You Are God's Pumpkin

This devotional was written by Kelly McFadden

God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, "If you boast, boast only about the Lord."—1 Corinthians 1:30-31

For most of the country, the crisp cool air of autumn is upon us. A sure sign of autumn is that Christmas decorations are popping up everywhere in retail stores. Halloween costumes and disguises are sold out from shops as trick-or-treaters are ready to take over the streets. A popular symbol of both harvest time and Halloween is the pumpkin. I was thinking recently that being a Christian is a lot like being a pumpkin. Perhaps you are visualizing this orange, round vegetable and wondering how you could ever be compared to one of these squashes! Simply put, like a child chooses a pumpkin to carve and mold an image upon, so God carves and molds His own unique design in you.


The Scriptures tell us that the Lord chooses us. He lifts us up and washes the dirt from our skin. Then he opens us, connecting deep inside to scoop out all the slimy, yucky stuff, including seeds of doubt, spite, lies, fear, etc. Then He carves a new creation, and makes our faces shine by putting His light inside for all to see.


Sometimes I feel like I don’t want my light to shine because I am ashamed of a thought or action or pattern in my life. I try to hide the light Christ has put in me, and blend in with the crowd. What I forget is that when God carved me, created me, and gave me His Son, I no longer had to count on my own strength. I can count on the Lord’s. It is He who washes me clean; it is He who gives me a spirit of strength and perseverance; it is He who makes me pure; it is He who frees me from sin; and it is He who gives me hope. When I realize that my part of the equation is to rely on His strength and power, then I can do as Scriptures say, and shine His light through the power of the Holy Spirit.


What starts as an everyday squash turns into a lantern of light. What starts as an everyday person turns into a beacon of hope for all to see. At times, it is hard to imagine that we can be cleansed through Jesus. As the Scripture says, Christ has made us right with God. He has purified us and freed us from sin. Through our union with Christ, we are given the light and wisdom of the Holy Spirit who enters and dwells in our lives. It is He who picked you out and carved you just the way He wants you. So make sure you keep your lantern lit for all to see.

Word-less Wednesday

I had to steal this GREAT picture from my friend at http://pinkjagxj.blogspot.com/, she has a great blog...check her out.

We have less than 1 week to the most important election of most of our lives...as with many of you I assume, I have not made my final decision on some measures...however this is one that there is 0% question in my mind. This is a not a anti-gay measure, this is a measure that will impact every person in the US, this is a measure that takes away more rights than any of will ever know. This is anti-biblical.

Many gay right activist and those apposed to Prop 8, tell you they want to have the same legal rights as a married man/woman couple.....well they already do. This prop does not take away any of those legal rights, a same sex couple and buy a house together, have a living will together, register a child together, get insurance together, get hospital information together. And every other legal need that a man/woman couple can. All they have to do is go to a public office and register as a same-sex couple.. The legal aspect of a same sex couple, however is not the same as a marriage vow before God.

If you are not ok with a Man marrying his dog and having the legal right to do it, then you have to vote YES on PROP. 8. That was not a gay bashing joke, that was an indication of what the prop will be in the 2012 election if we allow for same sex marriages to be legal. By saying No to prop 8, we have just removed the legal realms and the biblical realms of marriage, marriage will no longer have a true definition, it will soon be a joining of 2 or more species. For the sake of your children, grand children and the integrity of your parents and grand parents marriage....PLEASE VOTE YES ON PROP. 8.

Prop 8

Jesus said: “[A]t the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.’”

God gave us His pro-life-pro-marriage-pro-family plan. Adam and Eve; Noah’s Ark: four husbands, four wives, animals two-by-two, male and female. He hasn’t authorized any other version.

Fact Sheet
Proposition 8 protects the people’s will and overturns activist judges.
In 2000 over 61% of Californians voted in favor of Proposition 22 to reaffirm that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. However, because this language wasn’t put into the state Constitution when it was approved, four activist judges from San Francisco wrongly overturned the people’s vote. In November 2008, Proposition 8 gives California voters the opportunity to reverse the court’s decision and restore the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman in the state Constitution.

Proposition 8 is simple and straightforward.
Proposition 8 contains the same 14 words that were previously approved in 2000 by over 61% of California voters: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." By putting these words directly into the state Constitution, the court cannot strike them down as unconstitutional.

Proposition 8 is about preserving marriage; it’s not an attack on the gay lifestyle.
Proposition 8 doesn’t take away any rights or benefits from gay or lesbian domestic partners. Under California law, "domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections and benefits" as married spouses. (Family Code §297.5.) There are no exceptions to this. Proposition 8 will not change this.

Proposition 8 protects our children.
Proposition 8 protects our children from being taught in public schools that same-sex marriage is the same as traditional marriage. In health education classes, state law requires teachers to instruct children as young as kindergarteners about marriage. (Education Code §51890.) If the same-sex marriage ruling is not overturned, teachers will be required to teach young children that there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage.

