Archive for December 17, 2009

17 Dec 2009
Book Review

How to Reach Your Full Potential for God-Book Review

How to Reach Your Full Potential for God

 Author: Dr. Charles Stanley

  • Author: Dr. Charles Stanley
  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Nelson (December 29, 2009)
  • ISBN-10: 140020092X

    • Reading,“How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”,, I was impressed by the scriptural backing of the book.

    Covering seven principles that often reflect the daily concerns that as Christians, people find themselves struggling or looking how to deal with, Dr. Charles Stanley, provides biblical backed solutions and examples from the Bible of how to seek God’s Word, to reach,our individual potential, to serve and worship our Heavenly Father at our best.

    What ,“How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”,, doesn’t do, is be an everyday self help book,but instead emphasize how our Heavenly Father can help you.

    Backing suggestions with scripture, ,“How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”,, indeeds reaching it’s full potential, and is a wonderful suggestion for those who are seeking to develop a deeper and more active relationship with our Heavenly Father and a book, that could easily be recommend,not as “the source”, but as a tool for helping new to “young” Christians seeking to have a more substantial relationship with our Heavenly Father.

    Dr. Stanley, constantly reemphasizes that,“How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”,, does not take the place of the ultimate source of guidance, the Bible, but does help provide useful references that anyone could find value in.

    On page 16, Dr. Stanley shares, “The Christian life was never intended to be a matter of book learning or hard knowledge. God wants us to live out the life He created and intends for us to live”.

    There are some parts of the book that are encouraging and others that for some, may feel convicting due to its bluntness and telling the reader what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, and it lives up to what Dr. Stanley says that,”Anytime we turn fromthe Fatehr’s way to our way, we grieve Him. Anytime we choose what we want over what God wants for us, we stifle the Holy Spirit’s ability to help us” (pg.38)

    However the truth is, reading this book, there was so many quotable quotes, examples and scripture that could be shared that it really helps open doors that God seeks to open.

    If you are truly inspired to live a more fruitful and deeper relationship with our Heavenly Father, I recommend,“How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”,.

    No one is perfect, but no one is so imperfect that they don’t have the potential to be used for and in a way that will glorify our Heavenly Father.

    “How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”,, is a great reminder that it’s not about changing or altering who God has made us to be, but about a relationship that aims at maturing and making us better who we are and that is a good thing.

    “How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”,, is just an overall encouraging book for either general reading, or discovering how to take your relationship with our Heavenly Father to another level and a recommend read to all.

    Disclaimer:

    Sunflower Faith | No comments | Tags: , , ,
    17 Dec 2009
    Uncategorized

    Bible 101-Prayer and Study of the Bible

    From the archives of Sunflower Faith
    Originally posted on: April 6, 2008 with modifications to help bring up to date and make easier to read and understand
    This was a 7 part series on “Bible 101″ that I had originally written when my blog was hosted on blogspot.com.

    In the process of moving it over here, with prayers that this could be a blessing and encouragement to those who feel daunted about reading their bible and in light of reading “Becoming More than a Bible Study Girl”, I wanted to re-introduce these posts to you, Gentle Readers.

    Ezekiel 37:14-And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken [it], and performed [it], saith the Lord.

    1 corinthians 2:9-10-9. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10. But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

    Ever try to put things together without reading the instruction manual? Not easy is it?

    Same goes with knowing God.

    From “A Modern Girl’s Guide to Bible Study,” is a VERY telling quote,
    “Many believers know God only as He is known by their teachers. Various passages mean this or that based on the interpretations we’ve heard or read somewhere.”

    We don’t need to have a college degree to understand the bible. Nor do we need to read a book about the bible to know God.

    If you really want to start studying the Bible and learn God’s word, the reality is that there is no excuses then the excuses we make to ourselves. We are the only hinderance that keeps ourselves knowing God’s word.

