RESTING IN GOD’S PROMISES THROUGH COVID-19

SO THERE REMAINS A SABBATH REST FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD.

FOR THE ONE WHO HAS ENTERED HIS REST HAS HIMSELF ALSO RESTED FROM HIS WORKS, AS GOD DID FROM HIS.

Hebrews 4:9,10

When everything around us seems to be in a chaotic turmoil, how can we rest? When we are confused about all of the conflicting information we are being fed and we don’t know what we should believe, how can we rest? When everything we have known is suddenly changing so fast and looking as though it will never become normal again, how can we rest? When all we experience is darkness and with no sign of the sunshine, how can we rest?

Perhaps a better question, the one we should be asking, is…READ MORE

 

ANOTHER VIDEO

Since my set of books It Is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God is now published, I thought it would be a good idea to do a video to tell you a little about it. So without any more ado, here is the video!

Click here 

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

You may have been wondering why I have not posted anything new for a while. I apologize for that, but I have been busy. For one thing, I have been working on preparing another book for publishing. Last week I finally uploaded my manuscript and cover to KDP Print. There was a problem with the spine, so I fixed that and uploaded it again. No sooner had I done that than I realized I had the wrong front cover and spine. Evidently I had designed two front covers and spines to go with each, and somehow got them mixed up when I prepared my full cover PDF.

Continue reading here on my new blog for the rest of the story.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

It’s an exciting time, and I have a special announcement to make.

My new books are now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca as well as other Amazon markets.

It is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God

It is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God Study Guide

It is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God Journal for Study Guide

It is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God Thanksgiving Journal

If you are looking for a book which will encourage you to seek a deeper prayer life, a book which will teach you about prayer, a book which is based on the Word of God, a book with many scripture-based prayers, then you will want to get a copy of It is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God. Forward by Pastor Cheryl Roach, The Gathering Place and Revival Centre London, Ontario, Canada. Endorsed by Margaret Gibb, founder and director of  Women Together.

If you love to study, you will also want the Study Guide which takes you through the book with questions and suggestions for renewing, or beginning a fruitful prayer life. If you have a small group Bible Study, you may want to use the book and Guide for study in your group.

The Journal for Study Guide gives you more room to write your answers and notes and prayers.

The Thanksgiving Journal is for the challenge I have put out in the chapter on the importance of giving thanks.

Please click on the above links which will take you to the individual pages, or click here to go to the page with all of my books listed.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit and for allowing me to share my excitement with you, my readers. After the many years I  have been working on this book, it is a joy to see the final result of all the hard work. I hope you will leave a comment in the box below. Again, please check out the Amazon pages. I have linked to Amazon.com, but if you live in Canada, you can find the same results on Amazon.ca. Either enter my name or the book title in the search box.

If you are not already following my blog, please take a moment to click on the “Follow” button at the top. I thank all of you who are already following me. I really appreciate your interest in reading my posts. Watch for an announcement for my new web site which I am currently working on. It’s not quite ready yet, but hopefully soon it will be public. I hope you will all follow me there as well.

I pray that these books will bring great blessing to those seeking a new or renewed prayer life and in the lives of the people who will be on the receiving end of all of those prayers. May God bless you abundantly as you begin or go deeper into your own personal Journey into the Heart of God.

WHAT IS SUCCESS?

The question was asked in one of my FaceBook groups the other day: What are you doing towards your success?

My answer probably looked atypical, because I do not view success as most business people do. For one thing, even though I was in business for years, I do not consider myself a businesswoman. I realize that, as an author, I am in business. I am in the business of selling books. At least, that is how the public sees it. It is also the way other business people see it. But I consider what I do more as a ministry than a business.

My answer went something like this: If even one person is helped, encouraged, finds hope from each of my books, I will consider that success. If I reach and help many people, I would not consider that more of a success than helping one person.