Proposition 8 protects marriage as an essential institution of society.
Proposition 8 protects marriage and the important role of a traditional family. While death, divorce or other circumstances may prevent the ideal, the best situation for a child is to be raised by a married mother and father.

YES on Proposition 8 does three simple things.
􀂃 It restores the definition of marriage to what the vast majority of California voters already approved and human history has understood marriage to be.
􀂃 It overturns the outrageous decision of four activist Supreme Court judges who ignored the will of the people.
􀂃 It protects our children from being taught in public schools that "same-sex marriage" is the same as traditional marriage.
Vote Yes on Proposition 8!
www.ProtectMarriage.com

A Ford Convertible

This devotional was written by Jim Grams

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.—Matthew 6:33

I will never forget the wonderful driving days I had with my 1953 black Ford convertible. I got it a few days before my junior year in college. I rolled onto the campus two days before classes began and I was "cool." I couldn't wait for my ex-girlfriend to get a look at my fancy new ride.

A convertible was a "want" I had. In the verse above, Jesus promises us we’ll get what we "need." Wants and needs are very, very different. Sometimes we want very foolish things and God tells us, "No, you can’t have that!" And sometimes God surprises us by blessing us with our wants. But, He always provides what we need. Jesus tells us to look at the birds and the flowers and see how wonderfully our Heavenly Father takes care of them.

Then, Jesus asks, "Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" I was cutting lawns for $1 an hour that junior year in college. There was a gas war in town and I could fill my tank for $2! Yesterday, it took $69.90 to fill our Hyundai. God met my needs in 1959, and He met them again yesterday. He is always faithful!

I needed a car to drive from Oregon to Missouri for college. I needed a car to go mow the grass across town. I wanted a convertible to impress the girl who had broken my heart the semester before. Sometimes our wants and needs come together. That same girl has now been my wife for almost 48 years! I love it when God surprises us with His blessings. He is a loving Father!



GOING DEEPER:
1. Are your prayer requests full of wants or are they about your needs?

2. I’d like to suggest you take a few minutes and make a list of your needs. Then carefully make another list of your wants. And then, go to prayer.

FURTHER READING:
Matthew 6:19-21; Philippians 4:11-13; Colossians 3:2

Kindness

Do you consider yourself to be a kind person? Why is this simple question so difficult to answer? I believe that we each would automatically say that Yes we are kind, however would others agree with you. How about those that the closest to you, your spouse, kids, co-workers? Yikes, maybe I am not so kind. The dictionary definition is, 'of a sympathetic or helpful nature'.

The book, The Love Dare states that kindness is Love in action. Some how this simple definition struck me as truth. Each time that we demonstrate kindness, we are showing our Love in action. In addition LD (love Dare), breaks kindness down into 4 Categories; Gentleness, Helpfulness, Willingness and Initiative.

Gentleness-When acting in kindness, you attempt to be gentle in all your actions and words. If you had to tell your spouse that an outfit did not look the best on them, you would choose your words very carefully to ensure that they did not hurt their feelings. You would be gentle.

Helpfulness-When acting in kindness, you show this by being helpful, by recognizing what actions need to happen, and then doing them or helping to do them, without being concerned for your own agenda.

Willingness-When acting in kindness, you show this by being willing to do what needs to be done, not what you want to do. By being willing to do what your spouse wants to do rather than what you want to do. Such as going to lunch with her after church rather than hurrying home to watch a Football game. You are willing to put her needs above yours.

Initiative-When acting in kindness, you show this by taking the initiative and doing things before being asked. After years of being married, our spouses have somewhat of a routine on certain actions. If you know that Sunday is laundry day, you could take the initiative to separate the clothes so that she can just put them into the machine without having to separate them first. Of if you know that basket needs to be taken up stairs, you could do it without being asked, and even put the clothes away.

My dare today is to show kindness to my spouse.....look forward to this challenge...

The Love Dare

As most of you know, I have been raving about the movie, 'FireProof', this is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. Please go to http://www.fireproofthemovie.com/ to see the trailer and read the thousands of positive reviews. I would recommend this movie to everyone, especially anyone that is married or in a relationship. Heck, if you want to ever be in a relationship, you should see this movie. I would recommend this movie to moms and dads to take their kids to, to tell them this is the type of man you need to seek for your husband, or this is the type of husband that you need to be......I loved this movie.

The movie is based upon a book, 'The Love Dare' by Alex and Stephen Kendrick. Both are pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. The book is a 40 devotion that dares you to look at yourself, your spouse, your relationship to each other and most of all your relationship with your God. At the end of each dare, there is an opportunity to journal how this dare impacted your thoughts, your life and your partner. You can do this dare alone, or you can do these dares are a couple. I would recommend that if doing as a couple that you each have your own book, so that you can each journal, or at least have a separate journal.

