THE BROKEN VESSEL

Have you ever been on that mountain top high with everything going well in your life and all the sudden, things start happening in your life and you begin to fall from a great mountain top existence into the valley below? You first begin to wonder why God is allowing this to happen or where He is leading you? You start with a “mustard seed” like faith believing that He will see you threw to the other side of whatever He is trying to show you. You continue to pray for a while (several months), growing weary of waiting on His timing and begin to loose your mustard seed faith. Then it becomes that you don’t know what to pray anymore so you just don’t. You find yourself broken and beaten down and at a point where you allow Satan to whisper in your ear that your “mustard seed to move a mountain” faith just isn’t good enough. You are at this point a broken vessel and believe that maybe he is right and you just can’t get back up that mountain. I am here to tell you that God is able to use every vessel, especially the broken ones.

We have an obligation to use whatever gifts and talents that God equips us with in order to grow, even in our brokenness. It hurts when God takes you from your comfort zone in order to bring you into a deeper level of spirituality. It’s like sandpaper to our flesh. But our obligations are not to our FLESHLY desires but to being OBEDIENT to God in order to bring Him the glory.

I know that when we are in the valley is when God is working His hardest to reveal himself to us. I know in our brokenness, He will once again raise us to the top of that mountain and use all our hardships and struggles for our good and His glory. He will bring us to the other side and use us, a broken vessel, in a mighty way to minister to others that may have those same struggles. Then we can say to Satan, “All I needed was a “mustard seed to move a mountain” faith. My God is able to use me, even in my brokenness.”

Even a broken vessel is used by the mighty hand of God and broken vessels don’t remain broken forever.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:57-58 (NIV)

Ignore it and Maybe It will Go Away....

I wanted to share this with you all. It was a devotional that I really needed to hear. I don't want to be like this. I want to deal with my issues (and believe me, I have many of them).. I hope this blesses you as much as it did me.

Title: Ignore It And Maybe It Will Go Away Date: 2009-12-14 16:23:17.0

Many people including Christians ignore things that should not be ignored, feeling that they will deal with it later. But later does not happen and it gets worse. When Christians are being attack by the devil, instead of rebuking the attack immediately and handing it over to the Lord, they ignore it; by the time they want to deal with it, the devil has them convince that God is ignoring them. A child of God knows that God wants the best for them and knows that God does not ignore His servants.

SAINTS: It is so important to be in the "word" everyday. The devil is slick, and if you start to ignore the attacks it will eventually affect your walk with the Lord."

"My Dear Children why are you ignoring what My servants are saying to you? You are turning a deaf ear to My servant. You are so involved what others are doing and saying that when My servants come, you mock them.

Do you not realize that if you keep turning a deaf ear, you will perish?

Do you really think I will allow you in My kingdom when you do not want to take the warning from My servants?

When My servants tell you that if you keep listening to false teachers that tell you can come into My kingdom without acknowledging My Son, but can come by works alone, is a lie! If everyone could be with Me just on their works, then everything that is written in the Bible is a lie, and My Son suffered and died for no reason.

The Ten Commandments are useless if you can spend eternity with Me by works alone. There are many countries that ban the Ten Commandments. There are many countries that ban Me. They feel you can make gods out of wood, worship it, and everyone will be in heaven because there is no heaven and hell. That is a lie!

Unfortunately many who at one time was My servant and abide in Me, have turned away. What are you going to do? It is going to be a rude awakening for many, because there are many that turned away from Me, and many more will follow them says the Lord."

Jeremiah 15:5,6 "For who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? Or who will bemoan you? Or who will turn aside to ask how you are doing? You have forsaken Me, says the Lord, You have gone backward, Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of relenting!"

Jeremiah 37:2 "But neither he nor his servants not the people of the land gave heed to the words of the Lord which he spoke by the prophet Jeremiah."

Matthew 7:26 "But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand."

James 4:17 "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin."

Ephesians 2:8,9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone ahould boast."

Sara Holowell I welcome your comments. Website address: hopefortheharvest.org

If It Were Me.........

How many times have you started a sentence with those words?...."If it were me,...I'd.......fill in the blank." Do we really know what we would do if we were in someone else's shoes? Going threw their storm. NO!!!!! I used to use that phrase all the time until God revealed to me that using those words were nothing short of judging others. We don't know what we would do in a situation until we are actually the one weathering the storm. We are called to weather different storms in life I believe to make us stronger, better, more dependant (upon God) kind of people. Just remember, when you are down to nothing, God is up to something. Be careful not to judge someone with your words. Weather your own storm & leave everyone else to tend to theirs. Pray for whatever it is that God is trying to reveal to be revealed but don't judge.