What am I doing towards success? I write the best I can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that which the Lord inspires me to write. I hope to share the gospel and the love of God with my readers in such a way as to inspire them to better things, to a closer relationship with the Lord, to a deeper desire for the things of God. I share my books on my blog, on social media, with friends.

What more can I do? I can pray. And that leads me to my newest book, It is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God. It should be published by the end of this week. Along with the book is a Study Guide to be used either personally or in a small group study. Two journals will accompany these books, one a Thanksgiving Journal to be used for a challenge I have put forward in the book, the other a Study Guide Journal for extra notes for those who choose to use the Study Guide. Together, I pray that my readers will find their way into a brand new place in prayer for the first time, or into a fresh, dynamic renewal of prayer in their lives.

I will be back to let you know when the books are available on Amazon.

Announcement! The books are published and are now available on Amazon. Check my post here with links to each book on Amazon.com.

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Have a wonderful day and be blessed.

ANOTHER UPDATE

Just a short note today to bring you up to date on what I have been doing. My book, It Is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God is currently being read by Margaret Gibb, founder of Women Together, as she has generously agreed to endorse it. In the meantime I have been working on a study guide to go along with the book. I do not have a specific publishing date, but hope they will be available within the next month or so. I plan on publishing them together, so it depends on how long the study guide will take to finish.

Then, I have been side-tracked on another issue. My computer keeps telling me I need to update Windows. But the only problem is that I don’t have enough disk space to accomplish that. So I have spent days deleting many, many documents that I have no use for. Also, I discovered I had never resized many of my hundreds and hundreds of photos. Plus I had numerous duplicates that I had no need for. I am not quite finished yet, but I am getting closer to creating enough space for my update. Quite a chore, but one I have wanted to accomplish for some time now.

Some things I just have to be forced into doing. I suppose that is the way life often works, even in the spiritual realm. The Lord asks us to do something, but we are “too busy” to obey, so we keep ignoring it. Eventually, He gets our attention one way or another and we are forced into following His instructions. Often the thought of what we must do appears to be a mountain which, once we begin, we find is not much more than a hill. Yes, it takes effort to climb it, but it’s not really so bad after all.

I hope you are having a productive week. Thank you for taking time to drop by to read my post. I really appreciate you. Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below before you leave. And if you have any extra time, please feel free to browse through my other posts. If you are not already following me, I would be happy if you would take a moment to click on the “Follow” button. You will receive e-mail notifications when I add a new post.

May the Lord bless you abundantly throughout this week and always.

STILL EDITING and WRITING

My apologies for having neglected my blog over the past couple of weeks. I have been editing my book It Is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God. Finally, on Thursday evening, I finished what I think was the fourth recent edit and, hopefully, the final one except possibly a final read-through.

I e-mailed the manuscript to Margaret Gibb, founder of Women Together, and she is currently reading it in order to endorse the book for me. Then there will be just the last minute things to do before I upload to KDP Print.

It’s exciting to see another book so close to being in my hands. I am now writing a companion workbook to use either in a group study or for personal use. This is a new area of creation for me, and I am enjoying it. I have 30 pages done as of Saturday night (first draft, of course), and hope to be able to publish both books together. I will let you know when they are available on Amazon. If you would like a preview of part of this book, check this post and follow the links to read the rest of the topic.

Other than this, I have been occupied with the usual things such as prayer, going to church and Bible Study. I had a lovely afternoon yesterday. A friend invited me to lunch after church. After eating, we sat out on her little patio enjoying a cup of tea and the beautiful weather. 

Well, this is just a short post, but I will be working on the study book this week and I just wanted to keep you updated on what is happening in my world.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my post. I hope you will take a moment to share your thoughts with me in the comment box below. And if any of you are not yet following my blog, please take another moment to click the “Follow” button to receive e-mail notifications of future posts.

Oh, and please watch for an announcement of my new web site sometime in the future (hopefully not too-distant future). I hope once it is made public that all of you, my followers on this blog, will skip over to the new site and sign up there, too. This site will remain and I may possibly post from time to time, if only to share new updates on my new site.

