from drmommyonline.com
Your faith.
Your relationship with Christ.
Some people call it ‘religion’. Many of us who live and walk in The Kingdom of God here and now, walking by faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, call it RELATIONSHIP.
When asked about your faith, religion, church, beliefs . . . what is your response?
Is it, “Oh, I never talk about religion, it’s a private matter.”
Is it, “I believe in God! I pray, I give to charity, I’m a good person.”
Is it, “That is too personal – it is between me and God – it is not the business of anyone else what I believe or how I worship.”
Is it, “I’ve always been a Christian – go to church every Sunday!”
The list could go on and on. We have all found people with various opinions on God, faith, The Bible, Church – and some people, who profess to be Christians, still refuse to talk about their own faith walk.
My question to them (to us) is . . . as a Christian, a true believer in Jesus Christ . . . how can you NOT share your faith? How can you NOT share what Christ has done in your life?
If we keep our faith to ourselves, how can others hear about hope in God? How can they KNOW that He is there, that He cares for every aspect of their lives? How can we bring them the message of His Gospel – the Good News that He IS alive and active in our life, and desires to share their life as well?
“Well, people can just ‘see’ that I’m a Christian.” True, but sometimes they can’t. I mean, every one of us has a bad day from time to time; a moment where the old flesh arises and we may say or do something that is NOT a reflection of Jesus. We may quickly repent and seek God’s forgiveness (and whomever else we need to) but the damage has been done. Those watching us have observed that behavior or heard those words.
Faith, my friends, comes by ‘hearing’. How can they hear if they never hear us declare who Jesus is and the changes He has brought about in our lives. THEN they can observe – believe me – they are! What they observe is (should be) the confirmation of our declaration of faith in Him!
Complete surrender, Lord, is how I want to live my life. Wholly surrendered, in every area, family, health, finances, faith, areas of ministry – every single thing, Lord – without You – they all mean nothing – I am nothing. From the depths of my being I cry out, “Abba” and let tell You how very much I love you. And, Lord, help me to always BOLDLY speak of my faith – let me be silent no longer, in Jesus Name, amen.
(c) klh 4Given Ministries
FOGwalkerBirdie 
Amen!! Love this. Intimacy is the key. A true relationship with God is like no other. Thanks for sharing!
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Reblogged this on The Abuse Expose' with Secret Angel and commented:
Religion versus Relationship… Big difference!!
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Thanks for the reblog! Now I have to play catch up!
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🙂
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I agree! Great post!
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God bless you for your encouragement. Thanks ever so much, all glory to God!
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Amen! He says to be strong, to be bold, and to stand tall. To disciple others cannot be done silently. Thanks for sharing. Good word.
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Thank you and bless you for your comments.
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When someone wants to know or even if they don’t I just say that we have an Awesome God. How cool is that. I am trying to open the eyes of a new friend that is certain she is going straight to hell because of the mistakes she has made in year life. I am trying to explain to her that she is no different than Mother Teresa in that we ALL fall short of the Glory of God and that He lived, died, and defeated death for HER. He came for her and the only reason that I am talking to her is that He is running as fast as He can to her. Anyway, I am just like her in the fact that I am broken and need a Savior. She just doesn’t know it yet. One of if not my favorite Christian Songs these days is the one with this verse, ” YOUR LOVE NEVER FAILS, IT NEVER GIVES UP, IT NEVER RUNS OUT ON ME” That is the message that I try to give to those that will listen. It is also the hope I hang onto during my time of trial and trouble.
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Dear one . . . you keep on sharing . . . you are right on target. We ALL are broken, make mistakes, and are in dire need of a Savior. Thank you, too for sharing that song, I love it . . . now I’m singing it and most likely will be for quite a while – what a powerful message!
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I am a 53 year old guy that bursts into tears whenever they sing that song at church, like this morning. The love that never fails, gives up, or runs out for a lowly guy like me is the anchor, life vests, whatever that I hold onto. Before I was broken after a 23 year marriage, the last 10 the worst abuse a guy could ever go through, I was able to raise up a daughter in the way that she should go, and as she has grown she has not departed from it. I will never do anything more important in my life than give her that gift.
A really good question that could be asked of believers is this. If I could give you a billion dollars, or a trillion but all memory of your relationship with Christ would be erased and you could never ever get it back, would you do it? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t
So my question to myself is this. If I already have the most valuable gift that a man/woman can possess, why do I still feel so broken?
