LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF SINS!

1 Peter 4: 8 
Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

James 5:20 
let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

This statement of scripture that LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF SINS has been something the Holy Spirit has been speaking to my heart about of late. There is so much to learn about this great love and about this great gift.

The revelation the Lord pressed upon my heart was this.....The love that Jesus expressed by going to the cross was the greatest example of what it means when scripture says "Love covers a multitude of sins".  This verse was the example of Jesus dying on the cross for you and for me.   King Jesus took on MY sin.... ALL sin..... EVERYONE'S sin!  He loved me and covered all mine and everyone elses' sins!  WOW! I CRY TEARS OF JOY AND SADNESS OVER THIS.  I do not deserve this, but that is the mercy and grace of my Savior.  To have the mind of Christ is to love, for it is the greatest gift of all the gifts. (1 Cor. 13:13).

I heard a sermon recently by Bayless Conley and he said that Love compelled Jesus to action.  He gave an example: He said that we can hear about a trial or situation in someone's life and that we may feel compassion toward a person or situation and say oh how sad and even feel sad about it but unless it moves me to action, its just words.  I'm so glad Jesus didn't just have words or feelings of sadness over my eternity, but that He was compelled by Love towards me and everyone else and that by His going to the cross on my behalf was the only way I could experience His love in action.

As I have been wrestling through this, the Holy Spirit revealed some areas of my life of sin that Jesus covered with His love for me.  Sin in which I must repent of and be open to God changing and transforming in me.  Help me Jesus!

My sin is judging others
My sin is unforgiveness
My sin is keeping a record of wrongs done against me
My sin is faithlessness which cannot please God
My sin is not loving my neighbor as myself
My sin is simply not allowing myself to love others as I have been loved by Jesus
My sin is thinking more highly of myself than others
My sin is jealousy
My sin is selfishness
My sin is self-righteousness
My sin is a Multitude!

I awoke to this message on my heart from the Lord on Sunday, September 19, 2010 at 4:10 a.m., and wrote out this prayer to my Savior.

Dear sweet, kind, compassionate and most loving Jesus,

My Lord and My Savior.  Thank you for covering my multitude of sins with your PERFECT LOVE!  Your expression of love for me and the whole world is too much to fathom completely.  Help me Lord Jesus to let Faith, Hope and Love abide within me for your glory!  Your love is great and greatly to be praised!  May I love others as you first loved me!

In Jesus' sweet precious name I pray.
Amen

WISDOM WAS THERE AND STILL IS!

In the beginning - WISDOM was there!

From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth - WISDOM was there!

When there were no depths - WISDOM was there!

When there were no springs abounding with water - WISDOM was there!

Before the mountains were settled - WISDOM was there!

Before the hills - WISDOM was there!

While He had not yet made the earth and the fields,

Nor the first dust of the world - WISDOM was there!

When He established the heavens - WISDOM was there!

When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep - WISDOM was there!

When He made firm the skies above - WISDOM was there!

When the springs of the deep became fixed - WIDSOM was there!

When He set for the sea its boundary so that

the water would not transgress His command - WISDOM was there!

When He marked out the foundations of the earth - WISDOM was there as a master workman!

"Now therefore, O sons, listen to me,

For blessed are they who keep my ways.

"Heed instruction and be wise,

And do not neglect it.

"Blessed is the man who listens to me,

Watching daily at my gates,

Waiting at my doorposts.

"For he who finds WISDOM finds life

And obtains favor from the Lord.

Dear Lord God, what a friend you have provided in WISDOM. Help me to not lean on my own understanding but in all my ways to acknowledge YOU so that You will make my paths straight. Lord, you know that I desire to walk with you in an upright way and that I need your DIVINE WISDOM to do that. You are my Rock, the Lord of my salvation! I praise you Jesus for all that you have done, are doing, and continue to do in my life. AMEN

A BROKEN CISTERN!

Good Morning World!

At 5:30 a.m. this morning I could no longer lay in bed and continue to be restless and thinking about the Lord. And by the way, I don't even know that I was truly sleeping anyways, since I keep popping my eyes open its seems every few minutes. So.... I'm glad that I did not continue to lay there but that I got up and communed with God this morning because that is exactly what He wanted from me and I'm so thankful that He did not give up until I surrendered.

