James Video Series

I’m a Planner

June 13, 2011 By Courtney 22 Comments

I am a planner – I like to plan my day, my week and well – I’d plan out my entire year if I could! lol! Are you a planner? I must admit that I was troubled when I read James 4:15 which says – ”you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.” James says to make plans and boast about them is evil!

I remember taking my kids on a penny walk in our old neighborhood. A penny walk is when you go for a walk with a penny and at each corner you allow the children to flip a penny – if it’s heads you turn right, if it’s tails you turn left. Typically we always go on the same path. We are creatures of habit so once we find a way that is comfortable we rarely shift from our comfort zone.

I must admit that the penny walk made me uncomfortable at times. It made me turn and head too far from home when I was tired, it took us past a house I avoid with BIG dogs, it made us go in a a circle one time – which was funny and then the worst thing happened! My son lost his penny! (seriously why do these things happen? lol!) He had a hard time rebounding from his loss and spent the last few minutes of the penny walk crying. What could be worse than losing your penny on a penny walk???

God is my penny.

Although I do believe that God wants me to be organized and wise about how I spend my day – and that requires planning – he does not want me to be so inflexible with my plan, that I do not seek Him and as a result step out of his will for my life. God is my penny – he wants me to ask him – which way do I go Lord? What should I do next? And then he wants me to put my trust in him and follow him.

About 5 years ago, I was in my comfort zone. I had two sweet peas and a husband with a good job. I had the next 5 years of my life planned out – then God brought along a job change for my husband that took me WAY outside my comfort zone. At every turn, my husband and I have sought God – is this the way we should go? God faithfully answered. At the next turn, again we would seek God – now which way do we go? Again, God faithfully answered. Sometimes – like the penny walk – God took us on unknown paths, he took us on paths way outside our comfort zone, he took us on scary paths, and sometimes it felt like we were just spinning in circles going no where at all! But we certainly have not lost our penny!!! And as the penny says right on it “In God We Trust“.

Today’s video was first played over on GoodMorningGirls.org and it is titled My Will Vs. God’s Will:

Boasting About Tomorrow

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

If you are at a crossroads today – please don’t go forward without first seeking God. Wait on him to give you direction – and then go forward in peace. When you are walking with God daily – you will know his voice. Draw near to God – be still – listen – what is it that he is trying to tell you? Even if it takes you way outside your comfort zone – go now and obey. In God We Trust.

Walk with the King!

This post is linked to We Are That Family, Titus 2sdays, A Holy Experience and Raising Homemakers.

Filed Under: James Video Series

Are You Cheating?

June 6, 2011 By Courtney 18 Comments

Forneys- Missionaries to Indonesia

Missionaries are my heroes! As a child, missionary stories challenged me and motivated me to want to live the crucified life. When I have a woe is me day…where life seems rough, I remember my Christian brothers and sisters in Christ who have sacrificed all to take the message of the gospel to unreached places. My small afflictions are NOTHING compared to what they face!

One of my favorite on-line missionaries to follow are the Forney’s. They fascinate me! Dave is a missionary pilot married to Joy and they have 5 children! Their stories of snakes and jungle flights fascinate me! And my heart most unites with Joy’s when she jokingly says on Facebook – “dreaming of a Starbucks coffee today” – or – “sure missing Diet Coke“….She reminds me - I’m such a baby! I’m spoiled and I’m numb to it because it’s so normal to have so much in the states.

Missionary newsletters challenge me – they challenge my loyalty to God. How far am I willing to follow him? I think “Oh Lord, I will die for you!” but maybe God is simply asking me to walk across the street and meet my neighbor! Why is that so hard?

It’s hard because I’m selfish to the core. I don’t like to feel uncomfortable. My flesh wants the easy life but my spirit longs to glorify God. So I must put to death the desires of my flesh to remain loyal to God.

This 3 minute video below, first played over on GoodMorningGirls.org . I share the story of a classmate from the Moody Bible Institute who was a missionary in Lebanon. She was shot and killed. For years, I kept the news clipping hanging at my desk to remind me to live a sold out life for Jesus.

James 4:1-12

Warning Against Worldliness

4:1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Are you cheating on God with a friendship to this world?

