Jenifer Lewis

Dear God

jeniferlewis — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:13:32 +0000

God, I want to know you more. I want to remember you throughout my day. I want you to be the FIRST person I go to with everything that happens in my life. I want to pray to you everyday and not just ask you for stuff. I want to trust you more than I trust anyone or anything. I want you to be real to me. I want to feel your presence. I want to bless you with everything I do or think or say. I want to love you the way that you love me. I want to know you and regonize your voice, not just so I can hear your answer to my problems, but so I can hear your desires, your truth, and your heart. I love you, Lord, and I want to be close to you. I want your truth to be rooted deep into my heart and my soul. I want to easily trust you with every aspect of my life. I want to have faith in you. You are my God and I want to be your people. Let me not forget who you are, not even for a moment. Let me not forget what you can do and what you are capable of doing. Thank you for you and your love. You are better and greater than everything, for you created all that exists. Thank you for loving me!

Show Me

jeniferlewis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:42:08 +0000

Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. -1 John 3:18

It is easy to say that we love people but harder to show that we love others.

I work with small children and one of the things that we say to them every day is, “show me.” They are very good at telling us what they want. You can’t get some of those kids to keep their mouths shut for anything. But we don’t want them to tell us they want to go outside, we want them to show us they want to go outside by following the rules, which requires them to have their head down on their table with their mouth shut before we will call on them to line up. Some kids will sit at the table running their mouth telling us they want to go outside and they will miss out on playground time because they are not showing us they want to go outside.

Faith without works is dead. Faith requires action.

Our actions expose our heart’s intentions; who we love and what is important to us.

Do your actions show that you love God? Do they show that you love all of his children? Are you telling God you love him or are you showing him?

Wile E. Coyote should read the Bible

jeniferlewis — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:10:57 +0000

I came across a scripture this morning that I think could have been the inspiration for the entire concept of the Road Runner cartoons.

Here it is:

If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it yourself. If you roll a bolder down on others, it will crush you instead. –Proverbs 26:27

Wile E. Coyote obviously did not read his One Year Bible the day this scripture was assigned.

To Confront or Not to Confront?

jeniferlewis — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:25:46 +0000

Have you ever been in a situation where people who are close to you begin to drift away from God?

Maybe they start making small compromises here and there until one day you look at them and realize that they have become a completely different person. It is easy for them to make excuses and part of you wants to buy into them yourself so you don’t have to face the reality of the situation. What do you do in a situation like this? Do you confront your friend? Do you just ignore their behavior? Do you join them? Then you start to think things like, “Who am I to judge their life and tell them what to do?” “It hurts my heart to watch them fall short of the potential God has for their life.” “It is hard to know the answer to what will truly bring happiness in their life, but have to watch them search in all the wrong places.”

Ezekiel had a similar situation on his hands. The Bible tells of how God called Ezekiel to confront the rebelling nation of Israel and give them a message. God instructed Ezekiel to deliver the message whether they listened or not and even warned him that they would not listen because they were rebellious.

God did give Ezekiel a few tips though. First, he told him not to fear the response of the people of Israel. And second, God told him to let His words sink deep into his own heart first, before he went to give the message .

Just as a side note, I had a light bulb moment while writing this. I realized that if you 1. obey God and 2. have His word deep in your heart, then there is no reason to fear people’s response to your obedience.

I think having God’s word in your heart is key in this kind of situation. If you do that first then you will be prepared when God gives the opportunity to speak truth into people’s lives.

Psalm 103

jeniferlewis — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:47:43 +0000

Sometimes it is difficult to praise God because we are focused on our problems or our to do list or we are waiting on Him for an answer to prayer or direction in our life. But Psalm 103 gives a whole list of reasons why to praise God regardless of your circumstances.

His unfailing love, forgiveness, salvation, kindness, mercy, justice, patience, and tenderness.

The good thing about all of these things is that we get them for free. There is nothing we have to do to earn them. They are like a present from God.

This Psalm tells a lot about who God is and his characteristics. Here are a few that stood out to me.

He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.
He fills my life with good things.
He is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
He does not punish us for all our sins.
He does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
His unfailing love is as high as the heavens.
He saves us from death.
He gives righteousness and justice to those who are treated unfairly.
He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

This gives me a better picture of who God is and what he is all about.

Joy and Kindness

jeniferlewis — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:33:07 +0000

Do you ever read something in the Bible and think to yourself that you would like to be like the person you were reading about or do something they did?

This morning I was reading Philemon as a part of the One Year Bible and came across a verse that made me think, “I want to be like that.”

In Philemon 1:7, Paul is giving thanks for Philemon and says, “Your love has given me much joy and comfort, my brother, for your kindness has often refreshed the hearts of God’s people.”

I want to be the kind of person who loves people in such a way that they receive joy and comfort because of it. I want to be the kind of person who’s kindness refreshes the hearts of God’s people.