I love The Message version of Matthew 7:1-2 which says Dont pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults--unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.We all know what a boomerang is designed to do. It comes back to you. Just something to think about.

In love, Trish

Mexico Mission Trip

We are gearing up for our Mexico Mission Trip. Hubby and son will be going with a group from the church to Mexico to build a house for a family next Spring Break.
I spent most of the day with a fellow church member collecting donations for the silent auction planned for next weekend. Our efforts have been so blessed that I cannot even begin to tell you how much. I have claimed the following scripture for our fundraising efforts for this Mission Trip:

Ephesians 3:20 says “With God’s power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine.”
I thank God that He has blessed our efforts so far and pray He will continue to bless beyond our imagination. I pray His hand will guide us in all decisions being made toward this effort. Please join me in claiming Ephesians 3:20.

School Clothes Shopping.

I ventured off with three children on Saturday to go school clothes shopping. This was an adventure in itself. After many meltdowns from my youngest (3 years)-she will be starting preschool this year and many arguments and disagreements between the older two (12 and 8), I was definately ready to return home and have a quiet evening. I just want to share one of the meltdowns that Val had. Here we go, we are in the check out line at Walmart and have one more store to stop at to buy her green dress that she wants for school. She has a total meldown and says in a whiney voice "Bubby, can you buy me some gum? But it has to be green gum to match the green dress momma is gonna buy me. Please bubby!!" I thought I was going to just cry but could not hold back the laughter. My thought was, "Oh my, my three year old is coordinating her gum to match her dress, what???" Needless to say, she got her gum and her dress and was once again happy.

I refuse....

I will not let the regrets and disappointments of THE PAST and the fears of THE FUTURE hinder God's blessings TODAY.
God's word is full of promises He has made for us. Why do we allow Satan to use the regrets of yesterday and the fears of tomorrow to steal our promises of today??? I refuse to let Satan have a hold in my life!!!!! We must push him aside in order to move forward with God.

Suffer the little children....

I am amazed as I walk into a local church to take my two girls to a VBS that is mind you well advertised and that we were invited by some friends that go there. I will not reveal the name of the church but here is the story.

I walk in, a lady comes up to me after standing there for a few minutes (I find out later that she is the VBS Director). I ask if there is paperwork to fill out for my children to attend VBS. Her first response is "I don't even know who you are. Are you planning on staying? Who are you?" I tell her my name and where I live. She then says "Well, this one looks a little young, how old are they?" I tell her their ages 3 and soon to be 8. She then says "Well, she is too little to stay, you can talk to the teacher, but she is a little small." She says "Well the other one can stay if she will." I asked Emilea if she wanted to stay (praying she would say no because of how abrupt this lady was being) Of course she wanted to stay. She had friends there. So I gave her my number and she said "It's over at 8:00, you will be back then?" I said yes and went to the car with my three year old kicking because she wanted to stay. I went to my friends house for a planning meeting. Got there and she asked why didn't Valerie go to VBS with Emilea and I told her what happened. She was one of the friends that goes to that church and also has a three year old which was at VBS. She loads Valerie up and here we go back to the church. I don't even get out because I am so upset. She takes her in and the pastor comes out and appoligizes. I explain that it is not his fault. I also tell him that I am over the children's ministry at my church and I would never turn a child away that is wanting to hear the gospel. I said when I walked threw those doors, she did not know if I was "churched or unchurched". What kind of testimony did she just set for your church. Again, he appoligized and said he would "make" her appoligize to me. I told him that was not necessary. He insisted that this should not have happened and he was sorry.

My meeting ran a few minutes over so I sent another friend (that goes to church there) to pick my children up. I receive a phone call from the director asking if it is ok for my friend to pick them up, I tell her yes that would be fine. She then abruptly says "did you arrange that?" I said you know what, I'll come get them. She ended up sending them back with the friend. I get a voicemail from her saying that she "evendentially owes my an appology". She quoted bible scripture to try and justify her actions....AMAZING!!! She said she just did what she would hope I'd do in her position.

I AM in her position every time I walk threw the church doors (responsible for the care of children) and I pray that I NEVER do what she did (turn a child away because I don't know the parent). Here I go quoting scripture but in Matthew it talks about the parents bringing their children to Jesus so he could lay hands on them and pray for them and the diciples getting angry and saying that they were bothering him. We all know what Jesus' reply was "Let the children come to me, Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children."
We so often forget that in order to inhiert the Kingdom of Heaven, we have to become like little children. It is a shame that we turn away children from hearing the gospel because it is not convenient for us or because we let out titles, education and sophistication stand in the way of the simple childlike faith that God so desires us to have.