Tag: choice

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The Cry of a Heart….and Hope

I am not a perfect Christian… and as long as I am an imperfect human I never will be. In the Passion Translation Bible, Psalm 39 is titled “A Cry For Help”, now put that in the back of your mind.

If I came up to you and told you that God wanted to take up every hour, minute and second of your day today what would you say? Would you hear me but not understand me? Would you feel flattered and then move on? Would you make up excuses saying that you’re too busy? Or would you say okay and go in a private room with Him and just be with Him?


Like I said in the very first sentence, I am not a perfect Christian; I am not a perfect person. I want to tell you something raw and honest – as the Bible says, honest confession good for the soul. If someone came up to me and asked me that same question you just read, I’m not sure what I’d do. I might think, “Yeah right,” or I might try and do it only to feel like I failed because I didn’t hear this BIG loud booming voice saying “AINSLEY”. I know myself and I know that immediately I would question myself and I would doubt myself – that’s just how I have always been – in school and in life in general. I’ve always been the type to be a people pleaser and when I feel like I let someone down it eats me up inside; I feel gross and almost immediately want to cry. I feel like I have completely and utterly disappointed them and the thought of that hurts. So, when I try and put that same fear of disappointment with my relationship with God it usually doesn’t end to well. I end up feeling guilty, hurt and like I’m just broken. I start trying to compare my relationship with God to everyone else around me; my mom, dad, pastor, boyfriend….and the list goes on.


I want you to know something. Comparison does not get you anywhere! God does not want your relationship to be the same as another persons with Him. God wants each of us to have our own personal raw relationship with Him. One where you can come to Him in your darkest of moments and just praise Him and be with Him. One where you talk with Him throughout the entire day even when you aren’t really in your “study time”. We shouldn’t just meditate on His word when we pray, read the Bible or praise Him; we should be mediating on it all hours, minutes and seconds of the day. So really if someone came up to you and told you God wanted to spend an entire day with you it shouldn’t be any different from what we should already be doing. Now, I’m not saying you can’t watch TV, workout or hang out with friends and family – all that I’m asking is that in each and every moment of the day you are glorifying Him and loving Him with all that you do.

And now, God, I’m left with one conclusion:
My only hope is to hope in you alone!

Psalm 39:7


Think of it like this. When you meet someone and fall in love with them, they are all that you can think about; they are all that occupies your thoughts. You try and come up with any way that you can see them and be in their presence again. Don’t you think that God wants that with us – only multiplied?!?


Now let’s go back to Psalm 39. Did you know that when we feel guilty or hurt or even worried all we have to do His cry out to God? All we need to do is be honest with Him; be truthful with Him. Psalm 39 deals with our words and with God’s discipline.

Very quickly, I want you to think of your mouth like a garden. If we choose not to guard it (because yes it is a choice), we are letting the weeds come in and destroy what once had the potential to be beautiful. However, if we decide to actually guard our mouth, then we are keeping the weeds (death) out of the garden and allowing for beautiful things to come forth and grow (life). God cannot live in us if we have weeds because then He would be going against His own words….and well, He doesn’t do that. But if you catch yourself slipping just ask God for help, truly repent. And yes, God can rebuke us and discipline us but that is what a LOVING parent does for His children. He isn’t doing it because He finds joy in “punishing” us, in fact it isn’t punishment at all, but He is doing it because He sees our potential and He loves us so deeply that He wants to help us get to it – GET TO HIM. We just have to be willing to accept the correction.

I strongly encourage you to please read Psalm 39 and truly meditate and think on it. Be blessed.

By Ainsley Wilson

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Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

We are so profoundly human. We all struggle with it, often feeling like a little devil is on one shoulder and an angel is on the other…the ultimate, daily battle that plays out in every human being: choice. Flesh and muscle wrapped around bone presents the outward appearance of a human body; but beyond what the natural vision can detect is something down deep inside that hands cannot quite touch…an essence beyond human understanding. It even baffles the most distinguished scientific minds…unless they have met the Master!!

“The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

1 Corinthians 2:14

When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, amazing things happen! The blood that He shed on the cross makes us a new creature by washing away our sin.

“Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

II Corinthians 5:17

I remember the night I really asked Jesus to come into my heart. Many years earlier at seven years old and after a sermon about the crucifixion, I heard Him whisper, “I did this for you,” but no one offered to lead me in prayer. I had known Him for several years and had been seeking Him…but THAT night…I really experienced Him in my heart and I was forever changed. I was just a teenager and knew something was different but did not know just how much until I woke up the next morning to get ready for school. I realized my attitude toward my little sister was different!!! I knew immediately something had really happened inside of me!! 

I met the Man that had died for me on the cross so many, many years ago that I might live…really live!! 

I was a new creature all right, but in the same human shell…..not transported to any heavenly plane or ushered around by any band of angels (that I knew of!!). Yes, still very profoundly human! And to this day, I feel every bit of my earthly humanity, but there is something deep inside this flesh and bone… something between my emotional heart and my logical mind, that stirs me and reminds me of a LOVE that transformed me to eternal life. And it reminds me that I DO have a choice as I face those daily predicaments and decisions…now I have a Friend that supports me in times of uncertainty, questions, fear and all of the innumerable fantastic things that this earthly life will throw at me.  

Being truly “born again” has amazing advantages over winging it on your own!! 

As a child of God, My Heavenly Father and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, left me volumes of letters to read, even giving me examples, telling me how to face the issues of life. There are no new temptations and, for any that do come, God will make a way of escape!! (1 Corinthians 10:13)

“And, when Jesus ascended to be with the Father, God sent the Holy Ghost. Jesus says “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” -John 14:16 & 17

So many scriptures have become just familiar to us…..so familiar that they have lost their depth in our hearts and souls. I think we walk the greatest part of our Christian lives without really realizing who we are in Christ. He said, “Greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) Jesus even prayed in the garden before being taken by the soldiers, “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:16)

You are more than flesh and bone! As a child of God, your “essence” is defined by The Living God who recreated you and the Son of God who died on the cross and rose again just so that you can walk in the freshness of Life!

Do you know Jesus as your personal Savior and Friend? There is a way that seems right to a man, but when the flesh and bone fall away, where will your soul spend eternity? 

If you have accepted Christ into your heart, you are in this world, but no longer of this world; but Jesus also said He will never leave you or forsake you! (Hebrews 13:5) His Love is wrapped around you whether you feel it or not!!!!!! 

Amen and Amen!!!

By Patsy Wallace