    People understand God’s word is because they turn to the only person who can help them. God. They allow the Holy Spirit to come into their lives and plant that passion and desire to learn and we don’t get it just because we are Christians.

    We get it because we pray and allow the Holy Spirit in our lives.

    When we don’t open the door…no amount of “I wish, I want” is going to make it happen.

    We become our own worse enemies.

    To study God’s word…it takes 3.
    1. The Word
    2. You
    3. The Holy Spirit

    God doesn’t abandon us and says…”Good luck” He says…”You can.”

    Our Heavenly Father knows that we are unable to adequately learn His words on our own but we have to let our pride down and admit we can’t do it on our own and ask and allow the Holy Spirit in our life to let us learn God’s word. Until then…we are stuck on a continual cycle of trying to read His word and stopping. Trying and stopping. Trying and stopping.

    Think about it….”Isn’t it true that we can hear all about the Bible, listen to godly counsel about reading it, and watch other people fall in love with it, but when it’s time to encounter the Word by ourselves, we look around in shock, wondering who thought we were equipped to do that? When it comes to studying the Bible, being a hearer is much easier than being a doer. The reality of being alone with God’s Word-Not in mechanical reading but for significance-sometimes freaks us out Source: A Modern’s Girl’s Guide to Bible Study.”

    Have good faith. God has someone to help us out.

    John 14:26 (KJV)-But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

    God wants to be our tutor. We just have to stop making excuses why we can’t and just do. Ezra did it and didn’t have the luxaries that we have, so why can’t we?

    2 Peter 1:21 (NAS)-for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

    We won’t be able to start learning God’s word when we find ways to avoid simply asking God to let the Holy Spirit in our lives and allow the Helper, the Holy Spirit to help us learn and read God’s word with discernment and understanding.

    We can’t do it ourselves or we are going to fail.

    When we allow the Holy Spirit in, then you can have the same thing you find in other people who have a passion and love and knowledge of God’s word.

    When you think about it, the enemy doesn’t want you to read God’s word. He will find ways to make you think you don’t have time, way or ability to read God’s word. So long as you keep the door close on the Holy Spirit, and the door open for the enemy, it’s easy to fill like understanding God’s word is above you.

    Got a bible? Check

    Got you? Check

    Have you prayed to God for the Holy Spirit to help you read God’s word and to understand His word? Have you asked at all?

    Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)-The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?

    Whether we like it or not..unless we pray to God for the Holy Spirit to help us learn God’s word…we can’t do it.

    If you really, in your heart want to know God….make time. Ask God for the Holy Spirit to come into your heart and help you.

    So don’t be shy if you can’t read God’s word by yourself. Don’t look longing at those who can. God’s word is for you. It really is. You can read it.

    Take a deep breath and before you even open that bible, ask the Holy Spirit for help.Ask specifically for daily wisdom. Pray for godly discernment. He has always been your Companion, but commit to being His.

    Questions for discussion:

    1. Have you struggled with any of the following results of leaving the Spirit out of Bible study? If so, how? When?

    a. Felt alone, lost, confused
    b. Got nothing out of the Word
    c. Misinterpeted Scripture
    d. Had scripture used against you in the form of doubt, confusion or anger

    2. Who has the Spirit been to you up till now?

    a. A special guide through the Word; a Friend and Teacher
    b. The voice of conviction (which you sometimes ignore)
    c. Nobody, never really thought about Him
    d. Other

    3. Where does your knowledge of who God is come from?

    4. How much coems from your own time with Him?

    Before you read the bible,even for the first time or million time, Ask the Holy Spirit to talk to you today. Invite Him to speak your name and be ready and open to hear it.

    Hey…and even kids have to start somewhere…if we don’t try crawling…how can we expect to walk?

