Stop Remembering What God Has Forgotten

My inspiration for today’s blog came from a teaching by Joyce Meyer, and I pray it encourages you to be FREE!

Growing up I had a very abusive mother. In fact many times she was cruel and uncaring. To this day I don’t remember her telling me, “I love you.” She married a man who sexually molested me and when I told her, she took his side and didn’t put him out of the house. My abuse from her was physical, mental and emotional for many years. Bottom line—I had no control over this until I was 18 and could leave.

The affects from her abuse had devastating results for years to come, but then one day God said, “It’s time to be healed.”  No, it didn’t happen overnight—in fact it took years and even now ever so often things pop up to try to take me back to the shame, anger, insecurity, feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem, but I am healed so it doesn’t work for more than a minute.

The real turning point in all of this for me was—finally being willing to let go—so God could do something with it.

Now I’m not innocent by any means. I have two daughters by two different men, ages 39 and 21. And I have never been married. This all translates into me being a single mom thus far for 39 years straight.

But through it all, I have leaned to not waste my life on remembering what I’ve done, what I haven’t done, what people have done to me, what people didn’t do for me. Why? Because it serves no purpose for a good life!

You see, God has forgotten our sins, bad behaviors, poor decisions and wrong choices. It is sheer insanity to want to hold on and remember that which God has forgiven and forgotten.

Maybe you also had kids outside of marriage and by different men. Maybe you married the wrong man—maybe you didn’t know God then—maybe you did. Maybe you have abused your children—maybe your poor decisions led to them being homeless, dirty and hungry. Maybe you even lost your children to foster care. Maybe you have spent time in jail because of poor decisions or what someone else did to you. Maybe your drug or alcohol abuse messed up most of your life. Maybe your affair ruined your marriage. Maybe you sold your body for drugs; money or what you thought was love….

…..or, maybe your life was the flip side to all of the above. Maybe you were the unwanted child out of wedlock. Maybe you’ve experienced the heartache of having a mom or dad strung out on drugs or alcohol. Maybe you were homeless, hungry and dirty during your childhood. Maybe your father or stepdad sexually abused you and your sibs. Maybe your parents had affairs that divided your family. Maybe you had a parent who beat you physically and emotionally. Maybe you remember going to prison to visit a parent. Maybe you were raised in foster homes with people who only saw you as a pay check. Maybe your mother was a prostitute or even yet, she threw you into prostitution. Maybe you had a husband who beat you. Maybe your life was so horrific that when you look back; you know that only God could have gotten you through.

But none of it matters once you are willing to let go!

You might think you are doing okay, but if you have not come to terms with what happened to you, or mistakes you’ve made which changed the course of your life forever—it will follow you everywhere. There is no running from it. In fact if you will just take a moment to think about it, it could be the underline reason you are never really happy or find joy in life like others. Some of us are so sad, but can’t really put our finger on why? Others of us are mad at the world and ready to explode over the least little thing.

Last week I used Peter as an example of how we might not be able to stand for Christ if faced with some of the things our brothers and sisters are experiencing in other parts of the world. And today I want to take it just a little bit further.

³¹ And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. ³² But I have prayed for you; that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” ³³ But he said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.” ³⁴ Then He said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.” Luke 22:31-34 (NKJV)

After Jesus’ crucifixion and the Sabbath was over three went to visit his tomb and they encountered an angel…“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Mark 16:6-7 (NIV)

You see sisters….Jesus knew what Peter was going to do and he knew how deeply it would affect him. He prayed for Peter before he even committed the act, so he would make it through the shame and the pain. And here a few days later the angel (in Luke’s account) made sure to add Peter too! I’m thinking Peter was still feeling pretty bad about himself for what he had done and what he had not done.

God tells us He will turn our ashes into beauty and our mourning into joy—but we must first be willing to let go.

Sisters, it’s time to stop remembering past wrongs, injustices and mistakes made. There is no condemnation or guilt in Christ Jesus. And there should also be no unforgiveness in Him either.

It’s time to forgive yourself and others, and allow God’s healing grace and mercy, set you free from the past!