God bless you all. I pray you will have a wonderful and exciting week.

PRAYER AND EDITING

Sounds like a strange title for this post, no doubt. But the two words do have more  in common than you might think. If you are a regular reader here, you will know that I have written a book about prayer and am in the process of doing some final edits. If you are new here, now you know too.

It has been a little bit tedious as this current edit is to check all of my Scripture references and make sure they are correct. A good thing, too. I have found a few typos which created references which do not even exist, such as 1 Samuel 49, which should have been 19. I had also included a few which, on reading now, could not figure out why I had even chosen them. Out they went. I have another 30 pages to go to finish this edit.

Then comes the next edit. All of the concordance references. That, too, will be rather tedious as there are a lot of them, and footnotes are in smaller type so not as easy to read. But better to make sure now that they are correct than let them go through the publishing stage to find there are a bunch of mistakes. I’m sure I won’t get it perfect, but I do want it as close to perfect as I can come. It can be frustrating to read a book, check a footnote or Scripture only to find it doesn’t make any sense.

Next I will probably read the whole thing over again to check for any other type of errors. I have someone who has agreed to read and endorse the book, so I will probably send it to her before I do the that particular read-through. We can do that simultaneously. Since I have been working on this book for years—more than a decade—since before I even considered turning it into a book. Originally it was just a list of prayers I would pray on a semi-regular basis. I had no idea it would turn into a 350-page book!

When I read/edit, I always do it out loud as I find I can pick out errors much easier than doing it silently. Otherwise I can skip over without even seeing extra words, typos, missing words. I find these audibly much more quickly than visually. I think I tend to almost become hypnotized and sleepy if I don’t verbalize lit.

When I thought further about prayer and editing, it came to me that sometimes we need to actually edit our prayers. There is a possibility that we could be praying wrong prayers. We may be inserting too much of the flesh and too much of what we consider the answer should be. Perhaps we are analyzing the situation from a worldly standpoint and not praying according to the will of God. It’s time to edit.

Not that we want to get too tied up in knots as to how we pray. The exact words are not of such importance as the attitude of our hearts as we come to the Lord. But it never hurts to check our prayers from time to time to see if they line up with God’s heart and word in the situation or for the person we are praying for. Or if we are seeing ourselves rightly before the Lord. If our spiritual vision is twisted or clouded, our prayers will be the same and we will not see the answers we hope for. So an edit might just be appropriate from time to time to make sure we are still in alignment with God.

Prayer is our communication line with heaven and with our heavenly Father. You could call it a life-line. Without it, we have no connection to the source of life. So we need to be sure the lines are clear. This particular book is all about how to pray using the word of God. I have often been in prayer meetings where the leader would ask someone to take a particular verse and pray into it. I discovered that many people do not know how to do this. They will read the verse, but then seem to be at a loss as to how to turn it into a prayer. So my book was born partly for this reason. Then it expanded to a teaching on the different types of prayer we find in the Bible. It kept growing, together with personal anecdotes, until it is now almost ready to publish. I hope it will prove to be a useful tool for many people to enhance and deepen their prayer life.

So there you have the story, in a nutshell, of It Is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God.

Stay tuned for future announcements when it becomes available on Amazon.

Thank you so much for stopping by to read my post. I would really appreciate it if you would consider leaving a comment in the box below before you leave. And feel free to browse other posts here as well. If you are not already following me, please take a moment to click on the “Follow” button to receive e-mail notifications of each new post. I would also love it, if you are new here, if you would tell me a little about yourself and how you found my blog. It would be a great help to me.

I pray you will have a wonderful weekend. May God bless you abundantly.

SPRING INTO NEW LIFE

Spring. A time of awakening. A time of new life beginning. A time of the sprouting up of plants from the earth. A time of opening of buds and blossoming of flowers and greenery. A time of change from the often dreary, dark and cold days of winter into the warm sunshiny days which promise to follow.