    Sunflower Faith | No comments | Tags: ,
    17 Dec 2009
    "Christian Life" • Bible • Daily Life Journal Reading • Devotionals

    Daily Bible Reflections-Fruitful Growth

    My Daily Bible Reading

    My Daily Bible Reading

    Today’s Life Journal Reading is from:

    2 Peter 1,2,3; John 1

    Scripture:

       
    5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
    (2 Peter 1:5-9, New King James Version)

    Observation:

    The passage alone speaks volumes….want to know how to grow and mature as a follower of Christ? A post it note of this verse serves as a great reminder,but then again, isn’t there a lot of great passages from the Bible, from His word, that we can keep close to heart to remind us?

    Reading it, it reads like a ladder, do one thing and on another, build another and from that another and from that is a tumbling effect that happens throughout our lives and our walk.

    My words seem so inadequate to share the gentle reminder and love that comes from this passage….if we wish to grow deeper and more mature in our walk..wow…this is a good start.

    Application:

    Remember what it took to start walking? I don’t personally, lol, but it is a remind that there is a step that leads to another step that leads to another, and this is a reminder that everything has a process.

    We would like to get from point A to point C in a hurry, but we have to remember that this is not our time, it’s His and everything has a step and a process and the trick is, to persevere through those processes.

    For me, it’s a reminder that we have weaknesses, but they are not to be excuses (and I’m not saying I’m not guilty of that myself), but we do have the free-will to choose, for ourselves, to follow and learn from our Heavenly Father or not.

    No one else can do that or do that for us. We could go to church all we want, but it doesn’t make us a mechanic (referencing just because we go to a garage….lol).

    It’s up to us,you, me, everyone,to lay claim to His word, to open it, to read it, to keep it close to heart and walk in His steps and listen to Him.

    No one can do that other than what we allow it and when we open our hearts, humble our souls and say, “Lord, I am here in Thy will not mine, and what do I have to learn from You”, oh the blessings that He lays on our hearts and souls.

     

    Prayer:

    Lord, Thank You Father for Your word and your lessons and though there are times that are hard, though there are times that are good, through good and bad, Lord, lead me, Lord, humble me, give me strength for when I am weak and teach me,Heavenly Father to be Your humble servant.

    Amen.

    ****Purpose of this post****

    Gentle Readers, There are days that I will read a verse or passage and just feel pulled to share here, but there are days when I will read something and just feel, I need to spend the day, in personal contemplation of what is being convey and may just post via Twitter, what passages I have read that day and post nothing on here.

    That is what bible reading is about; It’s not about having to write something down everyday; There maybe days when you are reading say, Numbers and it’s just lineages, but other days, you may find yourself dealing with a “powerhouse verse” of the moment and have to just go “WOW” and seek God in personal time and prayer to understand what He is sharing.

    I will try to post daily, but particularly on weekends, if I’m sick or I’m just completely in awe of what I’m reading or maybe I am trying to understand what I am reading, I may not post here, I may just write in my Life Journal (hardcopy), because I will find myself having to seek His Word and/or the Commentary and just seek in prayer to understand what our Father in Heaven is seeking to reveal.

    Either way.

    Reading His Word, is about getting to know Him better and developing your Christian growth and maturity. Do what is right and good for you.

    If you do use the Life Journal and participate in the daily readings, I would like to hear from you and your perspective on each day’s reading, when I do have a post up, or feel free to comment on a previous “Daily Bible Reading post” or send me a quick email.

    Please feel free to join in the linky that I post below, so others too, who uses the Life Journal/or SOAP method to read the bible can participate.

    Don’t feel obligate to have to blog about each passage to be read, but if anything, feel free to share those passages that have the most impact on you that day.

    There maybe some days that you may read your daily reading and find nothing to jot down in your journal or on your blog and that’s okay, but there maybe other days, that you will find yourself inspire.

    This is about you being encouraged to have a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father, and spending each day with Him, You and Him.

    It is my prayer and hope that this will be an encouragement to establish a personal daily reading as well.

