¹⁸⁾Thou shalt also make a laver of brass, and his foot also of brass, to wash withal: and thou shalt put it between the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and thou shalt put water therein.

¹⁹⁾For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat:

²⁰⁾When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, that they die not; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the LORD:

Exodus 30:17-20

So there may come a time (or two, or a few) in the life of every saint when the service they are attending seems uncomfortable.  The things the pastor says are hitting you right where it hurts, and you’re squirming around just waiting for church to be over.  You know exactly why you’re uncomfortable; you’ve been falling short in your walk with God, and the sermon is all over that! Its almost like the pastor is preaching directly to you.  You already know the remedy for that too.  Pray more, fast more, read your Bible more, ask the Lord to forgive you for whatever it is you did (or didn’t do) that you know you shouldn’t have done (or should have done)!

But what if the service is just dull to you? What if you can’t focus on what the pastor’s saying, you’re mind is wandering, and you just can’t wait for the service to be over- not because you feel convicted, you just feel bored?

There are two answers.  Maybe you have an incredibly dull pastor.  If you do, you’ve probably been bored at every single one of his sermons the entire time you have attended your church.  So why are you still there? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to change churches willy-nilly.  I’m a firm believer in staying where the blood put you.  I also find it hard to believe you’re still attending church if you never get anything out of it.

However, if you’re not always bored, if this is, instead, an occasional problem you struggle with, I can tell you right now the issue is not the sermon, nor the pastor, but you.  You came to church dirty! What do I mean by that? Let me elaborate.

We are supposed to come to church clean.  Always.  Am I referring to taking a shower? Well, that’s certainly important.  I don’t think its appropriate to goto the grocery store if you haven’t bathed in days, let alone church.  But its much deeper than that.  When we do things, say things, or even think things that we aren’t supposed to, we become dirty.  God washed us white as snow when He saved us. Hallelujah!  However, we don’t stay that way automatically, contrary to what some people believe.  Holiness is a daily walk, its a journey, its a race that we run until we die, or the Rapture comes, which ever comes first.  And we want to finish the race pure and holy.

God forgives us of our sins, provided we confess them to Him.  People assume that, because God knows every thought we think, there is no reason to ask for forgiveness for each and every mistake in prayer. Yet we ask for each and every thing we want in prayer, don’t we? Doesn’t that seem a bit unbalanced to you?

When we go to God and ask Him to forgive us with a truly repentant heart, he does forgive us, and He restores us to the state we were in when He first saved us.  We need to do this- at the barest minimum- once a week, or prior to attending the house of God.  That means if we go to midweek Bible Studies we need to confess our sins in prayer to Him prior to attending those as well. Maybe you didn’t do anything sinful today, but did you maintain your holiness all week long?  We don’t want to disrespect God by showing up to His house dirty- physically or spiritually.  We also don’t want to block our ability to truly receive the Word and praise God, because otherwise why would you bother to come in the first place!?!

An even better practice would be to confess our sins and be cleansed every night before bed, and the best practice of all? In addition to prayerful confession before church and every night, we need to be asking God’s forgiveness AS SOON AS we realize we have screwed up!

As saints today we are truly blessed.  Prior to Jesus the Jews could not approach God directly with their sins and the issues of their hearts.  They had to go to the priest and then his access to God was only complete once a year! Jesus came and suffered, bled, died, and rose again on the third day so that you and I could have direct access to God, and most of us only use that to ask for stuff.  We should get that together, because we can’t adequately learn of God, worship God, or serve Him if we are spiritually unclean.

That’s right, you are not supposed to serve God when you are unclean either! If you have sinned and have not been cleansed of this then you have no business singing in the choir, ushering people to their seats, or anything else in the house of God!  Not only is it disrespectful, but its actually sinful in and of itself.

The bottom line? When you sin, ask God for forgiveness with a sincere and repentant heart. And make sure you are clean when you arrive at church.  God bless!

³³And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about:

³⁴A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about.

