It's their wrong why don't you feel right!!!

2 Samuel 13 Summary
 
Amnon fell in love with his half sister, Tamar, the full sister of Absalom. He was frustrated to the point of illness because he couldn’t sleep with her. One day, his cousin, Jonadab asked him why he look so sad. Amnon said he is in love with Tamar. Jonadab suggested that he pretend to be sick and lie on his bed. When his fatehr come to see him, he should ask for his sister Tamar to come and prepare food so that he can see her and eat it. Amnon did as Jonadab suggested. When David came to see Amnon, Amnon requested for his half sister Tamar to come and make a special bread so that he can watch her and eat the bread from her hand. Tamar did came and prepared the bread.
When she brought the bread to Amnon, Amnon refused to eat. Instead, Amnon bade everyone in the house to leave then he instructed Tamar to bring th ebread to her. As Tamar brought the bread to him, he grabbed her and raped her. Tamar rebuked Amnon for doing that. Tamar said Amnon could have asked the king to let him marry her but Amnon would not listen. Amnon was strong so he overpower her and raped her. The daughters of the king used to wear long gown. After Amnon’s servant sent her out, she tore her garment and put ashes on her head and wept aloud as she walked away. Absalom heard about it and soon Tamar moved into his house. Tamar was always pitiful because of the incident,

Things that stood out to me:  
Amnon allowed his flesh to control him which in turn made him ill physical and mentally.
He had people around him that came up with scheme to fulfill his fleshly desire instead of helping him through the situation the right way.
Tamar tried to reason with him but he didn’t listen to her to do it the right way so he raped her, his so called love turned into hate not because of anything that she had done.  I really think that he didn’t want to really face the truth about his actions so he just treated her like she was in the wrong like some many other people.
After being violated by her own brother, Tamar was the one that walked away with the shame because of his decision to do such a horrible thing. And this was really my main point that I wanted to get to, some people who become victims of someone else’s bad decisions bad actions turn them into the walking dead.  The bible said that Tamar lived as a desolate woman.  Unfortunately this is still common today  I have seen some women who are living their lives the same way  because of betrayal, violation, divorce,  break-up, whatever the reason that has them scared and scarred so severely that they feel that they could never recover from it.   Do not get me wrong what happened to Tamar was horrible and I don’t and  would  not minimize her pain that she endured and that goes for the women who had been betrayed, violated, divorced and experiencing a break up because they are life altering experiences but I can say that God heals and he restores. I pray that whoever this might be for please seek God and allow His love and His plan and the blessings that He has in store for you to be manifested.  Tamar couldn’t get passed it so her life was limited to that day.  Don’t allow your life to be limited to that day the betrayal or that life altering thing that happened you can move pass it, don’t allow the bad decisions of others to be a door blocker to your future.  Trust and believe!!  Be blessed!!







 

Stop Looking Back

Stop Looking Back
Carolyn McCardell

When watching scary movies like Friday the 13th, when the villain Jason was chasing his victims though the woods I noticed that the victims always seem to fall and end up getting caught. I know it was just a movie and I should not put too much thought into but I could not help but to wonder why is it that they always seem to fall.  I noticed instead of them looking ahead to get escape the danger they were always looking back. It was the looking back that caused them to fall.

 This reminds of me Genesis 19:26  Lot ’s wife when she disobeyed the command of not looking back she became a pillar of salt. The Hebrew for “looked back” means more than to glance over one’s shoulder. It means to regard, to consider, to pay attention to.   When God is trying to move us to safe place we must trust Him enough to know the place He is bringing us out of can’t compare to the place He is taking us to.  We get so fixated on the past we until we become stagnant staying in that place of danger and pain.  Sometimes He removes people and things from our lives in order to save us. It is so hard, nearly impossible to move forward looking backwards. Looking ahead is what is going to get you out of your situation. There is no point in looking back about the relationship that failed, no looking back about the person who had wronged you, no looking back on the things that you cannot change. I love this prayer “Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” There is no sense in looking back on what happened yesterday or years ago. Let it go and start moving forward. Your past does not define your future. The only reason you need your past is to reflect back on how good God is. Don’t be a victim of your past.  God Bless

Don't Fall For It!!

