as the two I eluded to.  It's easy to justify our sins. Put the blame on the person that betrayed you or treated you with disrespect or lied to/about you. The list of 'reasons' could go on and on. The fact is, we have to take responsibility for our actions. We can't blame others for our sin.

I have a temper.  Those that know me best know this first hand.  I do have to say, however, that it's not as bad as it used to be.  I have the Lord to thank for that.  It used to be quick and explosive but the Lord has tempered it a bit over the years.  It's still quick which is why I failed at 'slow to speak and quick to listen'. 

When our hurt turns to anger, it's easy to spout off things that you know better than to say.  A part of you doesn't care because, after all, if they hadn't done what they did...

This is what I did.  Both times I reacted in anger instead of stopping to think about it and pray about it and ask for a solution to the problem.  Both times what I said got back to the person I was angry with. A part of me was glad because I wanted them to know how they'd hurt me. Then the Holy Spirit begins to convict me and leads me to the scripture I referenced above.  Be slow to speak and quick to listen. I've always had a problem with that. My family can attest to that. 

I've made my apology to one and have yet to apologize to the other, but I will.  Satan wants you to resist the Holy Spirit's convictions telling you that they deserved your wrath. He wants you to hold on to your hurt and anger. He wants you to be too embarrassed or ashamed to do the right thing. Just put it behind you and forget it. He wants you to lose the influence you may have with them for God. I refuse to let him win though. 

James 4:7-10 says, "7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Sin separates us from God. We should grieve this loss as much as losing someone we love.  But all is not lost for the Christian.  1 John 1:5-10 says, "5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If  we  confess  our  sins,  he  is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."

He's not finished with me yet, He's still working on me.  Thank you, Lord!

~Sharon

His life for Mine

I was overwhelmed Sunday, while taking communion, by the renewed realization of what Christ did for me that day on the Cross. Such a mixture of emotions from sadness to thankfulness created the same result of tears. 


On the one hand, thankfulness for the fact that because of Him this world, this body, is not the only home I have to look forward to.  In fact, scripture tells me that, as a child of God, I am an alien in this world.  That this world is actually not my home but just a temporary place to stay until I catch my ride to my real home, Heaven.


1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.


Then there is the sadness due to the fact that I, someone that wasn't even born yet, was the reason He did this. He left Heaven, a place of peace, purity and perfection to come to this earth full of darkness, devastation and discontent to become the sacrifice that would turn this world upside down.  To offer us a new home that we would not otherwise have access to if not for Him. He endured things that we can't really imagine.  The physical pain He endured would have done me in after the first lash of the cat of nine tails tipped with shards of glass.  I would have called Heaven and all the angels to destroy those inflicting this pain on me as well as those who stood by and did nothing to stop them.  But most hurtful of all is the fact that because of the purity of God, unable to be in the presence of sin, turned away from His only Son, even if only for a short time.  How that must have not only hurt Jesus but God as well.   But the fact that Jesus was willing to endure all this and more brought me such guilt and pain that I did that to Him. Me, Sharon, a sinner. One that still struggles with sin and living in the desires of the flesh at times instead of living by the spirit.


Thank you, Jesus, for putting God's will before yours and thinking of me and not yourself.  Even that's hard to say.  Thank you.  It seems so selfish.  But what he did was necessary for my eternal life filled with the presence of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I can only imagine!!!


When did you come to the realization the He died for you?


View Video: Mercy Me "I Can Only Imagine"


~Sharon