Once a person is biblically saved (baptized in Jesus’ name and filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues), they have three main duties:  learn about the Lord through prayer, thorough study of the Scriptures and regular church and Bible Study attendance, live a holy and exemplary life, and tell others the wonderful news of the Gospel so that as many as possible can be saved before the Rapture of the true church.  For the purpose of this post, we will focus on the latter two.

You must possess both a golden bell and a pomegranate.  Your golden bell is your witness! It is you reaching as many people as you can in the name of Jesus Christ.  Your family and friends, your coworkers, people you are in line with at the grocery store, internet associates on Facebook. In other words, anyone and everyone you can witness to! I’m not telling you to pester people.  Its just that salvation is too great a gift to keep to ourselves.  This is a gift that gets better and better the more its shared! The Lord will reward us in Heaven for the souls we win for Him here on Earth.

But your witness is ruined if you are not walking in holiness as Jesus asks us to do.  This is where your pomegranate comes in! This is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Galatians 5:22-23

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

²³Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

If the fruit of the Holy Ghost is not yet evident in your life, or if you once enjoyed a sweet, sanctified walk with the Lord, but now its kind of touch and go- well, you have no business talking Jesus with people.  Why? Because they are weighing what you say against what you do.  If your walk doesn’t line up with your talk then they’ll think the whole thing is baloney.  Because of you, they may shut down anytime a person tries to tell them of the goodness of Jesus and all He’s done for them.  People may miss their chance to be saved before its everlasting too late because of you!

On the flip side, you may be a person full of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but you never, ever witness! I consider myself to be quite the cyber witness here with this website and the Facebook Page.  However, I am not as consistent in person as I should be.  My husband Tyson is much better at this than I am; he literally tells just about everyone he comes into contact with for more than three minutes at a time about Jesus, and he’s just so charming about it.  It’s definitely something I want to get more prolific about; if you’re in the same boat lets make a vow right now, together to get better about talking about Jesus in our day to day interactions!

The bottom line is this, brothers and sisters. We need to have both a golden bell and a pomegranate.  The fruit of the Holy Spirit should be accompanied by a witness, so if you have a beautiful walk with God, pick up a golden bell to go with that pomegranate! And if you like to talk about Jesus but have no sanctification in your life to back it up, well for the sake of the Gospel keep quiet, get into the Bible, double up on your prayer, fasting and church services, and put that bell on ice until you get a pomegranate to go with it.  God bless!

⁸And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God: but who are they that shall go?

⁹And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the LORD.

¹⁰And he said unto them, Let the LORD be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you.

So in the last post we were talking about Moses and Pharaoh and the whole back and forth to free the children of Israel from bondage.  When Moses refused Pharaoh’s offer to give them three days off to worship provided they stay in Egypt, Pharaoh presented another compromise.  He offered to allow the adults to go out and worship in the wilderness, provided they leave the children in Israel.  No doubt Pharaoh thought his offer was reasonable, why should the Israelites want to take their children out into the unknown wilderness? The Egyptians were willing to look after them! Of course Pharaoh’s real motive was clear.  He assumed that the Israelites would never leave their children, so they would have to return to Egypt.  If not, well then the Egyptians could certainly make due with the Israelite children for slaves.

Too many Christians today are leaving their children in Egypt.  What do I mean by that? Well, these days, more than ever, children have multiple “parents”. You think you’re the one raising your children, but in fact its Jay-Z (who puts satanic lyrics in his music and on his clothing), Beyonce, and a whole host of inappropriate role models who wear very little clothing and promote riotous living.  If you allow your children to listen to that music, wear that clothing, or in any way participate in that kind of entertainment, then shame on you! Especially if you’re a Christian parent, because you should be vetting everything your children come into contact with.