Don’t Fall For It.
By Carolyn McCardell

In the movie, I was speaking of "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Bolt Thief" when Percy found out who he truly was, and the powers he possessed, he decided to take a journey in hopes of rescuing his mom his mom who was taken by Hades because of stolen the Lightning bolt. He only had a short time to get everything done. He was on track until he arrived in Las Vegas at the Locus Hotel. Everything in the hotel was just charming and seemed so accommodating to him. The hostess were serving appetizers which they called Locus flowers, he was just living it up laughing and what seemed to him was fun and games and he lost his focus and forgot the reasons that he was there. But what he didn't know was that this was a trick from his enemy to keep him there forever. What the locus flower was doing to him was interfering with his senses, it was distracting him from his journey, when Percy Jackson finally came out of the trans he found out that he had lost four days of the Journey.

This really spoke to me about how when we as Christians have it in our minds to pursue our journey (walking with Christ) the enemy tries to distract, detour us from our purpose. Sin is one of our biggest detour we get so caught up in the things that seem and feel desirable. Sin is a set up just like the locus hotel, was it is a trap to keep us there forever. It interferes with our spiritual senses we become dull to sin we are unable to discern what is true. It disconnects us from God.

How do we keep from falling for this trap by putting on the full Armour of God? In Ephesians 6 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Just like Percy, it is possible for us to fall into the same traps and fall into sin which can be adultery, fornicating, substance abuse or whatever has us, we have to do what one of my favorites song the lyric says "We fall down, but we get up" by Donnie McClurkin. When we get up we have to repent and keep on striving on our journey without looking back. In 1 John 2 1: My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if you do sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God completely.2 He is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes not only our sins away but the sins of all the world. And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By obeying his commandments. 4 If someone says, "I belong to God," but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and does not live in the truth. 5 But those who obey God's word really do love him. That is the way to know whether or not we live in him.

Keep in mind Percy's enemy was not only out to kill him but to distract him from his purpose. The enemy does not only try steal, kill, or destroy us but also tries to steal our time by distracting us placing things that are extremely pleasing to us that is outside God’s will for our lives like adultery, fornication, and etc. Percy had lost four days of his Journey falling for the tricks of the enemy. We can get back money, we can get our relationships back, but one thing we cant never get back is time. Lost time is something we cannot ever recover. How much time are we willing to lose? I want to enjoy the fullness of God. We can obtain the fullness of God by applying and living by His Word.

Remember when we find out who we are in Christ be prepared for the tricks and lies of the enemy and the only way we can recognize them is by the truth which is the Word of God.

God Bless

Is your marriage in a state of complacency?

Is your marriage in a state of complacency? 

I see so many marriages that are in trouble and they don't even see it. Complacency is the root of this trouble. This word means : self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies. Being complacent is dangerous to your marriages because people become lax and lack the motivation to safe guard their marria

ges and this can cause other things to creep into it....which includes finances, adultery, the act of singleness, a lot of other things that I can mention that are destroying marriages.

Marriage could be one of the hardest if not the hardest merger that you might experience in your life time. It is a partnership, if the partners of a company spends 80 percent of their time doing things that doesn't benefit the company really spending time trying please themselves and try to build a strong profitable company with the other twenty percent then that company is doomed to fail. Like wise you can not have a successful marriage putting twenty percent of work in that is so impossible. People who do this have become have become complacent.

I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it's so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.
--Jimmy Carter American, President

When God is in your marriage there isn't anything to hard for Him to correct. He can correct the complacency in the marriage. If He isnt in it then it is so possible that your marriage is in trouble. You have to make a decision that you are going to put in the effort to ensure that you have a strong marriage which means that you have to become more than roommates.