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Dearest Fellow Survivor, I love your example question to believers – thank you so much for sharing this.
As for the question you ended with – why so we still feel so broken – is one I would like to try to answer.
From my own personal experiences, I too have experienced much wounding and brokenness. And, yes, there were times when I felt so completely overwhelmed with it, that I hardly believed I could go on. However, I have learned that through total surrender – giving every THING over to the Lord, not just my heart, not just for the forgiveness of sins, but my life as a whole – complete package, hurts, broken dreams, loss of things that will never be because of ____________, doubts, anxieties, fears, EVERY thing, brings about an inner healing so rich that one can hardly believe that you are still the same person. The memories do not go away, but the pain, the brokenness, the despair – all those emotions that we struggle with, they will diminish and eventually (some sooner than others) disappear.
It sounds like you already love the Lord, trust in Him, and are doing your best to live a life pleasing to Him. That is awesome. Yet, if you (we) are still feeling some pain from the past, allowing it to continue to add to feelings of brokenness, then we most likely have not yet completely surrendered those areas to Him.
A HUGE part of this is forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a ‘feeling’ it is a ‘choice’. When we choose to follow God’s Word and act in obedience to His Word, we make the choice to forgive those who have so deeply wounded us. Oh, it is not easy – but it IS completely freeing! As we forgive, chains – heavy, heavy chains of hurt, anger, bitterness, brokenness – start to break away.
So my dear friend, may I suggest that You go to the Lord in prayer, seek His guidance – perhaps you have already worked through forgiveness . . . this was me . . . I REALLY thought I had . . . but I still felt so wounded whenever I reflected upon a certain situation – the Lord showed me that I was still clinging to those past things.
Let me explain it this way. Do you have a favorite pair of old scruffy slippers, or jeans, or something that you just refuse to get rid of because it is so comfortable? Well, think of your brokenness like that – we tend to hang on to it (or parts of it) because it is familiar, it is comfortable (this is an oxymoron, I know because it also causes us pain) and therefore we have not fully surrendered it (them) over to the Lord. But, oh . . . when we do . . . His glorious love, mercy, grace, acceptance, strength, come flooding in the places where the brokenness was!
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I am not there yet. I can’t be untruthful with you and God searches the heart so I certainly can’t be untruthful with him. I know its like the monkey that grabs ahold of an apple in a jar but can’t get it out while his hand is clinched, but when he “lets it go” and simply turns the jar over it comes tumbling out. I have to let go of 25 years of my life, and for a long while they were pretty good years. My circumstances were different because there was a third player involved that caused our rift, and that was the ex’s father. If he did not come into the picture this would not have happened. When I could not provide what she wanted she turned to him and he was all to happy to supply, contingent on her listening to him and not me. He tried the same thing with my daughter but turning her heart away from me will take a little more work because she is not susceptible to bribes of gifts and money, while the ex was and is. The ex would never listen to either me or my daughter when we tried to tell her that “HE” is knocking at the door. She is to wrapped up in this world. I feel like I have let her down but I tried as hard as I could
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Being honest with God, with yourself, with others, is the best way to be. I understand fully where you are coming from, having lived there for such a long time myself.
Here is the question that was asked of me when I gave a similar response . . . “Karin, would you be willing to be willing to try it God’s way?” Believe me, I pondered that question for a long time. Then I got to praying, again, and thinking, again, and came up with this answer to myself . . . YES – why not? The worse that would happen is that I still have some of this pain, and if it truly DID work? WOW . . . I was definitely willing to be willing to give it a try.
Know what? God met me where I was – wallowing in my stinking mess – with my “hand clinched around that apple in the jar” (to use your illustration) . . . and, I am ever so glad I made that decision.
Abba Father, I lift up my precious brother before You now. Lord, You alone see and KNOW the hurts that are so very deep that he can not seem to let them go. I ask that You send Your ministering angels to surround him, that You blanket him with Your peace and that Your mighty Holy Spirit gently guide him along the path – the steps he needs to take to become free. In Jesus Name, amen.
May I be so bold as to suggest something else? Next time you think of ‘the ex’ or her father turn it into a prayer – simply say, “Lord, bless them. Help them to find You.” You will discover that as you do this, your own heart will start to soften when it comes to them. Forgiveness will be an even easier choice because you have already started to turn them over to Him.
Also, dear one, remember, you are not letting them ‘down’ – it is not your job to fix them – simply let your words and actions reflect the love of Christ and allow Holy Spirit to do His work from there. Bless you! I’m praying for you.