It goes further than that! Schools today are Egypt.  There hasn’t been any prayer in the schools for quite some time now.  Instead, they teach about homosexuality as part of the normal curriculum! Teachers are Jay Z fans, and they chit-chat about it with their students as a way to connect.  I’m a waitress, and I work with a man that is a school teacher.  He picked up a serving job for extra cash.  Let me tell you, I am appalled that this man is allowed anywhere near children! At 40-something years old he behaves exactly the same as the 20-somethings, in fact he is generally much worse.  If you don’t have the geographic or financial option to send your children to a religious based school, and if home-schooling is not a viable option (and it isn’t for most families) then you must actively seek out what your child is learning so that you can counteract any negative schooling as best as possible.  Don’t stop at asking your child what they are learning, ask the teachers! Meet with them regularly if needs be, that is your right as a parent and a tax payer.  You must do as much damage control as possible during your child’s formative years, which are birth to adulthood.

By far the worst example of leaving our children in Egypt? Parents who are devout church goers but they don’t believe in forcing their children to go.   They believe that, because their child is such and such age, they are old enough to make their own decisions.  Is your child old enough to have his/her own place? Pay his/her own bills? If not, then s/he is not old enough to decide whether or not they will attend church.  The Bible says in Joshua 24:15 “… but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  Aren’t your kids in your house? Or is it theirs? Sometimes its hard to tell in a lot of households these days, and thats a shame.  The Bible also says in Proverbs 22:6 to “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  If by chance your child does depart from the Christian upbringing you provided then you will be able to comfort yourself with the knowledge that you did your best.  If you put enough Jesus in them, enough Word, then eventually it will raise a standard in them and bring them back.  But they can’t get the Word if they aren’t in church! And they will never make it to Heaven if you leave them in Egypt.  God bless you.

²⁵⁾And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.

²⁶⁾And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?

²⁷⁾We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our God, as he shall command us.

This year for New Years, I began reading the Bible straight through.  I have probably read most of the Bible in my lifetime in various chunks, and individual verses.  Now I’m going all the way.  I read about 4-6 chapters a week, so at this rate it will take me about 4.5 years, which is fine by me.  When I’m done, I’ll start over! So, I just started Leviticus today.  In my next few posts I plan to share some things I found particularly helpful in Exodus.

The above verses are part of the back in forth between Moses and Pharaoh.  God sent Moses to instruct Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go.  Moses starts out with a bit of a soft sell, if you will. He asks Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go out into the wilderness for three days to worship.  Pharaoh responds with a compromise. He will allow the Jewish people to worship and sacrifice, but they must remain in the land of Egypt to do so.

This is totally unacceptable to Moses, and it is totally unacceptable to any truly saved individual! I hear a lot of you out there. Marta, that is a really narrow statement to make! I will completely own that, because here’s the deal: salvation is really narrow! Don’t believe me?

Matthew 7:13-14

¹³Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

¹⁴Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Never listen to anyone about salvation- pastor, friend, family member, person on tv, blogger, etc- unless they discuss it straight from the Bible.  Which is what my pastor always does.  Therefore so do I.  And the Bible clearly tells us that the key to everlasting life in the Lord is following the narrow way through the straight gate.  Period.  ”But Marta, I turn 21 next year! I could party for my birthday and still be saved!” No,you can’t.  ”Well, I go to church every Sunday, and sometimes during the week.  So I go out to clubs every now and again.  So what?” So, you’re not saved!

True biblical salvation produces a complete, 180 degree change in your life! And when you do unholy things, you feel convicted about it! You don’t make excuses about it, because then you are following the broad way, through the wide gate, which is what most of the world is doing.  That means that you aren’t holy, and set apart for God.  You are most of the world, you just go to church and say “Jesus” a lot.  Guess what, millions and millions of people do that, and unfortunately they are headed for destruction.  If you are worshiping in the land of Egypt (the world) then so are you!

