Tag Archives: Truth

Guard Your Mind Hodgepodge

If it’s Wednesday it’s time for Wednesday Hodgepodge. Thanks to Joyce From This Side of the Pond for the questions.

1. What’s something bizarre you’ve seen or heard recently? 

Oh boy! I’m going to hubby for this question. He says, “that people can convince themselves to believe what is not true, and claim it and argue it and become immovable when confronted with the actual truth.”

My thoughts and a Bible verse;

Satan is the father of lies and is an influencer in our world.

John 8:44  “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

2. July 18th is National Sour Candy Day. Who knew? Do you like sour candies or other foods with ‘sour’ flavors?

I can enjoy some of these sour treats occasionally.

Kimchi, rhubarb, gooseberries, tamarind, dill pickles, sour cherries, sauerkraut, cranberries, and  grapefruit…of the sour foods listed which is your favorite? 

Kosher dill pickles!

3. Share a favorite memory of an aunt or uncle. 

This is a tough one for me. I really didn’t have endearing relationships with any of my aunts or uncles on either side of the family growing up. I never had a meaningful conversation with any of my aunts and uncles. There was a language barrier that didn’t help the situation. One nice memory I have is of my Uncle Alex making pancakes when I stayed overnight with my cousins and I enjoyed them. I grew up in a culture and generation where we were ‘seen and not heard’. The kids (cousins) played outside while the adults had conversation inside.

4. How would you describe your ability to manage stress? 

I don’t have the ability on my own to manage stress. I have to go to the Bible and remember that Almighty God is in control and I can trust Him with my life and the lives of my loved ones. Prayer, music, and encouraging conversation and remembering the promises of God help me. Not listening to a lot of news helps, too.

Things in this world are stressful. Studying the Truth is a lifeline for me.

I’m studying Ephesians, a book of the Bible during the summer months. One of the resources I’m using is a commentary of Ephesians by John MacArthur. This is a quote from the commentary I made note of;

“Macbeth pessimistically declared that history is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Shakespeare, Macbeth, 3.3.19)

“Apart from the wisdom and insight God provides His children, such a hopeless conclusion is inescapable. But history belongs to God, not to the puny plans of man or the perverse power of Satan. History is written and directed by the Creator, who will see it through to the fulfillment of His own ultimate purpose—the summing up of all things in Christ. He designed His great plan in the ages past; He now sovereignly works it out according to His divine will; and in the fulness of the times He will complete and perfect it in His Son, in whom it will forever operate in righteous harmony and glorious newness along with all things in the heavens and things upon the earth.”

5. What do you think about when you let your mind wander? 

Usually my mind goes to the next thing coming up because I spend so much time in planning that when my mind wanders it goes over some of the things and tweaks some of those plans…weird. If I have my good music and hymns on during the day in the background while I’m doing other things, my mind will wander to some of the great lyrics I’ve heard.

6. Insert your own random thought here.  

We are continuing to walk a few days of the week and on Sunday we finally tried walking out from our own front door down the road and back again. We generally avoid walking on our road because it is a very busy road with several large trucks hauling logs, etc., most days. On Sundays the larger trucks aren’t on the road so we felt safe enough to try it. We made it safely thirty minutes out and thirty minutes back very early in the morning before we got ready for our church services.

Truth for Today #21

Thursday June 2nd

On Thursdays my posts will include verses that stood out in my readings from the Bible during the week. One, two, three or maybe more. If you have a verse/verses that you read during the week and would like to share, leave it/them in the comments and I will add it/them to the post. Let’s dig deep in God’s Truth this year!

Note: I will not be posting a Truth for Today on June 9th as I will be traveling and away from my computer. It will resume on June 16th.

Colossians 1:21-23

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I Paul, became a minister.

I’m adding a paragraph from Alistair Begg’s devotional, Truth for Life,  on these verses:

“The good news of the gospel is the fact that Jesus of Nazareth came on our behalf to bring an end to our alienation. He, and He alone, has done what we most need but could not do for ourselves. So the call to us is very simple: to “continue in the faith…not shifting from…the gospel.” We never need to move on from the simple gospel of Christ crucified, risen, and reigning; in fact, we dare not. And yet how easy it is for us to grow cold to these truths; for familiarity to breed if not contempt, then complacency. So consider your heart honestly. Acknowledge your sin. And come back to the gospel once more, in awe “that thou, my God, shouldst die for me.”

From Vera:

“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭2:1-3‬ ‭

From Leonard:

2 Timothy 2:22
“So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

The Waves Teach…

 

For Lent this year I’m working through a 40 day devotional our pastor wrote on Wisdom. When we were walking on the beach this past Saturday and saw the waves tossing to and fro Dear quoted part of this next section of scripture from Ephesians…

Ephesians 4:11-16 (English Standard Version)

11And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

We really experienced the waves going in all directions this past Saturday which really illustrated this passage well.

 

Thank you for all who have stopped by and encouraged me with your kind comments. I really appreciate all of you. I’m really looking forward to being in one place again and I’ll wait and see how my blogging changes or stays the same. There will be new places and new environments to share. I’m overwhelmed with the blessings that God has passed on to me through my blogging friends both those I’ve met face to face and those I still have not met in the flesh. When I wake up at 2:00 in the morning I ask the Holy Spirit to make me recall any comments I’ve left where I’ve said “I’ll pray for you”, or “I’ll pray for that”, and He is faithful and brings those to mind.

God bless all who pass by my blog with His light and His grace in your lives…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.