    To find out more about using the S.O.A.P. method, here’s a link to an ehow article and here’s the link to the Life Journal to find out more what it is, and how you can use it for your own daily bible readings. If you don’t want to order the journal or if it’s not available through your local church, another method is simply, buy a journal or notebook or even blog about your life journal readings.

    Disclaimer: I am not personally affiliated with the church that the link goes to, but merely share it as a resource of what the Life Journal is, how to order it.

    Sunflower Faith | No comments | Tags: , , , ,
    17 Dec 2009
    Uncategorized

    12 Pearls of Christmas-A Long Ago Christmas Memory

    A Long Ago Christmas Memory
    by Patricia Crisafulli

    The old farm on a dirt road in the backwoods of northern New York State was described to me so many times, I can imagine the place, even though I never saw it: the big frame house with the wide porch, the pair of maple trees out front, and the barn in the back where my grandparents kept a cow or two, pigs and chickens, and a team of work horses.

    That old house came alive for me in dozens of stories that my mother told, of how she and her sisters grew up there during the Depression. The stories had that long-ago feel not only because of the years that had passed, but also because of the era: tales of riding in a horse and buggy in the summer and a horse and sleigh in the winter. My grandfather owned an old Model A Ford, but the tires were patched beyond repair and there was no money for gasoline.

    One story that has always stayed with me was of a particular Christmas in the early 1930s, a time my mother remember as the “depths of the Depression,” and there was no money. In order to pay the interest on the mortgage, to keep the bank from foreclosing on the farm, my grandfather needed a relatively small sum. The amount I remember being told was $13, but for the little they had in those days it might as well have been $13,000.

    Tested by trouble and sorrows, my grandparents relied on their deep and abiding faith. As Psalm 34 tells us, I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. The answer to their prayers was to be found right in their own backyard with gifts of the earth. My grandmother went into the woods to gather bushel baskets full of ground pine, with green sprouts like miniature boughs that spread in great patches along the earth. From willow branches she made hoops, around which she bound the ground pine to make wreathes.

    She sat up all night making wreaths, enough to fill a large hamper basket, which my grandfather strapped to his back. At four in the morning, he hopped a ride on the milk train into Syracuse, where he went door-to-door selling wreathes. Night after night, my grandmother made wreaths, and day after day my grandfather sold them.

    As Christmas approached, my grandmother had saved coupons that came in tins of coffee to get a Kewpie doll for her daughters. The only other things she gave them were mittens she knit herself.

    Then on Christmas Eve, my grandfather came home from the last day of selling wreaths, exhausted but relieved. The farm was safe for another year. From what he had earned, he had a dime left over, which he spent on his beloved wife to buy her a powder puff. That night, my grandmother gave him her surprise: enough money from selling butter and eggs all year to buy four new tires for the Model A Ford.

    Hearing this story as a child, my head was too full of the Sears & Roebuck “Wish Book” catalog to really comprehend it. As an adult, I try to fathom living with no money at all. What lingers in my heart, however, is the love of my grandparents for each other: the dashing young American soldier in World War I and the beautiful French girl he met overseas and then returned to her country to marry.

    Many years, thousands of miles, and untold hardships later, that love continued. During a very dark December, they found a way together to keep the farm and the family together. And so it would always be for them.

    ____________________________________

    Patricia Crisafulli is a writer, published author, and founder of FaithHopeandFiction.com, a monthly e-literary magazine with stories, essays, and poetry to inspire and entertain.

    __________________________________
    A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day.
    Leave a comment on this post or any of the following 12 Pearls of Christmas posts to be entered to win a THREE STRAND PEARL NECKLACE!
     
    The winner will be announced on New Year’s Day! Pearls – a tangible reminder of God’s grace to us all.
    12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit pearlgirls.info

    Sunflower Faith | One comment
     
    Content Protected Using Blog Protector By: PcDrome.

    © 2008-2012 Sunflower Faith All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright