This is the perfect day, the perfect time, the perfect opportunity to thank the One who has given us everything listed above and so much more. As a not-so-young adult who has put her faith in Christ, Thanksgiving has such a deeper meaning. I am thankful that He pursued me with such a Holy zeal, I couldn’t turn to the left or the right without bumping into Him. I am thankful that, at the bottom of the pit, He reached His mighty yet gentle hand and took mine as He lifted me out. I am thankful that He showed me what life everlasting looked like and gave me the opportunity to choose it. I am thankful for His faithfulness and that His grace doesn’t end at Salvation. He pours it out into every aspect of my life; as a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister and most importantly as His child. There is so much more to be thankful for. The list could go on and on but instead of filling this blog post with my stuff, I’ll ask you what youare thankful for. What has He done for you? Who is He to you?

I’m sure there are many people out there who are struggling with those questions. Those who really aren’t feeling that “thankful” today. Life can get treacherous. Those who are facing failing relationships, financial devastation, fading health, deepening depression, or fill you in the blank. I don’t want to discount any of those things but I can tell you that you can still be thankful this Thanksgiving. It’s about choices. Thankfulness isn’t really a feeling but rather a choice; a decision you make not based on circumstance but hope, a resolution to find joy even through the sorrow. After all, that’s what it is all about isn’t it? Blog peeps, find that spark of light in the depth of darkness and hold on to it until it becomes a full out sunrise!

If you haven’t experienced God’s grace yet, there is no time like the present. What an awesome Thanksgiving memory to make. You will never be the same and you will never regret it. So, what are you waiting for???

Here are some verses that talk about being thankful:

1 Chronicles 16:8-12~ Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make know among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek His face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgements he pronounced.

Psalm 100:4~ Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

1 Corinthians 15: 57~ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14~ But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ…

1 Thessalonians 5: 16~ Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will  for you in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 12: 28 & 29~ Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

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I want to be worthy of respect, not double-tongued, not addicted to wine, not fond of dishonest gain, upholding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

- (1 Timothy 3:8-9)

Your grace, O God, has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly passions to live sensibly, righteously and Godly in the present age.

- (Titus 2:11-12)

Listen to the Voice of God

The first verses give a list of sins that go against God’s law.  These are things that many very dedicated Christians struggle with on a regular basis.  The second verse brings a little bit of hope.  It tells us that Jesus has come to give us salvation (while teaching us about how to best live).  One thing that I especially like about the second verse, is that it clearly speaks about living in the present moment… The present age.

We all struggle with sin.  Oneof the main reasons Jesus is so amazing.

He didn’t sin!

He rose above every single time.  No matter what he was feeling, Jesus practiced what he preached.  He was the first and only one to talk the talk, and walk the walk. This is incredibly humbling to me.  Before Christ fulfilled ancient prophecies and rose from the dead, Jesus lived a miracle.  He went through his entire life making perfect decisions.  No other religion has a savior or prophet that lived a sinless life.  I think that is pretty cool.

Going back to our own lives, we know that we all mess up sometimes.  Sometimes we consciously make decisions to say and do things we shouldn’t.  God understands this and makes it very easy for us to still be called followers of Christ, despite our shortcomings.  It’s a simple little thing called forgiveness.

However, God clearly calls us to attempt to live a sinless life. (knowing we’ll all fall short now and again)  For example, when Abraham was 99 years old, God came to him and said, “Serve me faithfully and live a BLAMELESS life.”

Remember that the Bible is God’s collection of writings, designed to light our path throughout life.   There are countless instructions contained within the pages of the Bible.  Deuteronomy3:20 says ”by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days”.

Attempt to obey the instructions God spoken to us through the Bible.  Next time you’re about to do or say something you know doesn’t align with God’s instructions, think to yourself, “I am breaking the law  if I do/say this.  I am breaking God’s law.”  It’s a pretty big deal to break the law in real life.  Why do we take breaking God’s law as a less serious offense?

We all sin.  God knows it, and is cool with it…as long as we go to him in prayer, and try to do better next time.  However, it is also clear that the ultimate goal should be to live blamelessly…without any sin.

I encourage you to continue to serve God and explore your faith.

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“If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.” – Dorothy Day

The other day, I was hanging out with this wonderfully energetic 5-year old girl named Hope.  During our time together, she became very excited about showing me her pink and white piggy bank.  Forgetting everything she was just doing, she sprints back to her room to fetch it.  A few seconds later, I hear little footsteps running down the hallway back to the couch.  As she emerges from the hallway, the biggest, most exhilarated grin you’d ever seen is written all over her face —  so excited for me to share in her joy of the contents of her piggy bank.

She proceeds to open up her bank, attempting to shake out the money stored so safely inside the pigs chubby belly.  With a heart so big and well beyond her mere five years of being on this earth, she makes two piles, saying, “One for you, one for me!”  So touched, I continue to watch her as she struggles to get the rest of her money out.

She begins to talk about the dollar bills she has inside.  Not able to get them out herself she asks me if I can help her retrive the bills.  As I pull out the first bill, she so joyfully puts it in my pile.  With a humbled heart, I say to her, “Well Hope, don’t you want to save that? You know, so you can buy something nice?”.

Without a single bit of hesitation she says to me, “Oh no, it’s OK, I have two, so one of them is for you!”

Needless to say, my heart was touched, humbled and filled with love for the Jesus that is in this little girl.  What if we were all to live like that? Running excitedly to get our over sized, pig-belly savings JUST to share it with our friends, relatives or even strangers?  What if we lived with the mindset that anything we have two of is to share; anything we have excess of has been given to us to give away?  What if we believed and trusted so much in the God that breathed life into each one of us that we gave away every bit of excess, every bit of savings, every bit of overindulgence to our neighbor, inviting them to share in our joy?

What a beautiful world this would be if we could all be a little more like 5-year old Hope.  Delighted, joyful and desirous of sharing our excess with each other.  What a freedom each of us would have if we were not to worry about the future, about the “what-ifs”, about having enough for retirement.  What a new, deeper, more intimate realm we would come to know if we were to BREAK OPEN our piggy banks, our vaults, and our hearts to one another; knowing deep inside that this is what it’s all about.

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Several christian-book-review.com readers participated in the commenting section below the review.  This led to the sharing of the below story…

***

I would like to tell you about my dream.  It was awesome.  I don’t remember dreams, yet I remember this dream vividly.  In 1972, I accepted the Lord as my Savior.  But I didn’t understand that I needed to make Him Lord of my life as well.

In 1973, I had a dream I’ll never forget.  My mother and I were gossiping about something juicy.  I don’t remember now what it was, but we decided to part ways, and whoever found out the “secret” (for lack of a better way to put it) of what we were gossiping about would go back and tell the other.  I left, and suddenly I was in darkness.  But then I saw a bridge shaped in an arch, and a man was walking on it with his back to me.  He was tall, broad-shouldered, had shoulder-length brown hair, his hands were at his side but with palms facing forward, and he was speaking a language I didn’t understand. Somehow I knew He was Jesus and I wanted to follow Him.

An old image representing the journey to Heaven

I got down on my hands and knees and followed Him on the bridge.  And that’s when I noticed His feet weren’t even touching the bridge.   They were several inches above the bridge, and all I can say is He was Holy.  He spoke with the deepest, most authoritative voice I ever heard, and He would stop talking in that foreign language and say “Repent NOW.  Turn from your sin NOW.  Suddenly I became aware of an evil presence near the bridge. It was so terrifying I couldn’t even look at it, I could only look at it with my peripheral vision.  I believe now it was Satan.  He was shrouded in black and glared at me.  I felt that he wanted to devour me.

Suddenly there was a note on the bridge, with the “secret” to what my mother and I had been gossiping about.  I was tempted to leave Jesus; I wanted to go tell my mother and then come back.  I believe now that Satan put that note on the bridge to tempt me away from Jesus.  I started to lie to Jesus about why I wanted to leave for a minute, but then I realized I could never lie to Jesus.  So I said “Um, excuse me,  I have to go do something, but I’ll be right back.  And that’s when He turned around, and I gasped at His beauty and because there was an instant shock of recognition.  I thought,”Oh, It was YOU!”

Somehow, in my soul, even when I had been an atheist, I had always been aware of His presence, from even  the time I was conceived.  And now I was seeing His face, and His eyes were beautiful, large, deep blue and heavily fringed with eyelashes, and they shone with the deepest love and compassion I could ever imagine.  He knew every crummy, stinking thing I had ever done (and had yet to do), yet He loved me so much, it was like I was His only child.  And if I had been the only person who ever sinned, He would’ve come down to earth and died for me.  He asked me one simple question.

He said “Will you really?  Will you really be back? ”  I realized if I left the bridge I wouldn’t find my way back.  So I dropped the note between the slats of the bridge.  He turned back around and continued speaking in that foreign language.  Suddenly there was a protrusion in the bridge that I couldn’t climb over.  I was terrified of falling back into the hands of Satan. I was really struggling, trying to climb over the protrusion and I was very irritated.  I thought “He knows everything, why doesn’t He help me?”  At last I cried out “I’m falling!”  He turned around, knelt down, and said with the most compassionate, gently voice I could imagine, “Well then, I’ll help you,” and He held out His hand to me.   I looked into His eyes of love and took His hand.  But Jesus ,didn’t let go.  He kept pulling me up to the top of the bridge.  We were almost to the top of the arch of the bridge, when suddenly I was filled with the most wondrous sense that something beyond my imagination was waiting for me on the other side of the bridge.  I was overjoyed, but when we got to the top of the bridge, I woke up.  I sat up in bed and burst into tears. I said “NO!  I want to be with You!”  Suddenly, there in my room was His presence.  The same presence I had felt in the dream.  He surrounded me with His love and it felt like He was holding me. I thought “I’m going to go back to that dream.”  I laid my head back on the pillow and went back to sleep.   And of course I didn’t go back to the dream.

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A Fabric Book

I settled on one of Erica’s “fabric books” (she’s a  Chicago interior designer).  For those of you without an interior designer as a wife, a fabric book is just like it sounds….a “flip-book” of the countless color, pattern, and texture possibilities for window treatments, pillows, couches, and so on.  Growing up on corn fields, Amish neighbors, and country music, I couldn’t believe it when I was first introduced to all of the possibilities when it came to color.

Before  (in my mind), there were a few shades of each color.  Now, with an interior designer in my life, my eyes have been opened to the incomprehensibly vast number of colors out there.  We’re not talking hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands.  A quick fact check from Wikipedia reveled that the human eye is capable of seeing over 10 million unique colors.

Since the beginning of time, humans have been facinated with color.  Aristotle wrote about color.  Where did it come from?  Why is there color in the first place?

Color is unique in that it something God has blessed a majority of humans with.  Academics, laborers, and peasants see color the same.  It’s a God given luxury that doesn’t see one’s social status.  Color goes beyond languages.  The right color makes a living room feel peaceful.  Restaurants and  movie theaters use specific colors (i.e. reds) because they make people feel hungry (sounds like they are taking advantage a bit, doesn’t it?).

So what is color?  What is this uniting thing that billions of God’s children can enjoy and marvel in ?

Issac Newton (in my opinion, one of the smartest men to walk the face of the earth) answered that question during a two year (1670-1672) stint studying the science of optics.   By definition, optics is the scientific study of sight and the behavior of light, or the properties of transmission and deflection of other forms of radiation.

Newton discovered that all color is derived from light.  Pure, simple, light.

When I first discovered that all color came from light, I was amazed.  In scripture, we’re constantly reminded that God is the creator of all  things.  The significance of color, is that God planned it from the very beginning.  The scripture below is from the Amplified Bible.  I like this Bible because it shows some of the different interpretations (in parenthesis) for words that don’t translate with certainty.

¹IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.

²The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.

³And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

⁴And God saw that the light was good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it; and God separated the light from the darkness.

Since Newton discovered that color is created by refraction of light (think of a prism),  we’ve learned a lot more about it.  We’ve figured out how to artificially create it.  We’ve discovered how to take more lifelike  photographs (a camera  aperture is an opening that light travels through).  We’ve been questioning, studying, and making revelations about light and its resulting color for centuries.

In the beginning, God decided that there should be light.  Genesis tells us that the creation of light happened first.  Then, after God saw the light and all the good things that resulted because of it, he decided to separate it from the darkness.

“LET THERE BE LIGHT.”

With those words, he created light.    One of God’s essential ingredients in the recipe for life (and its enjoyment), is found in light.

Light,  is how it all began.

"Pillars of Creation" Nebula (A cloud of gas and dust in outer space)

If you’re interested more in the study of light, feel free to check out The Light in the Beginning. You can also subscribe to my posts using the below link.   If you know someone who would appreciate this article, share it with them!  :)

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He is partially responsible for countless modern day marvels.  From the Doppler radar on your local news,  to radar detectors,  to submarine navigation, there is no doubt that this ordinary man hit on something groundbreaking.

Now, lets go back to 1814  when spectrography,  the science behind it all, was discovered.

Borrowing from Wikipedia, Spectroscopy is “the study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy.

Picture of a Spectroscoper

Confused?

Perhaps an example will help.  If you look at a diamond, you’ll notice colorful rainbows in the stone. Do you know why?

Light.

God’s light.

Spectrography then,  is the study of  God’s light.