When two people actually become one they have to give up part of themselves in order to do that. I always said if you are doing everything you want to do then someone is suffering. Don't take each other for granted. The enemy is looking to come in and destroy marriages don't give him any room. There are instructions that you will need to follow in order for you to have a marriage that glorifies God and it is located in His word . His love letter to us. Spend time together reading it, and applying it. Making sure that you guys have quality time together is really needed. Take time to date your spouse dating shouldn't ever stop. In order not fall in the state of complacency I took some pointers from one of my favorite movies 50 first dates. The main character was dating this woman who had a head injury that affected her memory and in order for them to be together he would have to get her to fall in love with him everyday so he came up with different ways to do this on a daily basis I just love that concept that he loved her that much that he would go so far to keep their love alive and I think we all can learn a lesson or two from it. Communication is major in any area of your life especially in marriage. People change everyday by communicating with each other you can learn of that change a make adjustments accordingly.

Be aware of the state of your marriage. It is dangerous for your marriage to be in a complacent state. Start praying before things get to this stage. Pray for revelation of deficiencies that you might have that will hinder you for having a marriage that glorifies God. We have to learn how to be married. I look forward to experiencing the marriage that God intended me to have. I am praying for you guys and really know when your marriage is centered around God ,you will overcome any obstacles that the enemy will try to throw at you. When you start living for Him things will start to fall in place, it wont be perfect but I promise you it will be a marriage of purpose. Be blessed!!

The Source

"The Source"

By: Carolyn McCardell

I took my youngest son to the movies awhile back to see “Percy Jackson and the Olympians the lightning thief”. The story was about Percy Jackson who was a Demi-god (son of a god and a human). The main character in the movie (Percy) was falsely accused of stealing the lightning bolt of the Chief God Zeus and had to retrieve it before the earth is torn asunder by the warring gods. Percy always knew it was something unique about him, but he didn't realize to what extent, until the lightning bolt came up missing. His mom and his protector had to take him to a training camp for people with special powers like him. He had no idea of his powers or how to use them. In one part of the movie Percy was thrown into a fight as a part of his training with the daughter of Wisdom, who simply tore him to pieces. After the battle, Percy was just lying down bruised, and counted out by the spectators. While lying on the ground, he heard a voice which was his father Poseidon (the god of the sea), telling Percy to go to the water, because it is the source of his powers. So just by placing his hand in the water his wounds began to heal, and his strength was not only renewed, but he was stronger than before. As he started to approach his opponent again this time he had the courage and confidence. The change in his demeanor was so noticeable that his opponent got extremely nervous and knew instantly that she was defeated.

My son loved that part and so did I because that particular scene in the movie spoke to me because Christ has given us the living water the Holy Spirit. We can only get our strength from Him. He is the one who heals our wounds when we have been beating down by our adversary. Whether it is a divorce, broken/bad relationships, destructive decisions that we have made, Christ is the one that we need to turn to so that we can face our adversary with courage and confidence. What I didn’t mention about the movie, was that Percy was always drawn to water, but he never quite knew why until the voice of his Father told him that the water was the source of his strength.

On the spiritual side, if you are not hearing the voice of our Heavenly Father by reading and hearing His Word, you will never know how powerful you are through Christ. It is physically impossible to survive without water. Likewise, spiritually we cannot live without the Living Water that Christ provides. He is the source for our lives. Just like Percy you might feel awkward but just don’t know why or you feel an insatiable thirst that cannot be quenched by the World. I was reading John 4:13-14 it says “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

It is my prayer everyone will be Applying Biblically scriptures for Life Essentials, so at the end of the day you can say that I’M A.B.L.E. Being a Christian is not only a title but a lifestyle. By applying God's Word to our daily lives, we can have the victory over our trials and tribulations that we might encounter but here is the challenge, we cannot apply something that we don't know.  In order to know Gods word we have to diligently seek Him by studying and meditating on the Word of God, followed by daily prayer should be a daily. By doing this, we have the privilege of drinking from His presence by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Remember the power of the (Living Water)!