I work with several “Christians” who swear, drink, smoke marijuana, and talk openly about fornication.  But they attend church every single Sunday. One of these young ladies sings in the choir! Yet you cannot tell the difference between her and the nonreligious people I work with.  Another woman I work with prides herself on being a Christian.  She talks about God and church all the time.  She never swears, and chastises anyone who does.  So, I mean, she stands out from the rest of the world, right? She must be saved! Wrong! She also enjoys an excellent, expensive glass of wine with a meal, or a delicious fruity cocktail a few times a month with girlfriends from church, and she is currently planning a “tasteful” birthday party for herself- complete with pole-dancing lessons from a pole-dancing expert (aka a stripper).  Yet a lot of people at my job see her as a truly Christian woman, because she walks and talks differently than they do, and eschews a lot of the worldly things they do.  A lot- but not all! She is worshiping in Egypt.

I like how J. Vernon McGee puts it: “We are in a race today with two horses.  One horse is black and one is white. If you decide to ride them and put one foot on one horse and one foot on the other, you will soon make a strange discovery.  These horses will run in opposite directions.  You must make up your mind which horse you want to ride.” Let me break it down even further.  One horse is condemnation and worldly behavior, and the other is salvation and holiness.

So what about you? Which horse are you riding- or are you still trying to ride both? Are you sacrificing in the land of Egypt?

1 John 4:10

Unsaved people fall into three categories.  The first type are atheists, who don’t believe in God at all. The other two claim to believe in God.  However, the second type says that they believe in God,but they don’t think salvation “takes all that”.  They tell you that God is a loving God, and he’s simply not going to cast any good person into hell. They tell you that hell is for murderers and rapists, for Hitler, not for good people.  So they tell you thanks, but no thanks, I don’t need to do anything else to be saved beyond what I’ve already done, which is to believe in Jesus and be a good person.  The third type believes everything you tell them concerning biblical salvation.  They tell you they want to be saved, realize they need to be saved, but they just aren’t ready.  They need to work on their marriage first, or get their son off of drugs.  Their father is dying in the hospital, they need to find a new job…etc, etc,etc.  They let you know they have every intention of giving their lives to Christ- after they get their life together.  And they explain to you that they know God knows their heart, and He will be patient with them, and wait until they are ready to be saved.

For our purposes in this post, we’ll forget about the first type, the atheist.  We’ll stick with the It Doesn’t Take All That type, and the God Knows My Heart type of unsaved people.

Let me say this right away, because I hear all of you out there saying “God IS love! Type 2 and 3 are right!” They are absolutely right! God is love.  He loves me, and you and everyone you know, and everyone you don’t know.  He loved us before we were even born, and the Bible says He knows exactly how many hairs are on each and every one of our heads. He wants all of mankind to live for eternity with Him in Heaven.

However.  God is holy and righteous.  He will not allow any and everyone to traipse on into Heaven.  Atonement must be made for our sins.  The amazing news of the gospel? He loves us so much that He came to earth in human form and died for our sins so that we could have a hope of everlasting life with Him! Hallelujah! So that’s it right? Jesus died for our sins, and now we just do our best to be good people, and coast on into Heaven.  All of us, except satan worshipers, Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer?

Hardly! The Bible is very clear about what our part is.  We must be water baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins as seen in Acts 2:38.  We must receive the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues as seen in Acts 2:4.  This constitutes the new birth as recorded in John 3:1-8.  This must be followed by a life of sanctification and judgement of Christ at His second coming.

This is in the Bible, folks! We can say it doesn’t take all that, but then why would God want it recorded in His holy book?  Whenever I come across a type 2 I always tell them, what if you’re right? Then I’ll have done “all that” for nothing, and we’ll both get into Heaven.  But what if I’m right? Then I’ll go to Heaven, and you won’t, simple as that.  Don’t you want to at least cover your bases? The final destination of your eternal soul seems way too important to gamble on.  And to the type 3s? Those who believe that God is waiting on them until they are ready to be saved? Look around you! The world is falling apart figuratively (wars, rampant homosexuality, rappers putting satanic quotes on their clothing labels) and literally with all of the earthquakes,tsunamis and volcanoes!  The book of Revelation outlines the timetable for the winding down of life on this earth as we know it, and it is clear that the countdown has begun.  If you believe that God will halt the timetable in His Holy Word for you- well your ego is going to send you to hell.

