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 God gives us certain standards that we must take into account when it comes to giving our time and money to others. When the Bible tells us we are to help others, the purpose is never for us to do this to the point where it becomes detrimental. It's good to do what we're able to do, but 2 Thessalonians 3:10 also reminds us: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." There are people who want to live an irresponsible lifestyle with absolutely no accountability. So there must be limits; we will help someone with a need, but if we see that it's become a chronic life pattern, it's wrong for us to continue to encourage that. It's very harmful to others to contribute to their indolence, laziness, and lack of effort. The old saying "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime" is very true. As long as we see that someone is sincerely making an effort, we should be there to support them in whatever way God leads. Brigitte ♥

“And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:27).God already knows our deepest desires. Sometimes we talk about having an “unspoken prayer request.” In the old days, during the prayer meeting the leader would ask, “How many have an unspoken prayer request?” Almost every hand would go up. Unspoken prayer requests are things so close to our heart that we dare not mention them in public. They are deep and precious and private. Sometimes we could not mention them without tears. Verse 27 reminds us that there are no “unspoken requests” with God. The old gospel song says, “Jesus knows our every weakness.” And he does. He knows what we need before we ask him. Brigitte ♥

We are continually exhorted in Proverbs to seek wisdom, get wisdom, and understand wisdom. Proverbs also tells us—and repeats it— that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (1:7; 9:10). Our fear of the Lord’s wrath and justice is what drives us to Christ, who is the embodiment of God’s wisdom as expressed in His glorious plan of redemption for mankind. In Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), we find the answer to our search for wisdom, the remedy for our fear of God, and the “righteousness, holiness and redemption” that we so desperately need (1 Corinthians 1:30). The wisdom that is found only in Christ is in contrast to the foolishness of the world which encourages us to be wise in our own eyes. But Proverbs also tells us that the world’s way is not God’s way (Proverbs 3:7) and leads only to death (Proverbs 14:12) .Brigitte ♥

Our afflictions soften our hearts so that when we have received the comfort of God, it is easy for us to pass it along to someone else. Oh, how we need this in the church of Jesus Christ. It is so easy to be callous. It is so convenient to be unkind. It is so easy to look down our noses at weaker brothers and sisters who go through hard times. We say so carelessly, “Why don’t they just get tough? Why don’t they show some backbone? Why don’t they quit complaining and get on with life? Why can’t they be strong like the rest of us?” God lets us go through hard times to break us of that attitude and soften us so that we are able to minister in the name of Jesus Christ to other hurting people.Brigitte ♥

A servant is that unseen person who just does what needs to be done.That is what Jesus did. Wherever there was a need, that’s where Jesus was. If there was somebody sick, what did he do? He healed them. If there was somebody mourning, what did he do? He comforted them. If somebody was hungry, he fed them. Today the most likely place where you will find Jesus Christ is not necessarily in a church at 11:00 on Sunday morning. The most likely place is out there with the forgotten people, with the hurting people, with the homeless, with the people with A.I.D.S., with the migrant workers, with the people who are down and out, because that’s where you found Jesus 2,000 years ago and that’s where you’re likely to find him today. Brigitte ♥

Psalm 145:14 David again declares, “You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing." Have you ever stopped to think about the splendor of creation?  God could have ordained that we eat nothing but mud. Mud for breakfast, mud for lunch, mud for supper. He could have made everything gray. But he didn’t do that. He created a whole world for us and he painted it in Technicolor. He said, “Here, eat and drink and be made strong.  Everything I made, I put here for you.” The whole world is yours to enjoy. Lying on the field looking up at the fleecy clouds. Letting the juice dribble down your cheeks when you’re eating a luscious peach. Losing your breath when you jump into an ice-cold stream. Watching your grandchildren play at your feet. Climbing Horn Peak in Colorado. Listening at twilight to the “Goldberg Variations.” All those things are gifts from Almighty God. Brigitte ♥

Gnosticism is based on a mystical, intuitive, subjective, inward, emotional approach to truth which is not new at all. It is very old, going back in some form to the Garden of Eden, where Satan questioned God and the words He spoke and convinced Adam and Eve to reject them and accept a lie. He does the same thing today as he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He still calls God and the Bible into question and catches in his web those who are either naïve and scripturally uninformed or who are seeking some personal revelation to make them feel special, unique, and superior to others. Let us follow the Apostle Paul who said to “test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and this we do by comparing everything to the Word of God, the only Truth.Brigitte ♥

