Complete In Thee

Complete in Thee! no work of mine
May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine;
Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,
And I am now complete in Thee.

Refrain:Yea, justified! O blessed thought!
And sanctified! Salvation wrought!
Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,
And glorified, I too, shall be!

Complete in Thee! no more shall sin,
Thy grace hath conquered, reign within;
Thy voice shall bid the tempter flee,
And I shall stand complete in Thee.

Complete in Thee— each want supplied,
And no good thing to me denied;
Since Thou my portion, Lord, wilt be,
I ask no more, complete in Thee.

Dear Saviour! when before Thy bar
All tribes and tongues assembled are,
Among Thy chosen will I be,
At Thy right hand, complete in Thee.

Sung By: Driven to One
Caleb Widmer and Drew Clayton

From: Torn Veil Ministries
Waukesha Bible Church

Note: Jennifer Botzet I hope you enjoy this. And to everyone else, these lyrics have been very encouraging and refocusing. We truly are complete in the goodness and love of Jesus Christ! Anything outside of Him is simply an extra blessing.

Protection

God's protection is amazing! The last couple of nights I have been taking care of/hanging out with one of my students while her parents are away. We (there were a total of four of us) went out for dinner. As we were coming back we took a corner slowly an SUV crossed over the line and smashed into the front of the car. The girl I was staying with was driving and her spot had the most impact and she is in a lot of pain, but God protected everyone in the car. The worst injury was the car. He blessed us right down to how things were handled immediately after the impact of the crash. One person called the police, the other person began exchanging all of the insurance information and then the driver broke down in hysteria and I was able to sit with her and help to calm her down. It was a HUGE reminder to me that God has a special plan for me and everyone else in the car. If he didn't have a plan He easily could have taken us home to be with Him. It also reiterated a lesson that the Lord has been pointing out to me over and over again over the last week.
Philippians 3:13-14 "No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us."
The specific part that has really tugged a string in my heart is "Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead" While, I have not been working an actual job, but rather doing LOTS of school work, I have had a little bit of extra time to reflect over my life and good things that I have done for the LORD and choices that I made that I would consider to not be wise, or even sinful. I have a problem with "forgetting" The mistakes that I have made I carry with myself for a long time. For example, I made a decision about something when I was a junior in high school and to this day I still go through the "what if's" What if I had done it this way or what if I said it that way. I have a very hard time forgiving myself. There was a situation that happened a few summer's ago which, today, has effected my relationship with a friend. The choices that we make, good or bad, can or can not help us to grow in the Lord. I choose to allow some of these situations to draw me away from the Lord. I choose to dwell on the mistake and hold on to it rather than remember the goodness of God and His grace and His forgiveness. Over and over again I have been reading passages on forgiveness and through my prayer God keeps bringing these different situations to my mind. The main focus has been that God has forgiven me for these mistakes so I need to forgive myself and "forget the things behind" and focus on how God is making me more into His image. One of the biggest steps in healing of self and forgiving self is to focus on how God sees me, and how God sees the people who hurt me or the people that I have hurt. Not only does God's love and forgiveness cover me, but it covers them to. Holding on to these things in "my past" is not helpful to anyone. Forgiveness is the way.

The Message of a Rainbow

"I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is a sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth." Genesis 9:13

I recently went to the bookstore and purchased a daily devotional. I love the way that God speaks through things that you may never expect. The verse about spoke volumes to me. First off there is a little bit of a back story to why it spoke so loudly to me.

About two weeks ago I was talking to a dear friend about how selfish and ungrateful that we as Christians can be. We began listing things that we take for granted that we are thankful for. Example: Eye sight, hearing, rain, clouds, gas stations, computers, and we mentioned rainbows. Well, later that day there was a sudden down pour of rain, and my friend calls me telling me that she just saw a rainbow, then when she sits back down at her computer she had a picture of a rainbow on her screen saver, and then a couple days later it rained again and there was another rainbow. God kept reminding us of HIS goodness through these rainbows.

Well, as I was reading this passage from Genesis I was thinking about this past conversation and was thinking that the main purpose of the rainbow was to symbolize the promise God made to us to never flood the entire earth again, but as I continued to meditate on this I was thinking about the symbolism that it also holds to many of the other promises God made to His people, to me. Looking at Noah's life and what the Lord brought him through and how he endured, I noticed that he was always faithful, and obedient. God protected him, but didn't shield him, and as a result Noah stayed surrendered to his Heavenly Father. I realized that the significance in the rainbow carries all of that in it too. I realized that I want to be more like Noah.

