Home Remodel Tip July 6, 2009
Posted by surrenderisfreedom in Home, Home Repair, Remodel.add a comment
Under NO circumstances should you EVER paint over door hinges. Not a cabinet door, not a standard door, nothing. I say this jokingly, but I’m also dead serious. Not to mention it looks terrible, the pain looks globby, and it doesn’t look professional.
Also, don’t use any sort of filler in the screw holes to make the surface smooth. Some day, you or a future owner of your place will want to update. If you painted over and/or filled the screw holes, a loooong project will be inevitable.
Faced this problem this weekend. It was brutal. Tedious. Tiring. A 45min project took 3 hours…for 3 doors. To replace a door and hinges it should NOT require the following tools: hammer, screw driver (phillips and flat-head), small chisel/pick, needle-nose pliers, drill, flashlight, etc. That’s just ridiculous. Oh, one more tool, very important…patience.
Praying for Marriage June 3, 2009
Posted by surrenderisfreedom in God, Marriage, Prayer.2 comments
I believe marriage is the second greatest union and relationship a person will ever experience; the first is with God. That being said, marriage is also a huge target for attack.
These attacks come in various ways for various reasons, internally (mental, emotional, spiritual, dreams) and externally (finances, health, other people). My quick point is that no person in a marriage can afford not to cover it in prayer, daily.
Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy. With marriage being HUGELY important to us and more so to God, destroying it means epic ground gained for Satan. So, expect a war, but also expect victory in Christ Jesus. We have to fight for our marriage and our spouse with our greatest weapon, praying in the name of Jesus Christ.
Also, Satan’s attacks will no doubt be relentless, therefore our time spent asking God to cover our marriage should be continuous. It should not only exist when we’re attacked; not to mention, you cannot always predict an attack anymore than you can overcome it in the flesh. The Evil One will hit us where it hurts the most, marriage being a major way.
I simply want to express how unarguably necessary it is for a husband and wife to seek out God, pray continuously and remember they are on the same team. Marriage glorifies God. God hates divorce. Covenant-keeping glories God. Be about this and do it through prayer.
I believe we are to fight, in part, to experience the awesome fruit produced by a healthy marriage.
God is Versatile June 2, 2009
Posted by surrenderisfreedom in Faith, God, Life.add a comment
I’m so Americanized. Especially mentality. And it limits my understanding and awareness of the fullness of God. He has no ethnicity. He isn’t bound by language or culture. God is not confined by humanness like us.
God can seek out and find and change people living in extreme poverty in a city I’ve never heard of in a country I can’t even plot on a map. He can and does seek out and find and change lives of people who are extremely intelligent and/or wealthy. He can do the same for those with unprecedented talents and skills. Same with politicians and invalids.
God is not hindered by our past history, experiences, mistakes, beliefs or family structure. No one is untouchable due to their successes and social status. No one is outside of God’s reach.
The point is God’s endless versatility. However, I mentally limit God to what I know, where I live, what I’m familiar with. I forget He saves Chinese people and Latin American people. People in remote places and in highly populated cities around the world. People I’ll never meet or even know exist.
If I could just keep this in mind it would impact my view of God and strengthen my faith. It would challenge my doubts about Him and open my eyes to His character. We all need this awareness because it expands our understanding of God. These are just a few of the reasons He is God, set apart, like no other god or idol. He is unending.
Responding To Sin Fully May 21, 2009
Posted by surrenderisfreedom in Bible, Freedom, God, Scripture.add a comment
What is the first thing you do when realizing you’ve sinned? That, of course, assumes you believe you do at all. To sin is to act in a way that opposes God’s commands and desires for you. Let’s assume you admit to being a sinner. Okay. How do you respond?
I typically try to repent to God, confess my sin. I do this to acquire His grace and forgiveness. The Bible says God forgives:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
So, we repent and receive forgiveness, but there is more? I typically stop at confession. However, today I realized that the Bible is also clear from beginning to end about the effects sin has on human life. There are consequences that last beyond God’s forgiveness.
Cain is warned not to sin because sin is slavery. (Genesis 4:7; John 8:34.) It destroys your ability to choose, love, enjoy. Sin also brings blindness-the more you reject the truth about God the more incapable you are of perceiving any truth about yourself or the world (Isaiah 29:9-10; Romans 1:21.) – Tim Keller
Satan doesn’t want you to see all these negative impacts of sin. He wants you to think that repenting is enough. But don’t be fooled or blind or naive, sin messes us up and shows us no mercy. The consequences destroy our lives and those around us too.
My point is that we cannot stop at repentence. We’ll mess up again. Repeating any sin over and over (or even one time) can have devastating affects on your life. So in short, pray for God to help you turn completely away from that sin. Also, recognize that getting forgiveness is just the beginning of dealing with sin.
If we miss this second part, we’ll never be truly free.
Hell is a Choice? May 19, 2009
Posted by surrenderisfreedom in Bible, Heaven, Hell, Life, Truth.1 comment so far
Hell being a choice…I’ve heard it before and I heard it again. Heaven is a choice too. Still dissecting pieces of the Keller article I posted about recently. Read Here
Hell is simply one’s freely chosen path going on forever. We wanted to get away from God, and God, in his infinite justice, sends us where we wanted to go. – Tim Keller
The more you think about this idea, the more impact it feels this will have on your life. Oh, it’s a big stinkin’ deal. Saying I agree with any or all of this idea is not popular; it’s completely controversial and polarizing and I know it.
Nobody would consciously choose hell for eternity…anyone that would we’d likely classify as clinically insane and unfit for human life…assuming you have even the slightest idea of what hell is like.
The article here even states that without God hell would cease to exist, same with Heaven. That’s crazy, but I get it. It’s a place God created for those who do not choose Him (Lucifer being the first). What’s so difficult about determining who goes to hell is that the rules assigned to determine this are not of this earth. God made the rules and no person can change them…not even Satan.
The Bible leaves no room for discussion. You either choose the glory of God or you choose your own glory. you absolutely cannot have both, for many reasons.
As seen in Keller’s article, God allows freedom of choice. If you want to live apart from God now, you’ll be allowed to do so forever. However, and let’s not forget that thanks to Jesus Christ dying on the cross and being raised from the dead, we can choose to pursue God and claim Him as Father, thus receiving eternity with Him in Heaven as a result.
The Bible, God’s Word, leaves no room for us to consider ourselves worthy of Heaven. The determining factor is very clear, cut and dry…though I agree the finer details of it are constantly being negotiated around the world.
Without God, no life exists. Without God, no heaven or hell exist. Then again, neither would we exist. So, don’t be fooled into thinking that any amount of doing or saying or wishful thinking on our part will change the rules of who does and doesn’t go to Heaven and hell. The choice is ours, but our life on earth is where and how we make this decision.
