If you are part of God’s “Called Remnant” it means you have become part of the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:27 says:
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
Because God has called me to be one of His Scribes, I think that must make me a “finger” in the body of Christ! (I’m winking at you). I type 95 wpm and think much better while applying the tips of my fingers to the keyboard. 😉
Oh, Beloved Reader – if I could only GIVE you my love for the LORD. My absolute 100% certainty that no matter what we face, God IS with us! He TRULY is in control even when we feel out of control! There is NO greater joy than knowing that God LOVES you! And to spend one’s life showing Him YOUR love in return – that is where the peace that passes ALL understanding abides! Even in the midst of turmoil, persecution, trouble – no matter what we are going through:
GOD IS WITH US
Romans 8:31-39 says:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Reading those words, does it NOT fill your heart with joy? Knowing that YOU have a God Who LOVES you BEYOND ANYTHING in/out of this world? That you can TRUST Him? He will NOT fail you! Even if people have! God does NOT love like people! Remember, we live in a fallen world – this is NOT the environment that God originally intended us to be in! Read the Book of Genesis to see for yourself what I mean! But Jesus has OVERCOME the world!
It’s easy to look at someone else’s life and envy them. Think that they have it “better” than you, but the truth is – unless you have walked in someone else’s shoes you have NO idea what they’ve been through. Let me testify as an example, unless you personally know me, or unless I choose to share what has gone on in my life, you would NEVER know what I’ve been through by appearance’s sake. People have said to me countless number of times:
“Kelly, you are SUCH a STRONG woman! You have such strength!”
I look at them and think:
“If only they knew the truth of all I have been through…”
The truth is – I am NOT strong in and of myself. The strength you witness in my writings (or in me if you are around me) is strength that comes from my faith in God. God has made Himself REAL to me. I STILL have to wake up every day that God gives me and determine to experience life walking IN faith and NOT what I see in the earthly ream. I STILL have to “exercise” those spiritual eye muscles and decree and declare that I WILL believe the report of the LORD. I STILL have to put on my spiritual armor as indicated in Ephesians chapter 6 and CHOOSE to walk in the faith that God has called me to walk. It is a decision FOR Christ that I make DAILY. There are times when I am successful in doing so, and there are times that I am unsuccessful. Below I have posted a blog post that I wrote long ago about waking up and facing spiritual warfare, you can click on it as a perfect example of what I’m talking about (click on the link below):
If you are part of “God’s Called Remnant” and if you don’t know what I mean by that phrase (no it is not a cult! 😉 ) Click on the link to explain how I define it below:
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE PART OF GOD’S CALLED REMNANT
We are in a spiritual war, whether you want to believe that or not – does not negate the truth of it. You are either on the side of the LORD (the victorious side) OR you are on the side of the devil. You don’t get to argue the truth of that matter, doing so is nothing but an exhausting waste of time. God does NOT lie as man lies and He has given us His living Word – the Bible for a reason. It is God’s “love letter” to us. It is infallible and reliable. Truly it is our “GPS” for life. If you don’t accept God’s gift of salvation than you are calling God a liar and even if you don’t know it – your lost. But Jesus even now is saying the following to you (this is found in Revelations 3:20):
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
We get the choice of deciding whether or not we are going to open the door and let Jesus in. One of the things I love so much about Him is that He is relentless! His love for you is one of which He will stand there knocking at the door of your life, giving you the opportunity to choose Him up until your VERY last breath of life! Seriously – just think about that! How many of you would continue pursuing someone through countless times of rejecting your love? (Come on now, be honest! 🙂 ) Thankfully Jesus doesn’t quit knocking on the door of your life! HOPING you will let Him in!
THAT’S MY JESUS AND HE LONGS TO BE YOURS!
Can you hear Him knocking? Answer it! No person can love you like Jesus! He IS my first love! He has NEVER failed me! He is CONSTANTLY by His Holy Spirit growing me IN my faith. Showing me how REAL He is.
