Hey! I've moved!!

Thanks for dropping by on this site, but I'm no longer adding new posts to this blog. To read the latest posts click here! I'm really pleased how the new one is working. I'm sure you'll be blessed.

Blessings!

Jeanette

5 Steps to our Work Being Establish

I've been thinking about the word "establish". So I checked out the meaning of the word and I discovered that there were 5 elements in something being established.

1. The Planning

2. The Preparation for the future event

3. The Presentation of the finished product

4. The Pleasure others enjoy

5. The Personal Satisfaction and SUCCESS!

As an example, you look at those five steps in the preparation of a meal.

We plan ahead, get the recipe and buy the ingedients.
We prepare the meal.
We present the meal to the family.
Hopefully, they will enjoy it.
Then the SATISFACTION of providing a good meal, knowing that all were well fed and the meal was enjoyable..... hence a SUCCESS!!

So, for something to be established, it means that the end result is satisfaction and success!!

As I was thinking about that, I realised, in the past, how often I'd only got as far as step three, and not steps 4 and 5. Maybe because the works were done in my own strength. When we do that, we are prone to not seeing the thing succeed..

'Thus says the LORD:
"Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,^[a]
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:5-8, ESV)

So when we pray that prayer, we are praying for the WHOLE process, down to the satisfaction and SUCCESS!! But that success is not for our own glory, but for God's. That IS the success in it, that God has been glorified.

Here's another verse to support that:

"Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed." (Proverbs 16:3, Amp)

And Jesus said:

"In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father." (Matthew 5:16, NLT)

"We must work the works of Him Who sent Me and be busy with His business while it is daylight; night is coming on, when no man can work." (John 9:4, Amp)

To say it all very simply, if we want to succeed in what we do, find out what God wants us to do, and then do it HIS way!! We don't do it FOR HIM, in order to get His approval! Instead, we can do it THROUGH HIM, because we have His approval!!... remembering:

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil 4:13, NKJ)

God's Beauty seen in His Creative Ones

As I've meditated on this prayer for the past day or so, my thoughts go particularly to God's creative people. I'm reminded that when He created the world, He made everything good and beautiful. There was nothing in the world that was not perfect. As Genesis says, "God saw all He had made and it was very good." (Gen 1:31a, NIV)

However, because of man's sin, we all know it didn't stay that way. The world became a twisted place, and beauty began to vanish. When God made man, He made him in His own image.... and that too has become tainted. Man became ugly, and no longer reflected God's beauty.

Yet God calls His people, those who have been recreated in Christ, to be mirrors of His glory and of His beauty. Through Christ, we have been recreated in His own image.

We all have many different gifts and talents, and in each of them we display something of the Father's image. However, here, I wish to share with those who are blessed with the creative gifts, displaying that side of God, our creator. It is our place to bring back some beauty to this dark, twisted and ugly world.

We are the beautiful ones!!... and we see the beauty around us!! So let us share that beauty with those who do not see what we see.

"Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16, NIV)

First Prayer for 2007!

"Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us,
Yes, establish the work of our hands."
(Psalm 90:17, NKJ)

This is what I read this morning, and I felt I really needed it to make an impression on me, so I did this. It is also my prayer for you for the coming year. May you, firstly, know what the Lord would have you do, and then, may the Lord's blessing over all that you do.

"For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus. [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live]." (Ephesians 2:10, Amp)