So what?  What’s the big deal Justin?  Well, the way I see it, God devoted very first verses osf the Bible to light (and darkness). The Message Bible does a good job at giving us visuals…

^1-2First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

^3-5 God spoke: “Light!”

In the beginning, God created light.  Before this, there was only darkness.  Only vast emptiness.

Then, God got made a decision to fill this darkness, fill this vast void, with one simple thing… LIGHT.

For me,  spectrometry, the study of light, is the study of God’s creation.  The study of how it all began.  The start of time.  The start of his plan.

His plan for you.  His plan for me.  His plan for every living thing.

God knew about EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, before the beginning.  He  knew everything about you.  He knew when you’d hurt, when you’d cry tears of joy,  and when you’ll leave this world for the next.

God planned you from the time before light existed.

Isn’t that amazing?

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Just a few of the Galaxies in God's Universe

As I write this, I have a giant smile on my face just thinking about how awesome that is. If you don’t agree, stop a minute and think about it.

My faith is one of endless questions. As the founder of the Christian book store, Christianbooksbibles.com, I recently decided to change our tagline (that little line of text under a logo), from Christian Resources for Less, to Explore Your Faith.  In scripture, God is constantly reminding us that he longs for us to be constantly changing, constantly evolving.  After all, if we don’t gain new understanding and knowledge about God, what his son Jesus taught us, and about the Universe the he magnificently created, what have all of those Sunday mornings been for?

I believe in the constant evolution of our faith so much, that on every order that goes out to our CBB customers, we include the following scripture (Proverbs 2: 2-4):

Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding.  Cry out for insight and ask for understanding.  Search for them as you would seek silver;  seek them like hidden treasures

To me, one of the greatest gifts that God gives us, is that of learning.   This transcends beyond the words written in the Bible.  Don’t get me wrong, the Bible is the steadfast source that should be used, studied and shared on a regular basis.  Its a lighthouse.  The words that are contained within aren’t simply rules to live by.  Its advise, straight from the mouth of God and his son Jesus, that allows us to bring a little slice of heaven to this present moment on planet Earth.  I believe with everything in me, that God longs for us to feel joy, contentment, and serenity.  As Christians, our highest aim should be to spread that joy, contentment, and serenity to all people of all nations (regardless of religion, race, sexual orientation, etc).  Correct me if I am wrong, but Jesus ate dinner with the hated tax collectors.  He befriended prostitutes and showed them grace.  Jesus was love to all.

God's Creation...The Milky Way

In conclusion, I hope to continue documenting my constant evolution of faith through more regular blog posts.  The subject matter will often revolve around God’s creation, both on earth and in the heavens (AKA the Universe).   The vastness of  Jesus’s Creation is beyond comprehension.  To get your curiosity peaked, here are a few statistics:

• The Milky Way Galaxy (where we live) has 200-400 BILLION known stars (the Sun is the only star in our local solar system)
• There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our EXPANDING universe (thank Einstein and Hubble for figuring that one out!)
• It is estimated that the planet Mars used to be more earth like, and Earth used to be more Mars-like
• In 2008, NASA confirmed that water was found on Mars.  More recently, a giant polar ice cap was discovered on the north pole
• There is strong evidence that liquid water was flowing (i.e. rivers) on Mars.  Most scientists believe that Mars was once more Earth-like.  See this NASA article to learn more.
• The stars located in other solar systems are not always the same color as the sun.  Therefore, the light that surrounding planets receive, may be of different colors and intensities

Despite the vastness of creation, God also has given us small, simple, pleasures .  Often times, we get so sidetracked with day to day life, that we forget to look around us at the creation that God has created.  We don’t notice clouds, chirping birds, and the sound the wind makes rustling through the new leaves that Spring brings.  I  invite you to start noticing the little things.

Go on…

Explore your faith.

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One Month To Live is a 30-day journey of living life to the fullest and passionately embracing and walking onto your God-given destiny. This New York Times bestseller has been endorsed by bestselling authors like Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren (Purpose-Driven Life), Willow Creek Church’s Bill Hybels (Too Busy Not To Pray), Lakewood Church’s Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now), among others. In addition, New York Times, News Week, USA Today and other popular radio and TV shows featured Kerry Shook and Chris Shook.

Kerry and Chris Shook have been married for 25 years and have four children. They are the founding pastors of Woodlands Church, one of the fastest-growing churches in America. Kerry Shook Ministries ministers through the international television where millions are impacted by their life-changing messages in the 50 U.S. states and in over 200 countries.