If you are an unsaved individual in any of the three categories I hope and I pray that you are saved before it is everlasting too late! God bless.

Psalm 145:18-19  (King James Version) 

We are guilty of so many transgressions in this day and age! One of the worst? Taking God for granted.  When I write these posts, they tend to have more relevance for believers or non-believers, depending on the text I’m coming from.  However, following my pastor’s example, I always endeavour to relate them to both as much as possible.  This topic naturally lends itself to both- to everybody! Even, I’m sad to say, myself. 

Clearly non-believers take God for granted.  They take the Earth they live on, the air they breath, the moon, the stars, the birds, the trees- everything for granted.  Perhaps they explain it all away with science, but then who conceived the obviously intelligent design behind the universe? It just sprang into being, logical and well-ordered, out of nowhere? Spontaneously, just because? Of course not.  Clearly there is a Creator at work here. 

What truly floors me about the non-believer is that they take for granted where they will go, what will happen to them when they die.  Day in, and day out, so blithely unconcerned.  Some of them invent special scenarios, little personal religions of their own if you will.  Sometimes they are lucky enough to have Oprah cosign their personal religion, as in “The Secret” and different things like that.  But when did Oprah become the expert on the final destination of our souls? 

Most unbelievers lead their lives as a complete crap-shoot.  They just do their thing, “I’m just going to do ME”, and I guess they just hope it all works out in the end! When all the while there is a loving God waiting for them to come to Him, to embrace His wonderful plan of salvation, to cement their place with Him for all of eternity.  It’s right there for them, but it won’t be forever.  Even non-believers can see it all winding down, see that it’s about to go down.  They see it in international events, and in the crazy natural phenomenon that is becoming commonplace, massive earthquakes and tsunamis and such.  So my hope is that they will remove the blinders from their eyes and turn to God before its everlasting too late. 

Ahhh, but the believers, the saints of the Most High God. Tsk, tsk! We should know better! We’ve been baptized in Jesus’ matchless name, filled with the precious gift of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues… but how often do we go to Him in prayer? Do you pray every day? Do you take everything to Him in prayer? Most of us talk a really good God game when witnessing to unbelievers.  We certainly talk the talk when fellowshipping with the saints.  But do we have a close and personal relationship with Him? Really? 

We are so blessed and privileged! In the Old Testament only the prophets and the high priests had a direct audience with God, and then only at specific times under very special circumstances.  Once a year the Jewish high priest went into the Holiest of Holies, and only after much preparation.  God came to the prophets under very extreme conditions, when He needed to impart a Word to His people through His prophet concerning their impending doom, or to relay His will for Israel. 

Then Jesus came to Earth in a human birth, lived as a man, and suffered bled and died for us! Hallelujah! Now, saints- those saved according to the formula specifically set forth in the Bible: 

Acts 2:38 

 ³⁸⁾Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

Acts 2:4 

 ⁴⁾And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.  

 - are a royal priesthood! What does that mean? 1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 

So this does not mean that we are all preachers and pastors.  Rather, it means two major things. First of all, the main duty of all saints is to glorify God, and to witness of His goodness far and wide so that others might be saved before its everlasting too late.  Secondly, we as saints have direct access to God! We don’t need anyone to intercede before Him on our behalf! The unsaved still do.  They need the saints to pray for them because only the prayers of the righteous reach Heaven.  

As a brand new saint this is so exciting! But somehow, as we acquire a few years in salvation, we can allow ourselves to start taking this privileged access to God for granted! We mustn’t do that! God suffered, bled and died for us so that we might come to Him in prayer without a priest interceding for us, and we need to thank Him for that! Hallelujah! God bless you.

