From my friend Rhonda Kelly, good encouragement:
A right relationship with God begins with settling once and for all the issue that God is your loving Father and you are His accepted, adopted child. Yes, you are a child of God, you are created in His image, you have been declared righteous by Him because you trust that what Christ accomplished in His death and resurrection is applicable to you. As long as you believe that and walk accordingly, your daily experience of practical Christianity will result in growth. But when you forget who you are, and try to produce in your daily experience the acceptance God has already extended to you, you'll struggle. We don't serve God to gain His acceptance; we are accepted so we serve God. We don't follow Him in order to be loved; we are loved so we follow Him.
This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.
Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassion never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"Therefore I hope in Him!"
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
to the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly.
(Lam 3: 21-26)
The essence of the victorious Christian life is believing what is already true about you. Do you have a choice? Of course! Satan will try to convince you that you are an unworthy, unacceptable, sin-sick person who will never amount to anything in God's eyes. Is that who you are? No, you are not! You are a saint whom God has declared righteous. Believing Satan's lie will lock you into a defeated, fruitless life. But believing God's truth about your identity will set you free. Your perception of your identity makes such a big difference in your success at dealing with the challenges and conflicts of your life. (Know the truth and the truth shall set you free!)
--Neil Anderson
Monday, April 21, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
"Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity"
The Shack, By WIlliam P. Young is my new favorite book right now.
There are many that love it and give it high praise like this
"This book has the ptential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!" Eugene Peterson
Other people are not so sure about it. There are many that have misunderstood the purpose of this book and decided that it's a dangerous book, especially for young Christians.
Well I don't agree. I feel that this book is worth reading. The caption on the front cover says "Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity". That is a good summation of the story. One important thing in reading this book is that we must remember it is a work of fiction and so the author presents God in an allegorical way. Some people may embrace this and find it very refreshing. I find it easier to let go of the preconceived ways we picture God and look at him from another perspective.
This book should be sold with a box of kleenex because even grown men are in tears as they read the moving account of a man who lost his daughter through a tragedy that brings him under a Great Sadness. This is his journey to healing.
The back cover of the book says this:
Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.
Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.
In a world where religioun seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone youknow to read this book!
-----------------------------------------------
And that is true. I want everyone I know to read it and to have a chance to see things differently and maybe even get some answers to their own painful questions for God.
My pastor has reccommended this book from the pulpit and he is a very learned Bible scholar. I know that this book does not go against scripture and it's truly a treasure.
Please consider reading it. Maybe you have heard about it already, maybe not. But either way, at least give it a chance. Don't get stuck in the middle of it when things get crazy. Just read on and see what happens. You never know what God may say to you while reading it.
Visit the website and learn more about the author at www.TheShackBook.com .
God Bless You and Yours.
Stacey LaMontagne
There are many that love it and give it high praise like this
"This book has the ptential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!" Eugene Peterson
Other people are not so sure about it. There are many that have misunderstood the purpose of this book and decided that it's a dangerous book, especially for young Christians.
Well I don't agree. I feel that this book is worth reading. The caption on the front cover says "Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity". That is a good summation of the story. One important thing in reading this book is that we must remember it is a work of fiction and so the author presents God in an allegorical way. Some people may embrace this and find it very refreshing. I find it easier to let go of the preconceived ways we picture God and look at him from another perspective.
This book should be sold with a box of kleenex because even grown men are in tears as they read the moving account of a man who lost his daughter through a tragedy that brings him under a Great Sadness. This is his journey to healing.
The back cover of the book says this:
Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.
Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.
In a world where religioun seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone youknow to read this book!
-----------------------------------------------
And that is true. I want everyone I know to read it and to have a chance to see things differently and maybe even get some answers to their own painful questions for God.
My pastor has reccommended this book from the pulpit and he is a very learned Bible scholar. I know that this book does not go against scripture and it's truly a treasure.
Please consider reading it. Maybe you have heard about it already, maybe not. But either way, at least give it a chance. Don't get stuck in the middle of it when things get crazy. Just read on and see what happens. You never know what God may say to you while reading it.
Visit the website and learn more about the author at www.TheShackBook.com .
God Bless You and Yours.
Stacey LaMontagne
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Finally back
Well if anyone ever reads this, I hope they are glad to see that I am back. I have updated my pic and plan to post more often. I need to get back to my writing again. It is so good for me, but yet its so hard to make time for.
I just got a new Jason Upton CD today. I am so loving it right now. I am just listening and fighting the urge to break down and weep. I have been so dry spiritually lately. Seems so sad that my last post was on the "mountain of God" and now I am back in the valley. Isn't that just like life though?
I want to share what God is doing in my life cause I know HE has good things for me and I just need to draw near to Him and He will draw near to me. He is always with me. I am so thankful for that. If there is one thing I will never forget, its what a pastor told me a long time ago. He could sense I was wandering from God and told me that God is always as near as from your knees to the ground. Get down and pray and He is there. We feel so far away in our busy lives. We get so stressed and feel like life is so hopeless. SOOOO overwhelming at times.... I am sure you have been there. But the answer is so close. All we have to do is pray, seek HIM, worship HIM.
Just an encouraging word to light the way for you today. I will write more later.
God Bless You.
Let me know if there is anything I can pray for you about.
I just got a new Jason Upton CD today. I am so loving it right now. I am just listening and fighting the urge to break down and weep. I have been so dry spiritually lately. Seems so sad that my last post was on the "mountain of God" and now I am back in the valley. Isn't that just like life though?
I want to share what God is doing in my life cause I know HE has good things for me and I just need to draw near to Him and He will draw near to me. He is always with me. I am so thankful for that. If there is one thing I will never forget, its what a pastor told me a long time ago. He could sense I was wandering from God and told me that God is always as near as from your knees to the ground. Get down and pray and He is there. We feel so far away in our busy lives. We get so stressed and feel like life is so hopeless. SOOOO overwhelming at times.... I am sure you have been there. But the answer is so close. All we have to do is pray, seek HIM, worship HIM.
Just an encouraging word to light the way for you today. I will write more later.
God Bless You.
Let me know if there is anything I can pray for you about.