This Christian book’s first page will lead you to a commitment called the “One-Month-To-Live Challenge” which is like a contract where you and your friend (witness) can sign. Then, you need to read one chapter per day. Each chapter is introduced by two quotations from renowned and influential people plus guide questions to contemplate upon. Every chapter ends with you being catalyzed to do something about the chapter topic.

One Month To Live is divided into four sections:

1-     Live Passionately

2-     Love Completely

3-     Learn Humbly

4-     Leave Boldly

and each principle has seven sub-topics to finish within a week. One Month To Live comes in hardcover, guidebook, devotional journal, audio cds and Spanish version.

You may view One Month To Live by Kerry Shook and Chris Shook promo video on YouTube.

One Month To Live is filled with encouragement, enthusiasm and fire to live the kind of life God originally intended for us to live. It taps into your long-lost dreams and passions that you have neglected, if not forgotten, and invigorating you to pro-actively do and live-out those dreams as if you have only a month to live. It will propel you to seek and pursue life instead of doing the routinary activities which are at times lacking eternal value. Its foundational verse is Psalm 90:12- Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

One Month To Live will assist you to value time, relationships, essential activities, and most importantly our Maker. It is more than what mainstream self-help and guidebooks can do.

What will I do if I have only one month to live? Perhaps gaze at the stars, smell the roses, smile more, hug more, love more, forgive more, choose to live, not just exist, sing more, worship more and glorify the One who gave the stars and the roses.

One Month To Live by Kerry and Chris Shook and other Christian books are available in our Christian book store or wherever books are sold.

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If Twelve Extraordinary Women inspired you, this Christian book by John MacArthur will be another favorite from this million-selling author, Bible scholar and teacher. Twelve Ordinary Men sketches Jesus Christ’s twelve (12) disciples emphasizing their ordinariness but all chosen and called to do extraordinary things for the kingdom of God.

John MacArthur wrote this resource to encourage Christians whether in full-time ministry or not to look into their ordinary activities because God is at work even in the most mundane things. John MacArthur shares that Jesus did not choose the rabbi, scholar or those in religious establishment to be his disciples but he chose the ordinary fishermen, sinful tax collector, and impetuous political zealot. Indeed, God has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. Twelve Ordinary Men is the story of Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Nathanael, Matthew, Thomas, James the Less, Simon the Zealot, Judas (not Iscariot), and Judas the Traitor.

Each disciple was featured per chapter (except for a few combined in one chapter). Every character or personality of the disciple was described and on how they viewed Jesus. John MacArthur goes onto length on how each disciple is presented on the Scriptures, their activity after the resurrection of Jesus, and how we can identify to each of them.

While reading Twelve Ordinary Men, you will discover that their qualities and characteristics resemble your own in some ways. Their flaws, weaknesses, sinfulness, lack of faith at times, and hang-ups are like ours as well. If God can use these twelve ordinary men to impact and change the world for more than two thousand years now, then He can also use ordinary people like us.

Are you discouraged with what has become of your life? Or do you feel like a failure in the family, school, work or ministry? Do you feel inadequate to do the things God has called you to do and to be the kind of person He designed you to be?

Twelve Ordinary Men available in softcover, large print, workbook, and audio cd editions.

Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur and other Christian books are available in our Christian bookstore or wherever books are sold.

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“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon you and give you light.”

In Waking the Dead, John Eldredge builds the foundation that the heart is essential and that it is good. He is talking about the redeemed heart after we received salvation as described in the New Testament. Waking the Dead offers a revolutionary approach towards wholeness, healing, and freedom. Waking The Dead serves as a guide on the process of healing our lives through the four streams:

1) Discipleship- Walking with God

2) Deliverance- Spiritual Warfare

3) Counseling- Receiving God’s Intimate Counsel

4) Healing- Deep Restoration

As John Eldredge’s popular trademark in his literature, he again makes use of Scriptures, novels, quotes, movies like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Wizard of Oz, The Matrix, The Perfect Storm, and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and personal stories and in his ministry. There is also one chapter of specific prayers for readers to experience the four streams.

Waking the Dead is firmly grounded on Scriptures. John Eldredge’s style of writing is an easy read but very profound in truths. He accomplishes well his purpose for writing Waking the Dead—to lead readers into an intimacy with God and redeem the dead places of our hearts as if waking the dead for it to come fully alive. Only with redeemed hearts can we fully walk into the destiny God has for us and live out the abundant life Jesus died to give us.

Want to learn more about this Christian book? Check it out at this online Christian book store.

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