Matthew 7:1

So many scriptures are misapplied on a regular basis, and this is definitely one of them! We, as Christian human beings are never to judge the content of the character of another human being.  Why? Because if we have even a shred of righteousness it is through no deed of our own.  If I walk right and talk right it is only because of the leading and guiding of the Holy Ghost.  Without Him I am lost, and who knows what sort of situations I would get into on a regular basis! (I do have an inkling, because let me tell you, I was a mess, inside and out, before the Lord saved me! Thank You Jesus!)

We don’t know why a person does what they do.  Most of us are not professional profilers, and even if we are psychology is not an exact science.  People deal with all sorts of spirits, and only the Lord Jesus Christ can deliver them from that evil.  As saints, were it not for the Lord in our hearts and our minds, we would be at the mercy of those seducing spirits ourselves! As it is, we must fast and pray and get to the church as often as we can so that we stay close to Jesus, keeping those spirits at bay.  We are never truly safe from them until we successfully finish our race and see Jesus’ face in Heaven.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.  So that means that we are to accept and condone any and all behavior? If my college kid is on drugs, if my cousin is a stripper, I’m just supposed to pat them on the head? Not at all!  As Christians we never support such actions! Particularly if people (like our college kid) flaunt the actions in our faces (smelling like weed and whatnot) or asks for our opinion (our stripper cousin asks what do we think about that? After all, it’s not prostitution, and its legal…). I believe that, in instances like this we are obligated to tell them what we think of their actions, both as a Christian and as someone who loves them. 

The trick here is to discuss the negative aspect of the action, and not that individual as a person.  If we make sure to impress upon them how much we love them no matter what, we can tell them how concerned we are both for their physical and psychological well-being and for the final destination of their eternal soul! As Christians, everything we do should come from love.  God bless!

“Hi everybody, My name is Christina, I’m 24 years old and I live in Clintontownship, MI. I was baptized in Jesus name on Oct. 31, 1999 and I received the Holy Ghost on Oct, 19, 2003. I attend Greater Christ Temple Church under the leadership of Presiding Prelate Bishop Carl E. Holland. I work full time for Henry Ford Health Systems and I’m also a part time student. Some of my favorite activities are watching movies, being with friends, and last but not least I love going to church. Over these past 6 1/2 years I’ve truly learned that being saved in the 21st century isn’t always the easiest thing to do but it’s definitely possible and it has a huge reward in the end!”

Christina is an awesome sister in Christ, an awesome friend. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding.  Yay!! I love her very much.  Thanks so much for doing this Christina!!

We’re looking for the 50th Facebook Fan to profile next! God Bless!

 ^“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.”

 This is an excellent Scripture, because it really puts things in perspective for men and women. A man can find a godly wife by following this advice, and a woman learns what areas she could use improvement in.

There is an old adage that states beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What better beholder than the church, than the Bible, than God Himself? Men tend to look for a woman that is first and foremost pleasing to the sight.  Women tend to focus the majority of their self-improvement efforts on their physical appearance, especially when they are single.  Which came first, man looking for a beautiful woman, or woman knocking herself out to look gorgeous for man? The chicken or the egg?

Who knows? What I do know is that, as a man, if you were to focus exclusively on the appearance of a potential mate, you could miss out on a lot of other wonderful attributes.  Then, if/when her beauty fades because she is in an accident, falls ill, gets fat, or just doesn’t age well, you could be left with an empty vessel with no aesthetic value, indeed, no value of any kind!!

On the flip side, if as a woman, you focus exclusively on your appearance, you are likely to get a man who only cares for your looks, and what will you do when you can no longer hold onto your physical glory?What is the solution?

 Men, look for your wife first in the church.  If you meet her at a club, It would appear you’re marrying  a girl who loves to party.  If you meet her at Borders, I would imagine she loves to read.  But if you meet her at church, you would assume she loves the Lord! And this is a good start.

