God is so good! Luke James Knutson arrived yesterday morning in just under 3 hours. He is a bundle! 9 pounds, 15 ounces and that is 2 weeks early. We are praising the Lord for Angie's improvement, Luke's safe arrival and Andrea's help with the children. We are heading out today for Virginia. Be assured, or warned, pictures will follow as soon as Grandma and Poppy can get our hands on this little guy!
Thank you all for your prayers on behalf of our family. God has been faithful!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Spiritual Bacterial Infection
As I finish up the summer mentorship of three young moms, I am realizing that God is teaching more than just the three moms. When we seek to teach others, we learn new things ourselves. The hours of study have become a series of questions to ponder about my life. Strange how the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts to what we are portraying by the life we live. This has really made me look at my life....again. To consider it from a different perspective.
We first learn to trust the Lord. To have faith in Him. To believe that He can and will forgive our sins as we confess them with a broken and contrite heart. We recognize our sin and repentance comes. A turning away from the things that are contrary to the Word.
Then we begin the sancifiction process. Fortunately for us, this is a life long process. A constant growing. Somewhere along the line as we are leaning more about the Christian life and as we study the Word and being applying it to our lives, we loose sight of how we project the Lord on those around us.
The captivity of thought and speech is one of those things we think will just happen. It is like a bad habit that we ignore as if there is no help, no cure. Or maybe because we don't want to work that hard. Have we forgotten the help of the Holy Spirit? Have we forgotten that we are not walking this narrow path alone?
We must ask for the help of the Holy Spirit every moment of every day. Our sinful heart cannot be trusted to guard the door. The Holy Spirit is the one with the power to keep sinful thoughts from embedding themselves in our lives. He keeps our thoughts from becoming actions. And boy is Satan sly! Like a bacteria growing unnoticed until is causes a problem, he slowing affects our minds and begins to destroy our witness. It is the thought patterns that have embedded themselves in our lives that continue to eat away the progress toward a godly life.
I have spent more time in prayer recently pleading with the Lord to show me where I am allowing Satan to affect my witness. Where is that tiny crack in my armor where the bacteria has begun to grow? I know that there are many, many cracks. Some large and some small and I want Him to show me all of them.
Looking at my life with the magnifying glass of the Word is frightening at times and yet comforting to know that the forgiveness of God is right there. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins as we repent and confess them to Him. What an incredible thing! Like a healing balm on the blisters of infection, so is his grace on our lives.
We first learn to trust the Lord. To have faith in Him. To believe that He can and will forgive our sins as we confess them with a broken and contrite heart. We recognize our sin and repentance comes. A turning away from the things that are contrary to the Word.
Then we begin the sancifiction process. Fortunately for us, this is a life long process. A constant growing. Somewhere along the line as we are leaning more about the Christian life and as we study the Word and being applying it to our lives, we loose sight of how we project the Lord on those around us.
The captivity of thought and speech is one of those things we think will just happen. It is like a bad habit that we ignore as if there is no help, no cure. Or maybe because we don't want to work that hard. Have we forgotten the help of the Holy Spirit? Have we forgotten that we are not walking this narrow path alone?
We must ask for the help of the Holy Spirit every moment of every day. Our sinful heart cannot be trusted to guard the door. The Holy Spirit is the one with the power to keep sinful thoughts from embedding themselves in our lives. He keeps our thoughts from becoming actions. And boy is Satan sly! Like a bacteria growing unnoticed until is causes a problem, he slowing affects our minds and begins to destroy our witness. It is the thought patterns that have embedded themselves in our lives that continue to eat away the progress toward a godly life.
I have spent more time in prayer recently pleading with the Lord to show me where I am allowing Satan to affect my witness. Where is that tiny crack in my armor where the bacteria has begun to grow? I know that there are many, many cracks. Some large and some small and I want Him to show me all of them.
Looking at my life with the magnifying glass of the Word is frightening at times and yet comforting to know that the forgiveness of God is right there. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins as we repent and confess them to Him. What an incredible thing! Like a healing balm on the blisters of infection, so is his grace on our lives.
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