I don’t want to love or be kind so that I can feel better about myself or so I can sit back and say, “I’m such a nice person.” I want to be how Paul describes Philemon because that is how Jesus is and I want to be like Him.

Jesus love gives much joy and comfort. His kindness refreshes the hearts of His people.

My hope and prayer is that God uses me to show His love and kindness to other people. I know that if He does, it WILL bring them joy comfort and a refreshed heart. Not because I’m just good like that (not at all), but because Jesus is!

Encouragement

jeniferlewis — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:20:56 +0000

I was just reading a passage from the One Year Bible and I came across a verse that I never remember hearing before. It was encouraging to me.

I have decided that I want to adopt this. A sort of “life” verse (as cheesy as it sounds.)

Ba an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. -1 Timothy 4:12

Godly Friendships

jeniferlewis — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:36:29 +0000

The book of Exodus talks about a war between Israel and the Amalekites. During the war, Moses and two of his friends climb to the top of a hill where they can see what is going on. While they were on the hill they noticed that when Moses would hold his staff in the air the Israelites would have the advantage but when he dropped his hands the Amalekites would gain the advantage. (By the way, were rooting for the Israelites.) After a while, Moses became so fatigued from holding his arms up that he could not hold them up any longer. Unfortunately, the Amalekites won victory over the Israelites 27 to 14 and the Israelites would just have to wait until the next years bowl game to try to carry home the trophy. Just kidding! I was just making sure you were paying attention.

So… Moses was so tired he couldn’t hold his arms up anymore. His two friends found a rock for him to sit on and then held his arms up for him. Let me say that again… They held his arms up for him! As a result, the Israelites prevailed in battle.

It is important to have godly friendships. Friends that will hold your arms up if they have to… friends who are for you and not against you… friends who support your relationship with God and will do whatever it takes to help you succeed and reach your full potential.

I have been lucky enough and blessed enough to have friends like that in my life.

There have been a few situations that I felt that I couldn’t make it through and a couple of my close friends were there to remind me of my goals and help me through the hard times. These are the kind of friends who will kick me in the teeth when I need it, who won’t hold back advice out of fear of how I may react, people who are encouraging and speak God’s word into my life.

I didn’t know what it was like to have friends like this until I was 20. Growing up I had a best friend here and there but they were always willing to throw me under the bus when life got hard.

Until I was 20 I was the only person who knew everything about me.

That is not a good place to be. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was what led me down a path of self destruction. Without encouragement, accountability, trust, and support I would have never been able to get out of the past and march strong ahead.

You can’t do it alone.

Stewardship

jeniferlewis — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:27:28 +0000

I always hear about being a “good steward of your money.” But what if you don’t have money?

The definition of stewardship is the conducting, supervising, or managing of something.

Something? Not money?

I supose you can be a good steward of anything. Since I don’t have money, I started thinking about what I do have that I could be better at supervising and managing.

Time was my answer. Even though I am a full time student, I still have a lot of time on my hands. My new goal is to be a good steward of what God has given me and that is time.

What has God given you to be a good steward of?

(*Yes, I just ended a sentance in a preposition.)

Tough stuff

jeniferlewis — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:22:26 +0000

I never thought that I would ask God not to speak to me. I’ve done this before because I was afraid of what He would tell me to do. I truly want God’s will in my life, but it is really difficult to just hand your life over to Him without any reservations. When I think of asking God to show me direction, I do so anticipating something that is exciting or fun or nice or easy, but of all of the moments in my life where I know God was leading me, He was always telling me to do something that is really difficult. He always took care of me in those situations once I trusted Him, which gives me reason to do it again.

Right now I feel like He has given me pretty clear directions, but I have been ignoring Him because I don’t want to do it. I do know that it is probably not a smart decision to ignore God, but it is not natural to deny yourself. Some people may ask, “Why not do what you want to do?” I have a handful of answers to this question.

I know that I am on here for a reason; I have a purpose to be on this earth and I know that if I try to navigate and figure things out on my own, I will not be able to accomplish even a fraction of things that I could if I allow God to help me. I don’t want to merely exist, just make it through, or even do good things. I want to do extravagant things, things that don’t make logical since, things that I can’t understand, and things that I would only be able to do with the creator of the universe working with me. I want to be a part of a generation that sees and does things that are greater than the things described in the Bible. I want to see signs and wonders. I want to see God do miracles. And I want to see people love the one who loved them first. And I want to see Jesus come back to this earth. I want my treasures and rewards to be in Heaven. After all, that is where I will spend most of my existence. These are all reasons why I can’t ignore God anymore. I am a failure without Him. He deserves my life and He deserves all of it and that is what I will give to Him. Even if it is hard, and even if it is not what I want or what I think is a good idea.