Until next week,

Love and Hugs

Ponnie

Do You Know For Sure—What You Would Do?

If you were in a situation where you, one of your children, spouse or other family members were threaten with death, torture or rape if you did not denounce Christ—would you be able to stand?

Of course most of us are shouting out, “Yes, I would!!” But the truth is…you won’t know for sure unless you are faced with that situation. All of us (including myself) want to think it would be a no-brainer and we could stand. But that is not necessarily so.

³³ Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” ³⁴ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” ³⁵ But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same. (Matthew 26:33-35)

⁷⁴ Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!” Immediately a rooster crowed. ⁷⁵ Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:74-75)

Now if Peter, a disciple of Jesus, (one of Jesus’ inner circle guys), could disown him because he was afraid of what might be done to him, if he were associated with Jesus. What makes us so sure we would not be of the same mindset when the rubber met the road?

This is really something to think about, especially for those of us who are already weak in our faith and trust in God.

Some of us are so scary, we are unable to do the smallest of things God requires. It can be fear of what others may think, fear of making a mistake or fear of having to let go of something we want to hold on to.

If fear of the little things can control us, what do we think will happen if we are put in a situation where everything we hold dear to us (in this world) is put on the line?

It’s like getting up every morning proclaiming, “I am believing God for a million dollars!” yet you spend most of your day stressing over the fact that your electric might be shut off for non-payment of the bill. Where is the faith for the electric bill?

The Bible tells us that God is our provider and the One who will supply all that we need. We read this, you say you believe it, yet…you browbeat your husband about money and bills. If you’re single you might take things into your own hands, like finding a boyfriend with money so that he can help you financially. And we all know, their no such thing as “Free” beyond salvation.

Paul admonishes us, “That [we are] to walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God [with fuller, deeper, and clearer insight, acquaintance, and recognition]. (Colossians 1:10 (Amp)

When we profess that we desire to please God in all things, what does that really look like for us? What does it really entail? Will it affect our thought life, our conversations, the way we dress or how we treat others?

You bet it does! Yet, there is a big problem for many of us in these areas.

How many of us spend a good portion of our day rehashing something someone has done to us or said to us—feeding our anger and unforgiveness? How much time do we spend in conversations that are nothing more than gossip or foolishness? How many of you single ladies are dressing by the world’s standard—provocatively and enticing to men? Why is it that so many of us are unable to show kindness and mercy to certain people?

Could it be that we are not steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God?

Do we realize the Bible has the answer to every problem or situation we can ever encounter in this life?

The key is sisters…we have to make the choice to be obedient and do what it instructs us to do.

If a soft answer deters anger, then why are you shouting at your husband? Because the flip side of that would be…shouting and loud words stirrup anger—right?!

Proverbs tells us, “A man who finds a wife, finds a good thing.” In other words, it is between him and God. So, single ladies why are so many of you on dating sites? (Statics show that 63% of the people signed up on ChristianSingles.com believe its okay to have sex before marriage.) Why are you trying so desperately to hook a man?

Jesus says, “Pray for those who have wronged us.” He took it even further to say, we should do good for them. Yet, thoughts of unforgiveness rule us because we refuse to let go and do it God’s way.

Sisters if we are not obedient in the everyday things of life, how can we ever expect to stand in the hard times?

Things are getting ready to change in the Western world as we know it, and we need to spend this time (right now), figuring out what we really do believe about God for ourselves!

When the hard times come, it is impossible to live off of someone else’s revelation or experience. It is also impossible to build an ark of safety during a storm.

It’s time to get serious about reading our Bibles and studying and meditating on what it has to say.  It is time to gird up our loins and know what we know…deep in the recesses of our hearts. Amen!

Until next week,

Love and Hugs

Ponnie

Watering Down Our Sin

I can’t say exactly when it happened, but bit by bit, I began to notice that the report of rape was no longer called, “Rape” in the United States. It is now mostly referred to as, “Sexual Assault”!

Let’s take a moment to look at the definitions of the two words. 