However, we must keep in mind that everything isn’t always what it appears to be.  If you met her at Borders, you may assume she loves to read.  Down the line you may discover she has only read two books in her adult life, and one of them was called “The Best Places to Meet Good Men”, which is where she got the idea to hang out at bookstores in the first place!  The book told her that if a man can commit to reading an entire novel, he can commit to her, and that was all she needed to know about bookstores!

Similarly, a woman can be in the church but not really about church.  A good rule of thumb for men in the church would be to  observe a woman first.  Does she attend church regularly? Does she give her time in auxiliaries and such? Does she have a good relationship with the pastor and his wife, and with the other members of the church? Does she spend her after-church fellowship time talking predominantly with women, or is she flitting around like a social butterfly, flirting with all of the men? How long has she been a member of this particular church? This is a preliminary (though certainly not exhaustive) list of things to look at in determining whether or not a woman is living holy, or just coming to church (the Best Places book probably lists church as a good venue to meet men too)!

Am I telling you that your wife must be fat and ugly? Of course not!!  The objective is to find a mate who is pleasing to the Lord and pleasing to your eye!! That may take some time, though, and require some patience.

Psalm 27:14 (King James Version)

 ^“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”

To the women out there, staying waxed and smelling good and keeping that do done are certainly important. Just make sure the Lord is the most important thing, and that your appearance comes after that, and I guarantee you the Lord will keep you looking good throughout your Walk with Him.  Just look at how phenomenal my pastor’s wife looks!  Happy New Year’s everyone, and God Bless you and yours!!

If you are Halle Berry, Barack Obama, Creflo Dollar or Paris Hilton you obviously have a lot of influence over a lot of people, although how you’re using that influence can be quite debatable (Paris Hilton).  Millions of people keep up with your every move, and millions of people want to know every word that comes out of your mouth.  As a public figure, I believe that it is your responsibility to wield you’re influence responsibly, and conduct yourself from within the confines of a moral code, preferably the one found in the Bible.  Dozens of celebrities, particularly the young ones whine “But I never askedto be a role model!” Which is juist a whiny cop-out.  If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen! When you sign up for fame, you sign up to have every moment of your life scrutinized.  Period.  

But lets say your face is not internationally recognizable.  Lets say you are the CEO of a company, the youth pastor at a church, or a librarian.  You come into contact with dozens of people a day, perhaps hundreds a week! Those people have certain expectations in regards to your behavior.  They are looking to you for leadership and guidance.  And you have a responsibility to give them that direction they seek! You also have a responsible to do so in an ethical manner.  But do your duties cease when you punch the clock at the end of the day? No! It doesn’t pay for a young person who is battling peer pressure to drink and fornicate to see his youth pastor at the hottest club in town.

Lets take it down another notch.  You’re a cashier, a hair dresser, or a waitress like myself (or as I like to put it, an as yet unpublished author who waits tables until she is published).  You interact with many people on a day-to day basis.  But you assume that, as long as you do your job, and provide the service you are paid to do, no one cares about you as a person.  No one notices whether or not you have a moral compass.  Wrong! Guests at my restaurant tell me all the time that they can recognize Jesus in my life, by my demeanor. Folks comment on how I carry myself while I’m waiting for the bus.  And my coworkers tell me that they try to be a better person because of the way I conduct myself and my affairs. 

I’m going to take it to one more level.  When you are standing in an incredibly long customer service line that is not moving, you have influence over others.  The person who complains affects the whole line badly.  The person who taps their foot loudly and impatiently affects the line negatively.  The person who is cheerful, cracks jokes, or even just smiles at everyone, that person has a positive affect on everyone in that line, and the poor overworked customer service representative as well.  And people will remember that positive person and their sunny demeanor even after they exit the line and go about their individual days. 

I wield an incredible amount of influence on a lot of people.  I have to admit, I am not mindful of that influence 100 % of the time, but I’m working on it.  I want people to see Jesus in everything I do, everything I say.  Because no one needs to see Marta.  Without the Lord I am merely a wretch at best.  I urge you all to consider the effect you have on others, and improve the way you wield that influence.  God Bless!