The last few days I have been struggling with understanding what God is doing in my life. Why He allowed my family to go through the struggles that we have gone through? Why He gave me the weaknesses He did? Why I struggle with my self-esteem even when I am re-assured time and time again? But in the simple rainbow is a picture of God's faithfulness. He is faithful to those who are faithful and surrendered to Him. God always keeps His promises!

Question Marks

When you look at a question mark what comes to your mind? Punctuation? A weird squiggly line? a picture? Mystery? Misunderstanding? I have been thinking a lot about my future and what God has in store for me and all that comes to mind is a BIG question mark. I have little steps of where God is leading me but beyond that life is simply a constant walk of trusting, and listening. Many simple verses keep coming to my mind, but the one that has been the most encouraging is Philippians 1:4-6, "I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." While I feel insecure, and unsure I can take comfort in knowing that Christ is not finished with me. The question marks in my life are only ways to see the Lord working. In my question mark is what am I going to do for work, who am I going to marry, am I going to get married, will I pass my classes, will I be effective in spreading the Word of the LORD, and the list goes on and on. But by taking my filled question mark and laying before Jesus with confidence and trust in Him I don't have to worry. So, in a sense I guess I am thankful for questions marks. Lean on the LORD! He only has your best interest in mind. Praise the Lord for that! AMEN

4th of July Celebrations

July 4th 2008 -- Celebrations at the Beach!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday!

Praise God for Freedom and Friends!

Christ-like Humility

I recently watched the movie The Ultimate Gift. The story line is about a man who was very wealthy and he dies and his family is frustrated with the fact that he didn’t leave them his money. But there is one on his grandchildren that he planned several steps for and throughout these steps it caused him a life change. As I was watching this movie I Corinthians 13 kept running through my head. “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” I Corinthians 13:4-7 I began thinking about what it means for me to show love to others and what receiving love true love from others really means. Love is completely self-sacrificing. It’s not about what you can get, but what and how you give. So, I had these thoughts going through my head and then today I attended Church at Highrock in Arlington MA and one of their pastoral interns was preaching, Grant Buccholtz. He preached on Mark 10:35-45. He was focusing on greatness. Who do you think is great? As we continued to dig into the passage he was making the point that greatness is humility, service, and being a servant to all. I loved this quote that he said, “Humility is not thinking less of ourselves but rather thinking of ourselves less and thinking of others more.” He shared the story about a man, Ed Kimball, who taught Sunday school and he realized that in order to show love to his students he needed to put himself aside and sacrifice some of his time to visit them. He poured himself into his students. The student that you may know of is DL Moody and Moody took the same approach and one of his students was Billy Graham. This is the picture of discipleship with humility in the eyes and the ways of Jesus Christ. I pray that my life and yours will exhibit Christ-like humility and draw others into a relationship with the one and only Messiah!

Freedom

Today I have been thinking a lot about freedom and how privileged I am to live in America. There are so many things that I know I take for granted because I have not really known anything different. The amount of freedom I have because of living in America is a gift. I can worship Jesus Christ without having to worry that someone is looking over my shoulder ready to toss me into jail. I have freedom to read what I want, to be who God has created me to be without being told who to be or how to act. The more I was thinking about the gift of that freedom and was thanking God for it I began to contemplate how special it is a that I am free in Christ!
The last week I have been carrying a lot of heaviness on my heart. I have held on to my struggles, my emotions, and even myself. I wasn't facing the reality of somethings in my life. I was trying to be strong and in turn I ended up pushing God out of the picture and trying to keep myself afloat, when Jesus Christ is the only one who can do that. I was trying to free myself from the bondage I was feeling. A dear friend of mine confronted me about it. It was so cool. She could just tell that I was holding on to these things and putting myself deeper and deeper into bondage. She encouraged me to face what I was feeling, to go through my struggles, face my emotions, allow myself to sink so that I could experience the true freedom that I have in Jesus Christ. Not only does Christ give me freedom from my own selfishness, but Jesus has freed me from the burden and bondage of my sin.
This Independence Day I am focusing on the freedom I have in Jesus Christ! The freedom that comes from being completely surrendered to Him and His will for my life.
God Bless America and Praise HIM for all His wonders!