CHECK OUT WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO!



 Newest Post... THINK PINK!  


My more recent posts:


Come Away To A Quiet Place... 


Weeds and Roots


 Today, I choose...

He Calls Me Wildflower

______________________________________________

VISIT MY ONLINE ART GALLERY:






WWW.MICHELLEBENTHAMCREATES.ORG


IN OTHER NEWS: Women of Faith featured an excerpt from my blog about a WOF event I recently attended. Check It OUT!

I recently joined Angie Monroe on her Resolute Catalyst Radio Show talking all about Preserving Your Potential in Pressure Cooker Seasons.  LISTEN to the PODCAST on Angie's Podomatic
_________________________________________________

I'M GIVING AWAY CREATIONS! Everyday that my blog reaches 100 page views, those who leave comments will be entered to win a 4x6 original artwork on paper of your favorite verse of Scripture.  Click here the rules and how to enter. 

THURSDAY, MAY 2nd Comments: NONE! Really... We had 112 page views yesterday - first time we've broke 100 since March 29th! Leave your comments and link up to the blog and you are entered to win. NOEL WILLIAMS has been commenting regularly, visit Noel at http://www.prhayz.wordpress.com/ She linked up to our website on Twitter yesterday which I believe helped send traffic my way! So NOEL is our MAY 2nd Winner. NOEL, please email  me your favorite Scriptures and colors. 

I will post my draft of the Painting for Bridgit by May 11th! :)

4/20/2012 WE HAVE NOT HAD ANY 100 PAGE-VIEW days these last few weeks. Share a link and leave a comment to enter to win! I'll post the next update next week! 

FRIDAY APRIL 6th Entries: OUR WINNER IS BRIDGIT ! Bridgit please email me so we can get started on your personalized artwork! KEEP CHECKING BACK, Linking Back and letting others know about this give-a-way! 

Date                       # of  Page Views                 Commentators

3/28                           83                                        Ana Marie

3/29                         146                                      Bridgit  

3/30                           88                                       Noel

3/31                            76                                       Julie 

4/1                              58

4/2                              71                                       Nanette

4/3                             63                                       Noel

4/4                            46

4/5                            32

---------------------------------------------------------

VISIT MY ONLINE ART GALLERY:






WWW.MICHELLEBENTHAMCREATES.ORG


IN OTHER NEWS: Women of Faith featured an excerpt from my blog about a WOF event I recently attended. Check It OUT!

I recently joined Angie Monroe on her Resolute Catalyst Radio Show talking all about Preserving Your Potential in Pressure Cooker Seasons.  LISTEN to the PODCAST on Angie's Podomatic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzoUU8qlkwc

                                                                                                                                                        ___

Scripture & Prayer BlogEncouragement and Prayer from the pages of God's Word as He has written them on my heart! Scripture & Prayer Blog



____________________________________________________________


If you are looking for my Bible study on the Hebrew Names of God click HERE.



________________________________________________________

BETH MOORE IS COMING TO GATEWAY CHURCH for PINK IMPACT IN APRIL! Don't miss this great time to come together as women of God and hear the anointed teaching of Beth, Holly Wagner, Author Andy Andrews, Ps. Debbie Morris, and many more | April 26-27, 2012. Our Southlake Campus is SOLD. OUT. Frisco will have a live Satelite Feed and North Richland Hills is expected to sell out by the first of March or so! JUST JUMP IN!


Visit Beth at the LPM Blog and learn more what she's up to and her Living Proof Ministries!!

_________________________________________________________



Shop at my bookstore: MICHELLE's BOOK NOOK
Life is happening here...

It's taken me a while to get my bearings again, but I'm writing. And, I'm in love. With My Family. With My God. With the place I am in my life. With my HUSBAND. I'm in love and I love it... (See Gateway Church Christmas Carol)!

______________________________

Deep Breath Ministries...

Do you Rendezvous? Join Me Here.