Although spring is not my absolute favorite time of year (that would be summer), I love this new stirring of all nature as it prepares for the maturing of summer growth and, eventually fall harvest. This means increased rains in many areas as well as milder temperatures and sunshine (unless, of course, you already live in a tropical or semi-tropical area). I am fully aware that the rain is essential to spring growth, for is it not April showers that bring May flowers? Yet I am not fond of day after day of rainy and damp weather. That’s why I prefer summer–most years.

Spring is a time, also, for the stirring of hearts, the renewal of hope and faith. It is a time of the blossoming of love. Countless weddings take place in the spring months, and particularly in June. Weddings speak of new beginnings, the promise of blossoms and new life to be produced through these new relationships.

What has seemed dead for so long has come to life again in nature. This brings hope to heavy hearts that life can once again return to them. Senses are reawakened by this breath of life. It is time to shed the spirit of heaviness and receive the garment of praise from the Lord of all life. To allow His rain to shower us with blessings. To allow His love to soften the hard places in our hearts. To allow His joy to awaken new senses. To allow His peace swallow us up in His presence.

A time of renewal. What needs to be renewed in your life? Do you need to work on your prayer life? Your relationships? Your spiritual walk with God? Or do you need to review and revamp your business? Your career? Your job? Your marriage? Perhaps even your geographical location? Regardless of where your particular need lies, spring is a great time to make any changes necessary to improve life in any and every aspect. 

Do you have a dream to awaken? Do you know what steps you must take in order to see that dream come to fruition? Is there something you have set aside for whatever reason that you know now is time to bring it back out of storage? There is no time like the present. There is no time like springtime.

Let’s together do a life-check to see if spring has come into our lives again this year. Let’s check where we need to do some weeding, fertilizing, watering, new planting, tilling of the soil of our hearts and lives. Now is the time. Now is the hour. Let’s be busy on improvements wherever we can. 

What is the Lord saying to your heart? Stop. Sit still. Listen. Ponder. Act.

I’m not sure what prompted me to write this, but here it is. I hope you have enjoyed reading it and I hope it has spurred you on to find your place of reawakening and blossoming so that, in the future, your life will provide a great harvest for the Lord.

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading. I would love it if you would leave a comment in the box below before you leave. And if you are not following me, please take an extra moment from your busy day to click on the “Follow” button at the top. You will receive an e-mail notification of each new post as it is published. Oh, and do feel free to browse previous posts.

I pray that you have been blessed with your visit and that you will come back soon. Please share with your friends on social media and/or through e-mail or word-of-mouth so the blessing can spread. I pray that you will have a blessed day and week filled with encounters with God.

PRAYER OF COVERING Part 7-The Armor of God

Ephesians 6:10-18

We all know about the armor of God. We have read about it in the Book of Ephesians where the Apostle Paul explains to the church at Ephesus what this armor consists of. You have probably even seen small replicas or photos of the armor. I have heard people say we do not need to do warfare prayer. If that were so, then why do we need armor? Why do we need weapons? If the Lord did not intend for us to engage in spiritual warfare, He would not have provided the equipment to protect us and to fight with against our enemy. And He has more than adequately equipped us with all we need.

There is a danger here, however, and we must learn to understand just who our enemy is. Paul wanted the Ephesians to recognize that we do not fight against flesh and blood. We must not look at people as being the enemy though the enemy may be using them for his purposes. It is the spiritual forces and powers in this dark world that we must do battle with. Our weapons are spiritual so we may accomplish this and come out on the victory side. With God on our side, and when we choose His side, we cannot lose the war.

I have also heard it taught by many who would have us believe that we have no armor, no protection, for our backs. But the term “full armor” actually means panoply, or a complete covering. It means we are wrapped up in that armor. Can you even imagine a breastplate that only covers the front of the body? How would it stay on? Tied with a ribbon around the soldier’s neck? No, the breastplate has a front and a back so we are fully protected. Our God does not leave us vulnerable in any area. We only become vulnerable when we neglect to put on that armor, when we lay our weapons down.

