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God’s Valentine to you: Your faith will make you whole

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God's valentine

Mark 5:34: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Those who say Joel Osteen is too happy are messed up in the head. How in the world can you be too happy?

I find peace and happiness will turn any situation into gold.

Here is a story. My car’s alternator broke down at a gas station one midnight. I was by myself with no way of getting help. Many people would have been panicking, but I believe God will do what He says He will do. So I sat there calm and collected.  God sent me a complete stranger to get me home. The guy even had a great sense of humor, just like I like my men, by the end of the night, I was laughing and having a good time.

When God says He will bless you, he doesn’t mean just money. Proverbs 22:4 says, “Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life.” What kind of life can you live unhappy?

I do not underestimate the power of peace and happiness.  It turns marriages around. It feeds the homeless. It heals the sick. It gives strength to the weak. I could be in the midst of a war, everyone around me dying, and I am the only one able to laugh at the days to come. Is it because I’m oblivious? No, it’s because I understand God is not a liar. He does exactly what He says He will do.

The one thing I like about preachers like Joel Osteen, Jesse Duplantis, Joyce Meyer, and Bishop Davis of Faith Christian Center Jacksonville is they preach on God’s blessings and tell you exactly how to receive.

It is not so easy to receive God’s blessings.

  1. Mark 10:27 says, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God,” leaving man not able to receive the blessings on his own.  Let’s not mention Psalms 32:10 says, God’s “unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him”, not the wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked. Catch me on a bad day after weeks of not being in the Word.
  2. We are constantly fighting against negative thinking and feelings, both which inhibit God.
  3. We are naturally evil beings living in an evil world.
  4. We actually have to step out on faith before God moves. It is easier to believe what we can see and touch.

I find God asks me to do a lot of things that do not make sense.  When things didn’t work out the way I planned, I would be left thinking, am I going insane? Maybe I should stop believing. Thing is, I made a promise to God: no matter what, I will keep believing in Him because wherever He takes me, He can at least provide me peace and happiness.  This promise has helped me stay in faith, leading God to fulfill.

It is funny how in Mark 5:34, Jesus says, “Your faith has healed you” not “I have healed you.” It makes me sad God will do only what I believe He will do.  I want Him to be a magic genie, but alas, that was not His will.

If you study the new testament yourself, you’ll discover Jesus saying multiple times,  “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” Mark 5:20 is one specific time He does that.

If I were you, I’d follow his command.

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God’s Valentine to you: He will do for you exactly what he said.

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God's valentine

Psalms 91:14-16: “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

Some people will face tragedy in February, while others will have the best time of their life. Some people will feel lonely. Some will have nothing special happen to them at all. Whatever happens, before the month ends, I want to remind you of God’s Valentine to you. 

February is one of my favorite months. As Justin Bieber said on SNL, it is the month of Blacks and love. Well, he didn’t quite say it like that.

It came to me this Valentine’s Day to spend time celebrating God’s love. He is love, stronger than any man or woman’s. Even when people failed me, I have found His love to be unfailing even in the toughest of times. When I need something, all I have to do is turn to Him. He gives me the deepest desires of my heart. He teaches me His way and draws me closer.

I grew up in the church, but here’s the funny thing about church. You can go everyday and not be much of a Christian. Sometimes I would step out in faith only to think things will not work out. God knew I was trying though. He always meets you where you’re at, so even in my doubt, God still moved for me. Now I have learned to trust in Him fully. He will be good to me just because I believe in Him.

Life can sometimes become so hard we forget God loves us. I know I have once or twice or three times. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

One thing I have learned is to seek God at all times. When He is telling you He is going to do big things for you, don’t doubt it one bit, just receive it. Keep it to yourself if it sounds too crazy. Your closest friends and family can instill some of the strongest doubt even when they do not always mean to do so. Unless God is using you as a vehicle to help someone else, what He has told you is meant for you, and only you need to believe it. God is going to do exactly what He said. Just remember Luke 1:45, a verse that talks about Mary, but can be applied to you: “Blessed is she who believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.”

For those who are in need of more spiritual ministering I recommend both Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer’s The Battlefield of the Mind.

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Dinner with Muhammad – 3 out of 5

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Dinner with Muhammad

I like the cover! Tell me more!

Marilyn Hickey has traveled extensively throughout the Muslim world for over thirty years. She details how God has allowed her to uniquely conduct public ministry in these countries with amazing results; how she has made friends with Islamic leaders and benefited from their assistance, and how the people of the streets in the Islamic world have responded to preaching and prayer. Islamic leaders who share the author’s desire to bridge the cultural divide speak in their own voice as they share perspectives and opinions.

Review Dinner With Muhammad – 3 out of 5

Reading Dinner With Muhammad was a lot like reading someone’s personal diary. Was it thoroughly engaging? At times.  Miss. Hickey’s personal experiences with Islamic nations are what kept me reading when parts fell. By the end of the book, you feel inspired to go across the street to invite your Muslim neighbors to dinner, apologizing for never having done so before. Having built strong friendships with people of Islamic culture way before reading the book, what Miss. Hickey spoke about, I already knew. Sometimes I felt like her descriptions of Muslim people could not really pertain to Muslim Americans. For example, while in college, I found most Muslim Americans were not impoverished, illiterate, starving or that out of touch with Western culture. After forming a friendship with them, I found religion rarely, if ever, entered the conversation. First or second generation Americans did not want to talk about being a Muslim, they wanted to party and be regular college students.  Even the ones wearing a Hijab. They gave me enough information to ensure I never gave them alcohol or fed them pork on accident. One is left wondering, how do you relate to them? Miss. Hickey also did not talk much about the middle and upper classes in Muslim nations. After reading this book you would almost think they virtually did not exist. However, I feel Miss. Hickey’s overall aim is to motivate Christians to serve Muslim nations’ underprivileged, not go over there and network with the upper classes. Just like reading any other diary, I encountered grammatical mistakes and shifty transitions between past and present tense. When the author used dialogue to enhance past experiences, I read it thinking, “Did they really say it like that?” But hey! You don’t waltz a diary to a professional editor. Besides, because I believe in what Miss. Hickey is doing, I looked past the not-so perfect writing. Miss. Hickey is very good at sharing her passion with others. She has been traveling to Muslim countries to host healing meetings based on Christian principles for 20 years. Her work has changed over thousands of peoples’ lives, and created places where Christians and Muslims can worship together. Miss. Hickey’s Christian nonfiction, Dinner With Muhammad, is unique. It inspires us to see every person as a friend and not an enemy. I recommend this book for those Christians passionate about unity.

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