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Thank you for your prayers and support. Just finished putting my baby girl to bed. She is almost 18 but will always be my baby girl. We folded laundry, talked about her physics exam tomorrow, His Death and Resurrection and what it all means, teenage sex, abortion, and current politics, all like it was general conversation.
Now the ex, I prayed this for 20 years ” Father, please touch her heart with your spirit that she may seek you and find you and know you” Sometimes He says no or maybe she just didn’t want to hear, I don’t know.
I know this is bad, but I would never pray for any kind of rescuing for the ex’s father. I have seen him destroy every relationship with good people he has ever been in. Best friend, brother, nephew, other daughter, both ex wives, his own father, and now my marriage. He is very wealthy and uses his money as a tool of control and he could not control me with it so he turned my ex’s heart away from me.
I am getting off subject. Thank you for listening, caring, and praying for me. My daughter has every Fruit of the Spirit and lives by them daily so I know how powerful prayer is. She is my proof because her heart was and is open to instruction and she listens, while the ex’s was and is not, at least not yet. I have bent your ear enough but am grateful to Secretangel for leading me to your site.
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I hear not only the hurt in your words, but I feel the bitterness that has taken root. I hear myself speaking years ago . . . let me share with you one more thing.
All of my life the one thing I could not stand above all else was to be called a “liar”. You see, there were many times I was punished for things that I simply did NOT do or say yet when I spoke that truth, it was not accepted. So . . . me, being a person who truly loved the Lord, was completely taken aback when the Holy Spirit opened up my eyes to 1 John 4:20-21. It says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.” vs 20 – O U C H ! Those words tore at my heart. But it didn’t stop there . . . verse 20 continues . . . “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” OH MY GOODNESS! DOUBLE O U C H ! ! Then, verse 21 wraps it all up . . . are you ready . . . “And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
These verses truly had an impact when it came to my finally letting go of the anger, hatred actually, I bore in my heart for my father – this was a key in my being able to make the CHOICE to forgive him. Oh, I’ll be honest with you – I never EVER wanted anything to do with him, but I knew I could no longer carry the hurt, anger, bitterness, etc. and truly be the Christian God desires me to be.
Do you know what was amazing about the whole process? A couple of years after the Lord and I had this discussion (or, I guess you could almost call it a knock down drag out fight), my father did come back into my life. I resisted that first encounter, but when I did lay eyes on him, my eyes were wearing new lenses. I saw his brokenness – I saw how lost and alone he was – I saw his need of the Savior. My father did give his heart to the Lord before he passed away, and I actually did begin to have a deep rich God-given love for him.
I pray these words help you on your journey.
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Also . . . here is a Bible Study I compiled a while back that might help you . . . https://fogwalkerbirdie.wordpress.com/bible-studies/forgiveness/
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I agree. I will delve into the Bible Study subject later this evening. The really hard part is the deep soul connection I had with the ex. I loved her a great deal but unfortunately it was a one way love affair. I gave and she took until finally I just stopped giving. I still have that soul connection that is very hard to break after 25 years Maybe that means that I will always love her and should only wish the best for someone that I love.
I had so many red flags going in that I just did not want to pay attention to or at least ignore. The first one was when she told me she hated her dad and he was the worst father ever. Then I heard all the tales of abuse committed against the mom and kids and that was even before I asked her to marry me. She learned a style of relationship that seemed to work out great for the dad and when she tried it, it worked out well for her, but only because I let it go on so long.
Anyway, my name is David. I believe in the power of prayer, and whatever you asked on my behalf last night really helped my attitude this morning A LOT.
She was raised and learned a style of relationship management with an abusive user type of style and I was not. Its not just me she treated that way. Her friends and acquaintances were treated like that too. I could tell you tons of stories but that would not help anything. I first need to get to indifference and then move on to total forgiveness. I know holding onto the pain only hurts me and not them/her. My heart just has to catch up with my brain. I just want to enjoy life and living again. I can remember what it was like and I would like to return to that state of being.
Again, thanks for your input.
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We need to speak out, faith comes by hearing and hearing.Thanks for the challenge!
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Thank you and bless you!
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That was quite good, thank you!
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Bless you! You are welcome, all I do is share what the Lord lays upon my heart. I am overwhelmed at times with the impact that His words through me have.
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Reblogged this on Madison Elizabeth Baylis.
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