HE IS MORE REAL THAN ANYTHING YOU CAN SEE WITH YOUR PHYSICAL EYES!
I accepted Jesus as my Savior, gave Him my life 36 years ago (at the time I am writing this post). If you want to read my testimony on how I came to Christ, you can read it by clicking on the link below. I had NO idea how much He would change my life – actually He would BE my life. BE my reason to live! (Click on link below to direct you to my testimony):
HOW JESUS MADE HIMSELF REAL TO ME – MY TESTIMONY
You may “think” that I have it all together – pffffffft, heck no! As long as I have breath in my body and allow myself to be open to it, Holy Spirit is growing me, changing me, teaching me. I have determined that I am after God’s heart. Nothing else matters to me. He is my TOP priority. And with that decision to put Him first and keep Him the CENTER of my life has come tremendous warfare. I am a two-time cancer survivor – two SEPARATE battles with cancer, but God IS the God Who heals! I do NOT believe in “remission” because remission means you are simply waiting for it to return!
GOD HEALED ME
I testify to you that Jesus truly IS the SAME today as He was yesterday as He WILL be tomorrow! This year God called my husband home AND He called my mother home – three months apart from each other. The TWO people who were the MOST important people in my life. I share that personal information with you to SHOW you that the grass “may” appear to be “greener” on my side of the fence – but if it IS that is ONLY because my trust and my faith is in GOD. NOT in this world. NOT in my circumstances and DEFINITELY NOT in myself! My life is NOT my own – it is HIS. God IS sovereign. He reigns! He IS in control even when everything around you feels OUT of control. NOTHING can happen to me that God does NOT allow. You see, I AM HIS. This is also why it is important to LOVE God BEYOND anyone and anything that is in your life! God GAVE me the woman who was to birth me, become my mother. God GAVE me my husband! I loved them both with ALL my heart and honored them both throughout their lives, BUT I love the GIVER of them MORE than I loved the “gifts of them” themselves. It would be out of order to place the love of the “gifts” before the One Who GIVES the gifts. God LOVED me enough to give them to me and I will ALWAYS be thankful to Him. If I had not prioritized my love for God and trust in the Sovereign One Who called them home to Him, I would have been crushed. Deuteronomy 6:5 says:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
David wrote Psalm 139 which is as follows:
“You have searched me, Lord, and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You. For you created my inmost being You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful; I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with You. If only You, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty! They speak of You with evil intent; Your adversaries misuse Your name. Do I not hate those who hate You, Lord and abhor those who are in rebellion against You? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Throughout your walk with Christ, you WILL encounter spiritual battles, but I attest to you that even in the DARKEST battle He WILL light the Way. In John 15:18-23 Jesus tells us this:
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed My teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of My name, for they do not know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates Me hates My Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both Me and My Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated Me without reason.'”
Once you give your life to Jesus, you can trust that no matter WHAT you face – He is there. Through the loss of my husband and my mother I would have been devastated if I didn’t recognize the fact that as much as I loved them – God loves them MORE. They both had accepted Christ as their Savior, made Him Lord OVER their lives. I know where they are – they are with the Lover of their soul. They are no longer filled with the pain inflicted on them by this fallen world, death had NO hold on them, sickness No longer dwells in their bodies – why? Because of Jesus’ victory through His death and resurrection from the cross. I KNOW where they are! I KNOW they are at peace! I KNOW I will see them again! So that I can fully raise my hands in praise and declare along with them 1 Corinthians 15:55-57:
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I may not know what you who are reading this are going through, I hope my testimony to you is one that the Holy Spirit uses to minister to you, encourage you and help you to know that God LOVES you. God CHOSE you! God IS with you! And He wants you to have confidence in Him! He has a plan for your life – maybe it’s to reach others for the Kingdom of Heaven! He wants ALL of us to share His good news! Because there is NO greater joy than living for the One Who gave His life for you! HE REIGNS!
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