______________________

Sunday, March 23, 2008

John's Gospel... Jesus's Love... The Ultimate Sacrifice

The Prince of Peace by Thomas Kinkaide


You know, as I sit thinking about all that this day means to our lives as Believer's in Christ - I am filled with awe, with great wonder that God would love me that much, that Jesus was so brave and that my sin cost them both so much.
.
John's life and gospel are really what started me on the journey of revelation. The revelation of Christ in my heart, my mind and my entire being started a little less than five years ago when my heart grew hungry to know His Word, to teach it to others and to live beyond the relative ignorance that I found myself in when it came to the things of God.
.
I knew John 3:16... I'd known it since before I received Christ as my Savior when I was 12 years old. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16 (NKJV). For God so loved me that He gave His One and Only Son so that I could believe in Him and not perish in eternity, but live there instead. WHEW! Heady even for a grown adult. I could not have possibly known what it meant when I was 12, but I knew enough to know I needed Him.
.
I would spend more than half my life after that day living out a great battle - a battle for my testimony. I would walk the desert road, questioning God, making bad choices, living in consequences and all the while He was stirring in my heart and drawing me back to one place: The foot of the cross. I had to return there again and again. Each time I saw it as a place where a super human Christ put up with the scourge of death and a criminals execution. But, somehow that sacrifice did not "hurt," in my mind it was bloody because it had to be, but not painful. He was after all God and could endure anything on His own terms. Which is why the beauty of His love eluded me for many years.
.
I never seemed to grasp that my God was the personal God of John's gospel until the Holy Spirit settled on my in a banquet room in Euless, Texas on May 3, 2003. God's love became revelation to me, God sacrifice became real to me, His pain palpable, His death excruciating... in that ballroom as I lay weeping on the floor confessing how I had forsaken Him all those years of my life since I had been saved His love enveloped me like a warm bath and caressed my soul with His nurturing Spirit. He soothed me the way a Father soothes His child. His love was a healing balm for my heart, His forgiveness the power I needed to move forward and His truth the very thing that would set me on a journey free.
.
I allowed His love and His mercy and His truth to settle into me these last five years like sand settles to the bottom of a riverbed it shifts at first, but over time that sand is pelted into bedrock. His truth became the foundation of change in my life. It came with the rush of life going on about me, with the intense pressure of temptation and strife raging over me, and I have held firm to my one truth, my one hope - Christ Jesus crucified and resurrected. He has used those pressures, those trials to create an unshakeable foundation... an unshakeable faith.
.
It was the summer of 2003 that I found John's gospel and his life so compelling. I found Christ in the pages of Beloved Disciple (Beth Moore). I found my heart there also. A heart longing to lean into the breast of my Savior, to have my questions answered and my hope assured. I found abatement for my fears, and my flesh heart's condemning chant. I found love, forgiveness and hope for the future in John's life, gospel, letters, and revelation. He lived way beyond himself, transformed from a selfish second child to a selfless advocate of God's great love, Christ's beloved he lived fully in the favor of God and inherited the greater blessing of revelation in his faith.
.
Do I ever want to live like that? Absolutely I do.
.
Here are a few truths I discover in John's gospel.
.
1. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ~ John 3:17 (NKJV)
.
Jesus did not come to condemn us, but He came to bring the judgment of the world to a close and institute a new era of grace and mercy and redemption from the curse of sin. Glory!
.
2. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. ~ John 3:36 (NIV)
.
Jesus died to set us free, to redeem us from sin's consequences and give us eternal life, but we must choose to receive the gift. Choosing not to believe, choosing to "wait until later" because you have plenty of time is a choice. It is rejection. He who rejects the Son will not see life. When we walk continually in sin, refusing salvation in pride, vanity or the pursuit of pleasure... we live also in the wrath of God as His enemy. We must choose life, we must choose Christ and why would we abide in wrath when Christ came that we may abide in His love. (John 15)
.
3. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" 27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" 29 Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. 30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. ~ John 19:25-30 (NKJV)
.
Even as Jesus hung on the cross, bearing a criminal's punishment and suffering the most unimaginable agony. He had the clarity of mind to process each and every aspect of His circumstances, His plight and His death. While He hung there He saw His mother weeping, His friends suffering with Him unable to leave Him and He had compassion on them, He spoke to them and left instructions for His mother to be cared for. His death and His submission to the Father's will in redemption is a choice - a conscious decision Christ made and as He did He had us on His mind. He did not just think of the pain, He thought of the Love of the Father He was expressing to us, He thought of the lives that would be saved as a result. He died to give us life - He gave His life that we may live. Are you living? He made the provision have you received it?
.
4.) They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).
~John 20:13-16 (NIV)
.
Even in the midst of confusing and defeating circumstances, when we can't even recognize God in the things around us, we can still hear and recognize His voice. He calls us to Himself, reveals Himself, and wants us to know He is still there even when it hurts, even when it is hard and even when we feel there is nothing we can do. God shows up, He calls to us and He has already taken care of what it is that concerns us so - we just have to trust Him with the outcome. Just like Mary, she had no reason to believe the man before her was Jesus except that she recognized the sound of His voice. We must learn to listen through God's Word and His Spirit because His Word is revelation, His Word is truth and His Word is the key to a blessed life in Christ.
.
May God richly bless you as you consider Him this Easter Sunday. He is Alive! He is Alive! And He is coming back to take His Home... Let's live all the way there... Let's live all the way HOME!

3 comments:

  1. I love that study, Beloved Disciple. I learned so much doing that study. And, of course, it changed my life! I restored relationships that the enemy tried to steal from me. I stopped enabling bad relationships. And I feel more in love with Jesus Christ. John had such a beautiful way of writing about Christ. I treasure that study.
    May you have a blessed Easter. Thank you for sharing your testimony. Can you just imagine the glory of heaven when we all will be in His Presence on Easter? Praise God, He is risen INDEED!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I loved "Beloved Disciple". It was one of my favorites.

    Praise God that He never stops pursuing us and welcoming us into His embrace.

    Thank you for sharing your heart.

    I wanted to let you know that I had to move my blog's web address so I started over with a new blog. You can find the new blog (which looks very similar to the old one) at http://jewelsightings.blogspot.com.

    Love,
    Julie
    PS. I got your email. Thanks for sending the book. I look forward to reading it!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting. Please leave a comment and let me know you've stopped by! When commenting, please use Colossians 4:6 (MSG) as your guide: "Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out." Words are powerful, therefore, I will moderate all comments and will not post any spam, disrespectful or demeaning comments on this blog. Be blessed and remember, Jesus told His disciples that they would be recognized by their love.