I began reading, crying, praising and praying through Isaiah 58 all the way through to the end and then began again in Jeremiah chapter 2 and have ended this morning with Jeremiah 2:13 that reads:

"For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns that can hold no water."

To me there is so much God is saying in this passage. I don't even know that I can fathom it all, but I did want to write the thoughts in which came to my mind that God was speaking to me about.

One thought that came to my mind was about being a cistern that could hold "The fountain of living waters". When a pot is broken, it cannot hold anything that is liquid. It's going to leak out and there will be nothing to give away or to keep me refreshed or sustained. So the questions, I must ask of the Lord are: What kind of pot or cistern have I been hewing for myself? Am I okay being a broken cistern that can hold no water? I can quickly answer that one, NO, NO, NO, I'm not okay with that! I want to be a cistern that can hold the fountain of living waters that would be glory and honor to my Savior. I do want to be one whom the Lord will look who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at His word.

I believe our world has become so accustomed to being broken cisterns that can hold no living water that we are believing that is okay and acceptable because of the grace of God. I believe God is saying that it is not okay......I did not make you to continue to be living as broken cisterns hewn out from your own making, I made you so that you could hold the fountain of living waters for My glory and My glory alone! I sent my precious son, Jesus to break the chains and bondage of sin, so that you could live as a beautiful, unbroken cistern holding my Son's fountain of living water inside of you to give away and refresh not only yourself but others as well.

Lord my prayer today is that you will repair or even destroy if you have too my cistern. The one that Kathleen has made because her cistern is leaking uncontrollably and is in need of a Master Potter who can mold and shape a new one for His glory alone! Amen.

I SHALL REMEMBER!

Psalm 77:11 - 13 reads: I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds. Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God?

In recent months, I have remembered.....what have I remembered?.....I have remembered and treasured sweet things of the Lord from when I was a little girl. You see, what I saw and experienced as a young child, set my feet and heart on a path of loving God and desiring to do the right thing. I have failed along the way many times, but I know that God has not loved me any less in my failings than when He loves when I'm on the right path.

Here are some of the wonders of old that I remember of the Lord and His people:

I remember gathering with my mom and other believers at church, singing, praising, listening and hearing the Word of God preached. I remember testimonies, I remember the Lord's supper and foot washing following the Lord's supper. I remember people coming to the altar and their heads being annointed with oil and everyone gathered around that person praying for healing, praying for unspoken requests, praying for a Word from the Lord! I remember going down to the river where baptisms would be held and folks coming up out of the water praising God for what He had done in their lives! I remember the stories/Testimonies of God's faithfulness to our family when we were down to our last cracker in the house and God provided a job for my daddy. I remember going to our Pastor's house and sitting and talking about the Lord. I remember so many good and precious times of seeing the manifestation of the Lord working in the lives of His people. What treasures these are too me and I praise You Lord for allowing me to see this. I praise God for a Mom who lived out her faith in the Lord before me. She wasn't perfect and still isn't, but I really saw God/Jesus and the Holy Spirit through her life. I remember that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. I remember that God is unchangable and that He is the Great I AM!

Thank You Lord for Your Word and for bringing to my rememberance Your wonders of old!

I praise You Lord for all that You have done for me,

Kathleen

PSALM 50 AND A NEW YEAR TO BEGIN AGAIN!

Where do I begin? I think Psalm 50: 23 is a great beginning to start with, so here it goes, "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God."

I'm so glad to be leaving the year 2009 behind and starting anew with 2010!

Right now Lord, I offer you what I have, and that is, I'm thankful for Your Word from Isaiah 33:6 that I began memorizing and claiming at the beginning of 2009. I didn't really know at that time, how much I would come to lean on that scripture as a source of strength throughout this past year and that I will continue to lean on it in 2010! Lord You are and will continue to be the stability of my time, You will continue to be a wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge to me and Lord I know that the fear of the Lord truly is my treasure. There is nothing else Lord that I can truly depend on.

I surely do not know what the future holds, but I know that You know. And I know that Your Will, will be done on earth as it is in Heaven and I thank You for that.

My last thing I want to share today is this beautiful Scripture I read this morning that brought my thoughts to try to imagine and take in this scene.

Psalm 48:1-2 says:

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,

In the city of our God,

His holy mountain.

Beautiful in elevation,

the joy of the whole earth,

Is Mount Zion in the far north,

The city of the great King.

For Thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever!

Kathleen