God Bless!!

Sicker than Before

Sicker than before

In my favorite movie the sixth sense it is about a boy who communicates with spirits that don't know they're dead one of the spirits was a little girl in this scene the little girl gave the boy a video to give her dad to play at her funeral because her step mom was keeping her sick by putting poison in her food. After he viewed the video her father turned to his wife and said you were keeping her sick.

In the movie it never really touched on why the step mom would do this maybe it was out of jealousy for the daughter, maybe it could be out just wanting attention, or could have been out of pure malice ,I don’t know but what I do know is that there are people in our lives who appear to love us, who appear that they want the best for us but in reality they are feeding us poison that could eventually lead us to our deaths. 

When I was thinking back about this scene I remembered how loving the mom appeared to be spoon feeding her as if she wanted to make her better. Just know that the enemy doesn't always use strangers to harm us he may use our friends and sometimes even family. I remember the little girl didn't want to eat the soup because she said it tasted funny and she felt bad every time she ate the soup. She knew something wasn't right and that is why she setup a video for her dad to see. 

If someone in your life is keeping you sick you have to identify them so you can move away from them because it can kill you and your spirit. You would know this by the Word of God if it doesn’t sound right to you that is a sign, if you are sicker than before when you are dealing with them then that is a sign, pray for God to give you the discernment in identifying the people who threatened your spiritual growth. God will reveal to you the truth. When He does move to a safe place, and pray for them, you don’t have to try to figure out the details why they are doing what they are doing just get to a safe place which is in His Word. 

When the step mom was confronted she appeared to be grieving for the lost of the daughter maybe it wasn't her intention for her to die maybe it was the sickness in her that made her do the things that she has done. I don’t know, all I know is that is so important that we take an active part in knowing what is being imparted in our spirits. If it goes against the Word of God then it is poison and it is designed to keep you sick and eventually will kill. Identify the people in your lives.

Be blessed.

Agitator

I'M A.B.L.E>Agitator
Carolyn McCardell

I recently went into Home Depot looking for a new washer. Among the washers there were some that had agitators and some that didn’t. I ask the sales person, aside from the cost, what was the difference between the two? He told me that the one without the agitator is gentler on fabrics verses the agitator which is harsh on fabrics and over time wears them down. He told me the washer without the agitator was more expensive but eventually I would be saving money because it used less water. This information was surprising to me because I thought that washers needed the agitator to get the clothes clean. I had no idea that it was the agitator that was actually damaging my clothes!!

I thought about this and I applied it to my life. I asked myself, was I an agitator? My answer to this question unfortunately was yes. I have been an agitator towards my husband. The meaning of agitator is one who stirs up public feeling on controversial issues. Every time I would nag about something that I perceived he should being doing or every time I would ask him to solve a problem that I knew he couldn’t solve this would cause him to be agitated. Every time I would deal with him harshly I was wearing him down. I thought as long as I was speaking the truth then I was ok, I was just being real. But when I read Ephesians 4:15 about speaking the truth in love this made me feel bad about the words I chose to use. The agitation that he must have felt, after looking up the word agitation which means an A stirring up or arousing; disturbance of tranquility; disturbance of mind which shows itself by physical excitement; perturbation; as, to cause any one agitation. Not only was I an agitator toward my husband but I dealt with my boys just a harshly. In proverbs 14:1 a wise woman builds her home but the foolish woman tears it down with her own hands. I was tearing my home down by being a agitator.
But glory be to God that he gave me the ability to recognize that agitating spirit” and allowing me to correct my behavior.

Agitating other people to the point of anger is not the Will of God. Provoking anger is demeaning and very disrespectful and it the opposite of showing love, caring, kindness, and compassion Are you a agitator or you stirring things up in someone which can be a husband, a child, a friend, a coworker, etc.? If so please learn from my testimony, an agitator is not needed to get the job done in fact without it you would use less energy and wont damage or wear down the people we are suppose to lift up and encourage!! In I Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

God Bless!!