I can tell you that I am going to do the dares...For the 1st time I am going to do the dare for momma, she knows that I am reading the book, she has watched the movie with me, so she is aware of the principles, however she does not know what each dare is. I can tell you that Momma and I are going strong, we are not having any major problems, as a matter of fact, we are at the best that we have ever been. On the way home from the movie, Momma asked me why I was going to do the dares, we aren't getting a divorce or even arguing...My answer to her was, 'This is the best time to do it, why wait until we have problems or when it comes to a point that I have to do it." I can do the dares and hopefully learn to love Momma even more, learn to appreciate her more, but most of all learn to be the husband that God intended me to be to her. By doing this I will honor our God, honor my vows, and honor my family. My intentions are to share some of the dares and some of the results with you via the blog.....In closing, this book is less than $10 at Amazon, even if you are not in a serious relationship, I believe that this book will help you to see yourself in a new light, one that will make you a the person you have always wanted to be and the person that God intended you to be...

Unconditional love is eagerly promised at weddings, but rarely practiced in real life. As a result, romantic hopes are often replaced with disappointment in the home. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.The Love Dare, as featured in the popular new movie Fireproof (from the makers of Facing the Giants), is a 40-day challenge for husbands and wives to understand and practice unconditional love. Whether your marriage is hanging by a thread or healthy and strong, The Love Dare is a journey you need to take. It’s time to learn the keys to finding true intimacy and developing a dynamic marriage. Take the dare!

Out of gas

I have to start off by saying that we serve an awesome God! Now I know this day in and day out, but some days he is just so awesome that I have to share. As I have talked about in earlier post, some days I cannot wait to write, everything I see, do or think, I see God in them, or I at least ask myself WWJD (what would Jesus do). Last night after showing no self-disciplined eating way more than I should have (mommas cooking is so good, if you don't believe me...look at my belly!!!). I was just about to sit down and finish watching the Angel game (don't get me started on that) when the phone rang, Dez was ready to come home from work. Now I will admit I was probably not paying as much attention as I should have been to my surroundings (I was trying to find the game on the radio), but on my way home, I noticed a car stalled in the slow lane under the freeway, it was stopped on a hill and really blocking traffic. As I passed the car I saw 2 older ladies in the car. I pulled up to a gas station on the other side of the hill and walked back to the car to see if I could be of any help. (Although we all know I don't know anything about cars) But I honestly just thought that maybe they had stalled on the hill and were not experienced enough on a stick shift to get going. Well actually they had ran out of gas, could not think of a worse place, other than maybe in the car pool lane of the 91 freeway during rush hour traffic. Well I though that I would try and at least push them to the side of the lane, just so that they were not in the middle of the lane. However I did not come prepared, I was wearing flip-flops, so the grade of the hill, along with flip-flops was more than I could handle. So I offered to go and get them some gas, but they said they had already called and someone was on their way. About that time, about car pulled up to assist, but I told them that help was already on the way, right then another car pulled up and a man came to ask if they needed help, I told him that they had ran out of gas, I asked him if he could help me push them out of traffic, he said yeah, since he had shoes on!!!! we were able to push them not only out of the way but all the way to the gas station. How does this lil event show what an awesome God we serve is, well while pushing the car, the guy told me that his wife saw the 2 ladies stuck and she drove home to get her husband to come and help. That touched me, I was passing by and stopped because it was 2 older ladies, I will be honest if it was a guy I probably would not have stopped. But this lady and her husband both went way beyond the call of duty and came back to help, without them, we were not moving that car up the hill. Gods commandment is to love thy neighbor, by taking those 5 minutes and helping those two lovely ladies we not only loved our neighbor, we served our God by helping his people. As mush as my body hurt on the outside moving that car up the hill, my insides were on fire with pride. Not for anything that I did, but what that man did. He stopped whatever he was doing and came and helped, not knowing what the issue was of if the car was still there. I thought was what would I do if momma came home and said that I needed to come with her because there was a car broken down a few streets away.....

On that same note, this morning while reading our morning devotion together, a verse was given to me, Proverbs 16:9

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps."

Wow, that is such a powerful verse, it touched my being on so many levels. As a man we try and have everything planned, each week we try and figure out how we are to get the needed things accomplished, each day how to manage our time to serve our God, our family, ourselves and all of our commitments. With every decision we make it is a step towards something, now that something is occasionally a dead-end, while other decisions lead us to the desired results. However, if we do any of this without our God, it is a dead-end, regardless of what the step is. I am so encouraged by knowing that I may try and plan the course of actions to get to what my earthly mind believes is the desired results, but my ever-loving, ever knowing God, determines the steps to get to the true results.