Sexual Assault…a statutory offense that provides that it is a crime to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat. "Most states have replaced the common law definition of rape with statutes defining “sexual assault.”

Rape… the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse. The act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; violation:

To me, sexual assault is a watered down way of saying a person has been raped. It has taken something from the true meaning and made it seem a little softer. People don’t cringe as much when they hear, “He is accused of sexual assault,” versus “He is accused of rape!”

This has become the way of the world—to water down sin. But we as Believers are not guiltless in this new way of thinking. No, we are becoming just as bad.

When I was growing up, people basically called “Sin” exactly what it was….SIN.

If you were shacked-up with someone who was not your husband—you were living in sin. Today, the person in question is either your partner, fiancé (even though you’ve just had your 3^rd child) or a common law husband. It is no longer seen as sin to be pregnant and engaged to a man who is not legally divorced yet. Nope…it is more than okay—it is glorified by many and deemed news worthy.

As followers of Christ many of us shake our heads when we see this type of stuff on TV, but we are not shaking our heads so much at our own stuff. No, we are working on being like the world and watering down God’s definition of our sin.

Just as most states have replaced the word “sexual assault” for “rape” we have replaced “sin” with… problem, hang-up, issue, or mistake.

I just love it when public figures are caught having an affair and as they apologize, they proclaim, “I made a mistake.” Well, how many times were you meeting up? How long was this going on? And how many times can we keep doing the same thing over and over and still call it a mistake? Truth is…when a Believer has an affair, we sin against God and the marriage covenant we entered into with Him and yes our spouse too.

How often can we look at porn, and pass it off as, “I have an issue?”

How long can we be deceitful with our spouse in what you are really doing with credit cards and spending money, and continue to think of it as, “I have a shopping problem?”

How many years can we look down on others because of the color of their skin or their social status and shrug it off as, “Well, that’s my hang-up?”

You see sisters…all of the above is SIN! They are not mistakes, problems, issues or hang-ups.

No, it is all a lifestyle and practice of sin.

Trust me, I am not trying to pick on anyone, because when I say, “We” I am including me too. (For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.) But what I am trying to do is provoke us to take a closer look at some of the sin in our lives we've gleaned over by watering it down. 

Whenever we can justify wrong doing, there is never the conviction for change. Why? Because in our justification, we make it seem that we are right and okay. In other words, to feel that you have a problem versus you are sinning against God and maybe someone else can take the sting out of what you really should be feeling.

We should never be okay sinning against God. And renaming our “sin” to a lower degree only hurts us and those we love even more in the long run.

If you have a problem and it falls under the category of sin (God’s decree of what is sin), then call it that! No more excuses or watered down variations of it.

The more we call our sins, the sins they are…the more we are going to be FREE and grow in our strength in the Lord.

Some of us need to get violent with the sin in our lives and take authority over it and no longer let it have rule over us!

Sisters, life as we know it, is about to change. The signs are everywhere and there will be no excuses accepted if we get caught without any oil for our lamps. (see How Much Oil Do You Have? 7/14/14)

Let’s stop pointing at the world and judging their sin and start looking at our own.

For years I've told my youngest daughter that when a guy comes a courting and somewhere down the line, he tries to persuade her to have sex or inappropriate sexual acts with him based on…if she loved him, she would do these things to show her love—not only does he not love her, he doesn't love God. Because if he had a heart sold out for Christ, he would not want to sin against Him, let alone entice someone else he claims to love to do so.

It’s the same for us. We should not desire there to be any sin in our lives. It should hurt us deeply to sin against God and others. But first, we must acknowledge there is sin and it needs to go.

Get in your Bibles girls and on your knees!!! Change is coming and I would be remised in my Kingdom duties if I were not to warn you. Amen!

Until next week,

Love and Hugs

Ponnie

We Need To Stop Being Such a Scary Bunch of Girls!

Scared: (adj) frightened, afraid, fearful, startled, nervous, panicky, alarmed, intimidated; terrified, petrified, terrorized, horrified, unnerved, panic-stricken.

I used the word “scared” versus fear, because this is what children say when they are frightened or afraid. My grandson will tell you in a New York minute, how scared he is when the thunder and lightning roll in. I grew up with a night light and as time went on, I became afraid (or scared) of the dark. Therefore I made sure my girls didn’t have night lights and grew up not being afraid of the dark. It is the same with our heavenly Father—He doesn’t want us to live a life where we are sacred and afraid all the time.

We see all through the Bible, “Fear not!” And we are also told that a spirit of fear does not come from God, but I used the word, “scared” because it sort of sums up all the different emotions we experience when fear sets in.

If we were all sitting in a room and I posed the question, “How many of you have ever been scared or afraid of something?” I’m positive every hand would go up. Why? Because it is something we learn and take on as children—scared of what our parents will do to us, afraid of bullies, sibs, being teased and made fun of. Yes, intimidation is something most of us experience before we even start school, if no other than by an older sib or unjust adult.

Take a minute to reread the definition of “Scared” one more time, and think about how being afraid has affected your life.

Is there someone or something that is intimidating you? Do you find yourself in a constant state of be nervous or panicky about things? Are you terrified of the unknown? Is your mortgage past due? Are the doctor’s reports continually negative? Have your children walked away from God? Are the bill collectors ringing your phone off the hook? Is it of great concern to you that your biological clock is ticking down? Is your spouse getting older or is ill and you’re terrified what the future might hold without them? Are you like me, past 60, single and needing more of an income and a new place to live? Is that scary for you?

Suppose being afraid was a deadly virus like Ebola which kills and devastates and there is only one antidote that would save your life or that of a loved one, and you had to give up all your worldly possessions and that which you hold dear to you in order to get it. Would you? Of course you would! For one, death would most likely be imminent without it. And for the most part—most of us would rather have good health and life versus stuff when you really get to the nitty-gritty of it all.

Well, sisters…there is only one antidote for the killer “Fear”! It is called, “Trust God!”

Yup, it is that simple.

Just as we would give up everything and go through hell and high water to get the antidote so we or the one we love could live, we should be so serious about building up our faith and trust in God.

And how do we do that? By reading and studying our Bibles! And then standing on what we have read, meditating on it until it becomes a part of us and we become fearless!

Then when the bill collectors call you will not cringe, counting the rings until they stop. No, you will pick up the phone and state your case, whatever that might be. Looking for the favor of the Lord to intervene! You won’t wait for the bank to call or start proceedings to foreclose on your house, no; you will be proactive and call them to see what can be worked out, while waiting upon the Lord.

Your heart will not be in your throat when you keep getting the bad reports from the doctor. Instead the Word of God will rise up in you and fear will flee.

My youngest daughter is a senior at a Christian college and a RA (resident assistant), and this year she is over a section of campus apartments. We had many long conversations this past summer about her apprehension of people drinking and having sex. (The college has a strict policy about such things.) I constantly reassured her that since the Lord gave her this position, He will make sure she will succeed and not to be afraid of the unknown, because it is not unknown to Him.  

A few days ago, another RA told her that there is an apartment in her building that is planning on befriending her, so that they can get away with having liquor in their room. Of course when she told me, we laughed. For one, God was all up in the fact that she is being forewarned, and second they must not have heard about her reputation as being a hard nose. Is she? No, not really—she just follows the rules and that is something too many of us don’t do today and we don’t seem to like those who do.

But my point here is…God has it covered! And the more we believe this, the better we will sleep at night, and live more enjoyable days.

Am I implying that things will always turnout the way we want them too? No, I’m not saying that because everyone doesn’t get their healing on this side—but nonetheless we do receive it. And the bank might take your house, and your spouse might pass away. And you could end up living in a shelter. But being afraid and scared waiting for the other shoe to drop will not change the outcome that God is going to allow, but it can make you sick and life such a drag. In other words, it will kill hope and suck the beauty out of your days.

Sisters, get into your Bibles and I’m not talking about your little 10 minute devotional books and calling it a day. I’m talking about reading, studying, praying, questioning, learning and building up your faith. It is the only way we can stand and fear not!

Until next week,

Love and Hugs

Ponnie