Following is the final part of the Prayer of Covering.

May I always conduct my life with integrity, Lord—in full measure, innocent[ly[, blameless[ly], upright[ly] (see Proverbs 10:9).

I now put on the full armor of God—Jesus Christ Himself (see Romans 13:14)—that I may be able to stand strong today against all the schemes and trickery of the devil (see Ephesians 6:10-17). I put on the helmet of salvation—Jesus is my Salvation (see 1 Corinthians 1:30)—to protect my mind in every spiritual battle. I put on the breastplate of righteousness—Jesus is my righteousness (see 1 Corinthians 1:30)—to protect my heart, my spirit and my back from the onslaught and ambushes of the enemy. I wrap around me the belt of truth—Jesus is the Truth (see John 14:6)—to protect the workings of Your Spirit in my inner man so truth abides and prevails within me at all times. I put on my feet the shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace—Jesus is the gospel (see 1 Thessalonians 3:2), and He is my peace (see Ephesians 2:14)—that I may be fully provided for and ready to go where You call me to go, refrain from going where You do not want me to go, and that wherever I go I will, as a peacemaker, take with me Your peace and the truth of the gospel. I choose to take up the shield of faith—Jesus is the Author and Finisher of my faith (see Hebrews 12:2)—He is my faith (see Ephesians 3:12 KJV)—and, according to Your Word, not one of the flaming darts of the enemy will be able to penetrate that shield but will all be extinguished. I take hold of the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God—Jesus is the Word (see John 1:1)—which “…is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). By the power of the name of Jesus I will use this sword to cut off from my life those things which are contrary to Your Word and Your purposes for my life. In the authority and truth of the Word of God I will use this sword to expose the lies and deceits of the enemy. By the power of the blood of Jesus I will use this sword to defuse and defeat the work of the devil in my life and in the lives of my family and friends. Motivated by Your love and in the power of the Holy Spirit I will use this sword to bring life and deliverance, hope and freedom to myself and others, and glory and honor to Your name. I take up the weapon of all-prayer in order to intercede in heaven’s courts and war on behalf of myself and others because Jesus, as my example, is at the right hand of God interceding for me (see Romans 8:34). I put on the armor of light—Jesus is the Light of the world (see Romans 13:12; John 9:5). I take up the weapons of righteousness (see 2 Corinthians 6:7). I put on the breastplate of faith and love—Jesus is love—(see 1 Thessalonians 5:8; 1 John 4:16). With these I go forth in victory into this day in the name of Jesus.

I hope you have enjoyed this series of posts on the Prayer of Covering. I have enjoyed sharing it with you and trust the Lord has blessed you and shown you how you can perhaps add this prayer, or a similar one you choose to pray for yourself, to your prayer life. I would like to be able to pray this prayer on a daily basis, but being an intercessor for my church, there is so much to pray for some days that I only have the time to pray it once in a while. But I do feel the power behind it when I do make the time, and it is never wasted time. I not only pray it for myself, but often for others, either specific people or for the whole church.

If you have not read the previous six posts in this series, please go here for the beginning. Click here for Part 2. Part 3 is here. You will find Part 4 here. Click here for Part 5 and Part 6.

I cannot give even an estimate of when my book “It Is Written: My Prayer Journey into the Heart of God”, from which this series is taken, will be published. It is my hope to be able to have it available before the end of 2019 or perhaps sooner. I will let you, my readers, know when it is published.

I thank you so much for taking time to read my posts. It means a lot to me. If they have blessed you, or if you have anything to add to what I have said, please feel free to leave a comment in the box below. Also feel free to share these posts with your friends on social media or through e-mail. I love to read your comments and I will respond to them. If you are not already following me, please take another moment to click on the “Follow” button at the top to receive e-mail notifications of new posts when they are published. If you have a little more time today, please browse through other posts to see what might interest you. Or come back again–as often as you like.

I pray God’s blessings on you throughout this coming week. May His joy be your strength from day to day.