Society continually seeks to devalue the lives of the unborn, creating its own definitions of humanity based on distorted views of morality. But the undeniable fact is that life begins at creation, and a human is created as soon as he or she is conceived. God is present at our creation; He is, in fact, our Creator. Our value as human beings created in His image is conceived even before we are. God reveals to us in His Word that not only does life begin at conception, but He knows who we are even before then (Jeremiah 1:5). King David said this about God's role in our conception: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb . . . your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (Psalm 139:13, 16).  Brigitte ♥

God bless you,

Minister Ray

So, should Christians go to doctors? God created us as intelligent beings and gave us the ability to create medicines and learn how to repair our bodies. There is nothing wrong with applying this knowledge and ability towards physical healing. Doctors can be viewed as God’s gift to us, a means through which God brings healing and recovery. At the same time, our ultimate faith and trust is to be in God, not in doctors or medicine. As with all difficult decisions, we should seek God who promises to give us wisdom when we ask for it (James 1:5). Brigitte ♥

"Is it a sin to cuss / swear / curse?"
 It is definitely a sin to swear (curse, cuss, etc.). The Bible makes this abundantly clear. Ephesians 4:29 tells us, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." First Peter 3:10 declares, "For, whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech." James 3:9-12 summarizes the issue: "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers , can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."Brigitte ♥

"What does the Bible say about dating / courting?"
Although the words “courtship” and “dating” are not found in the Bible, we are given some principles that Christians are to go by during the time before marriage. The first is that we must separate from the world's view on dating because God's way contradicts the world's (2 Peter 2:20). While the world’s view may be to date around as much as we want, the important thing is to discover the character of a person before making any commitment to him or her. We should find out if the person has been born again in the Spirit of Christ (John 3:3-8) and if he or she shares the same desire toward Christ-likeness (Philippians 2:5). The ultimate goal of dating or courting is finding a life partner. The Bible tells us that, as Christians, we should not marry an unbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:14-15) because this would weaken our relationship with Christ and compromise our morals and standards. Brigitte ♥

Be Alert! The last days will be a time of confusion and spiritual delusion. Don’t be sucked in by the spirit of the Antichrist that is already in the world. That spirit tries to make us think that sin isn’t really sinful and that there is no such thing as right and wrong. It also seduces us into silence when we ought to be speaking out. Ponder the words of I Peter 5:8 ), “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” Don’t let that “someone” be you. A great deception will come to the earth in the last days. Many will be deceived. It’s easy to say, “That would never happen to me.” Don’t be too sure. Many will be deceived who today would laugh at that suggestion. Brigitte ♥

Our belief in God is a belief of faith. We have faith in His Son for salvation, faith in His Word for instruction, and faith in His Holy Spirit for guidance. Our faith in God should be absolute, since when we put our faith in God, we depend on a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient Creator. Our belief in science should be intellectual and nothing more. We can count on science to do many great things, but we can also count on science to make mistakes. If we put faith in science, we depend on imperfect, sinful, limited, mortal men. Science throughout history has been wrong about many things, such as the shape of the earth, powered flight, vaccines, blood transfusions, and even reproduction. God is never wrong.Brigitte ♥

All the miracles had a purpose—to prove that God is like no one else, that He has complete control of creation because He is its source, and to convince us that if He can do all these miraculous things, nothing in our lives is too hard for Him to handle. He wants us to trust Him and know that He can do miracles in our lives as well. If the miracles did not occur, then how can we trust anything the Bible tells us, especially when it tells us eternal life is available through Christ? When we begin to call any part of Scripture into doubt, all of God’s marvelous plan is suspect, and we open the door for the lies and distortions which are Satan’s plan to destroy our faith (1 Peter 5:8). The Bible is to be read and understood literally, including the miracles. Brigitte ♥

Narcissism is bound up in selfish ambition—putting one’s needs and desires above all else—and leads inevitably to discord, envy, strife and evil. These are of the devil, whose desire is to sow discord among believers and thereby discredit their witness in a watching world. James makes this point in , James 6:13-18contrasting selfishness—which is satanic in nature—to the “wisdom from above” which is “pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” The narcissist has no time for others; their needs and desires are irrelevant to him. His focus, like Narcissus whose life was wasted staring at his own reflection, is completely self-absorbed. His life is of little value to himself, to others, or to God because he considers himself the center of the universe. He has displaced God from the throne of his life and placed himself firmly upon it. Brigitte ♥

One of the key verses of the Book of Joshua is 1:8 “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.” The Old Testament is replete with stories of how the people “forgot” God and His Word and suffered terrible consequences. For the Christian, the Word of God is our lifeblood. If we neglect it, our lives will suffer accordingly. But if we take to heart the principle of verse 1:8, we will be complete and able to be of use in God’s kingdom  (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and we will find that God’s promises in (Joshua 1:8-9) will be ours as well. Brigitte ♥