James says “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”(v4)

Maybe God is not calling us to Indonesia or Lebanon – but he is calling us to forsake our love of this temporary world. Release it’s grip, pursue God daily, take a risk and live life to the hilt – all for Jesus!

Walk with the King!

This post is linked to Titus 2sdays, We Are That Family, A Holy Experience and Raising Homemakers.

Filed Under: James Video Series, Jesus, Missions

I Stumble A Lot!

May 30, 2011 By Courtney 24 Comments

We are now up to chapter 3 in our James Video Series! This chapter is a HARD one for me. It really points out so many flaws that I have. I am a woman of many words lol! and Proverbs 10:19 says “When words are many, sin is not absent. But he who holds his tongue is wise.”

James 3 says that NO man can tame the tongue. It is filled with deadly poison.

I long to be a woman who is filled with life giving words. Who is filled with grace and mercy. But the reality is – I stumble in many ways (3:2). And when I stumble, it brings pain to others and to my own soul. I long to be free of this problem in my life – to be so full of wisdom and self-control that I never ever stumble again!

But let me be honest, I stumble! I stumble all the time in my marriage, in my parenting, and sadly with my friendships! Just this week, I had to email a friend and apologize for critical words I spoke. SO embarrassing! I urge you to be very careful with your words in friendships. Pray before you send emails or post on facebook. Pray God would show you if anything you type could hurt another. Filter your words with love and grace. Be forgiving when someone else acts immaturely. Pursue unity.

I made a video last summer about this very passage of James and included my children. Let’s teach our children while they are young the power of words. It will save them a lot of heartache and produce a generation of children who are world changers for Jesus!

James 3:1-12 ESV – Taming the Tongue

3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

We will never master perfect control of our tongue. Forever we will need to daily align our heart with God’s word, filtering our thoughts and words through the strainer of God’s word and repenting when the words we speak hurt others. The next time someone hurts you with their words – remember grace…because you at any minute are about to slip up too! As a matter of fact, often it’s right after someone else’s slip up that I slip up 10 times worse (for example in marriage – my husband says one word critical – and whamo – out comes 2 critical words from me. Often what I say is far worse than the first offense.)

I like to journal my confessions…it reminds me how much I need Jesus. The cross says I am flawed but it also says I am forgiven.

Walk with the King!

This post is linked to Titus 2sdays, A Holy Experience, We Are That Family, and Raising Homemakers.

Filed Under: James Video Series, Parenting, Self-Control, Teaching Our Children Along the Way

The Danger of Bloggers

May 24, 2011 By Courtney 26 Comments

Faith plus nothing equals nothing. You can know more about a person by what they do rather than what they say. I would say this is one of the dangers of bloggers. The world mainly sees my words. But the integrity of my writing comes by how I LIVE out the words I write.

Sally Clarkson once said “The first book anyone ever reads will be your family.” What she meant was – live the truth out in your home first – then write. I want to write from the faith that is lived out in my home and that takes repentance and the pursuit of God daily on my knees.

There is NOTHING good or Godly within me. I am a sinner saved by grace and it is through his strength that I can do anything good at all. My true faith brings good works. Those with a dead faith can substitute words for works. Words are cheap – they are easy…but living out our faith, that’s hard!

In the James 2:14-26 it says “19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! “ And again the danger of bloggers come to mind. We must ask, could some of those who blog in the name of “faith” not actually be of the “faith”? Absolutely! We must test those we follow – do their words and their life match. And the truth is in blog land that is hard to do!

So my two thoughts: 1. Let’s be on guard as to whose voices we listen to – from our Pastor, to our Bible study leader to our favorite blogs. Test their words against God’s word – are they true? Watch their life closely. 2. Let’s look into our own hearts, if someone were watching us closely would they say our walk matches our talk?

(This video was first played on the Good Morning Girls blog. Our groups did a challenge where we mailed care packages to the Mercy House – this challenge is over but you can visit the Mercy House here.)

James 2;14-16 ESV

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Walk with the King!

This is linked to Titus 2sdays, We Are That Family and Raising Homemakers.

And please take a minute to vote for Women Living Well and other faith based bloggers here(there are some non-Christian bloggers listed there so beware – test them before trusting them): Circle of Moms Top 25 Faith bloggers.(you can vote for more than one, once a day through June 8th!!)

Walk with the King!

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