Love ya

Monday Madness

Good Monday Morning to you all,
I hope you all had a chance to get some much needed rest, it has started to cool down here in California, which is really nice. We finally turned off the air, we had it on since June, non-stop. And I know that the argument is always going to be there, is it better to leave the air on all the time, or only turn it on when needed.....? The other great thing is we got some rain on Saturday, more of a drizzle than rain, but it was some water....and as much as I love the California sunshine...I do love to watch it rain. (as long as it doesn't cancel my softball games!!!!!). By Sunday the rain had went away, and it was sunny again, although it was cooler, the 60s-70s.

Service on Sunday was really nice, we had a guest speaker and he did a really good message, talking about using our mind to put ourselves in a place to receive all that God has to offer. he shared that so many times, we all allow our thoughts to think ourselves out of victory, we allow negative thoughts to hinder our actions. We 2nd guess ourselves in almost every major decision that we make, we are always thinking about what happens if we fail, instead of the rewards. He shared many examples of thinking ourselves out of the full rewards of our God. We as humans sell ourselves short in many actions that the Lord has provided for us.

This message had me thinking, because I had sinned I continuously beat myself up, coming up with every excuse for why I did, and blah.blah, blah. Instead I should confess my sin, ask for forgiveness and move on, do not dwell on my negative action and focus on the positive action/relationship I have with my God. One of the points he brought up, was what if we knew that Jesus was coming back tonight, and our eyes were focused on him, would be able to turn from sin if sin entered into our mind, would we be able to rebuke the sinful thought and remain focused on Jesus. Most of us felt that we could, why...the reward is greater. He then challenged us, to take this approach one second at a time, if we continuously look up to God and focus on his rewards, we then can rebuke the sinful thoughts. By doing this on a continues basis, each time it will be a little easier, however this is a forever battle, sin has always been part of our lives and will be until the final days. The wonderful news of that, is that we have a wonderful loving and forgetful God that loves us unconditionally and is always waiting with open arms to hold you.

Have a blessed day

Free 4 All Friday

TGIF....hope this lil blog finds you all healthy and happy. Life in the Tribe is going really well. We are all so busy, that I have come to the decision that I am buying one of those big calenders to list where everyone is on each day. With both the older girls now working, LM winter ball practices (2 days a week) and games on Sat or Sun. Ant has practice one day a week, my softball games and it goes on and on and on! So we need an agenda for each day so that we can ensure that we all get to where we need to be....some days it seems so crazy, but right now writing it, I feel overwhelmed!!!!
Last week we had Ashs Quiencieta (15th birthday party). Although it was such a beautiful ceremony, and it was great to see her so happy with friends and family....I am so glad that it is over, the time, money and work that went into it was crazy, I have already told the girls that they have to elope, we are not paying for anymore big parties!!!!!
Yesterday I did something sorta weird but rewarding, I went back and re-read every blog post that I have written so far, and each of the comments that were sent. I will tell you that I felt really good reading them, for many reasons, the main being that I was real in each of my post, and although some of them did not show me on my best day, it was me. I feel that I was honest and sincere. I want this blog to be a tool that helps to strengthen my faith and everyone that reads it, a tool that bridges the distance between friends and family, and a message of encouragement to all.

Love you all

The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 Rule

This devotional was written by Kelly McFadden

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."—James 1:2-4

The Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule, states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Although this rule was first applied in Italy when Pareto was looking at the dispersal of wealth, it has since become a rule of thumb for many businesses. It has been said that 20% of your workforce does 80% of the work, or 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients. I think this law comes into play in our lives as well. Life is 20% what happens to you and 80% what you make of it.
There are tons of stories about people who come out of difficult situations – gang life, in and out of jail, drug addiction, broken families, abuse – yet still seem to rise to the top. And of course, there are many stories of those who have been given everything they would need to succeed, only to wind up in the depths of a broken life. How you choose to respond to what life hands you not only says a lot about you, but has a huge impact on your life. You can choose to either spend your life blaming your circumstances for misfortune or heartache, or you can learn from those things and move on.
When James writes his letter, he tells the people to "consider it joy when they face trials." This is so contrary! Joy? How can you consider it joy when you are robbed, raped, lied to, fired, are having marriage difficulties or friendship problems? James is not saying to pretend to be happy about a painful situation, but simply to have a positive outlook and know you can learn from it and not let it drag you down. The only thing we have control over in this life is how we choose to respond. And how you choose to respond, especially under pressure, shows the depth of your character. Instead of complaining about your struggles or blaming your trials for the bad choices you make, look at them as opportunities to grow, not opportunities to assign blame for your misfortune.
If life is truly 20% what happens to you and 80% what you make of it, be thoughtful each time you react to something that has happened or each time you make a decision.

Word-less Wednesday

Try explaining to your wife that you got tired and spent the night at the rest stop off of 'no name' !!