Daily Dose – Gracious Speech

Colossians 4:6  Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

The secret to any good dish is putting just the right amount of salt in it, to give it that added flavor.

When we speak to others we ought to season our speech with grace, to prevent it from hurting the person with whom we’re communicating.

There is no standard measure of salt for any dish, chefs usually average the amount for each of their creations. In the same way when we speak we may need to be a bit more gracious with some persons than others.

Remember God shows us abundant mercy and grace.

We need to pattern him and do the same with the people we encounter.

Daily Dose – Want vs. Need

Matthew 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread

Jesus tells us here to ask God for our daily needs, and we may do that frequently.

Let’s remember that even the smallest things, such as the bread we put on our tables, come from God.

Let us not become so consumed by our wants that we forget all our needs are a blessing from our father.

If God gives us Hamburger meat instead of Steak then we ought to thank him still because he met our need for food and not our want for steak.

*Everyday Encouragement – Pamela L. Mcquade

Read the Directions – Mary Southerland

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I am an average cook and a below average baker. Consequently, I am of little value in the “cookies from scratch” department. Our daughter, Danna, however, loves to bake and is very good at whipping up three-dozen cookies or her favorite yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I will never forget the day Danna baked her first batch of cookies from scratch.

It was a Saturday morning, and Danna had a “craving” for cookies. Not cookies in a package or from a store, but real cookies she insisted. Watching her gather all of the necessary ingredients, I asked which recipe she was planning to use. With a smug look of disdain, my competent daughter turned to her pitifully incompetent mother and explained that she didn’t really need a recipe. After all, she had made hundreds of slice and bake cookies, not to mention the dozens of brownies from a box. How hard could it be? I decided to watch.

The kitchen counters quickly filled with various bowls, a tub of butter, flour, vanilla and milk. Tossing an occasional gracious and confident smile my way, Danna mixed differing amounts of each ingredient and stirred vigorously. Satisfied that it “looked right,” she fished a cookie pan out of the cabinet, sprayed it with oil and began carefully spooning out the cookie dough. I was truly impressed. After setting the timer, she cleaned the kitchen, while waiting for the delicious results.

When the timer went off, Danna quickly pulled the cookies out of the oven, sliding them off the pan and onto a plate. They smelled good and looked good to me – but a skeptical frown met my encouraging words, warning of danger just ahead. Pinching off a bite, Danna popped the cookie into her mouth. Now keep in mind that my daughter does have a flair for the dramatic, but I was totally unprepared for the culinary eruption that followed. Bits of cookie sprayed the kitchen counter and appliances as Danna coughed, choked, and strangled her way to the announcement that those cookies were “disgusting.” Grabbing the plate, she deposited her project in the garbage, and fished the cookie recipe out of a kitchen drawer, studying the magic formula. When I asked what went wrong, she explained through a sheepish grin, “I thought I knew how to make cookies on my own. So I didn’t read the recipe and left out the eggs.” One of the qualities I most admire in Danna is her persistence, which compelled her to begin again. The second time around, following the recipe resulted in scrumptious results. God’s plan is much the same.

God’s has a unique plan or “recipe” for each one of us. God reveals His plan through the Bible. It is the instruction book of life, the blueprint for life construction, and the road map for the journey. When we saturate our lives with God’s Word, it will naturally lead us and guide us according to His plan. Our greatest opportunity for success is to live that plan. God tucks into our very soul a discontentment with anything but His life “recipe.” If we approach each day searching for His handprints in every situation, choosing to walk in obedience to His Word, we will surely find ourselves smack dab in the middle of God’s amazing purpose and plan.

The awesome truth is that more than we want to know His plan for our life, He wants us to know it and stands ready to guide us to and through that plan. The more time we spend with the Plan Maker, and the more we choose to obey His plan, the clearer that plan grows. God always reveals His plan to an obedient heart. Just as surely as Danna left the eggs out of her first effort, we leave Him out of our plans, and go our own foolish way. Still, He waits. When the results are disastrous and we have made a mess of it all, He stands ready to begin again. We could save ourselves a lot of pain and futility if we simply read and follow the right set of directions.

*Excerpt taken from Biblegateway’s Girlfriends in God

Proving God by Acting in Faith

Matthew 17:²⁰ He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.Nothing will be impossible for you.”

I had the pleasure of sitting down with a woman of remarkable faith on Saturday night and she shared with me many testimonies of her faith in God and his answers to her prayers. Below is one such testimony that truly demonstrates the faithfulness of Christ if we should only have faith in him and his word.

ANN MARIE’S TESTIMONY

Ann Marie woke up one Sunday morning with no money and no food and her young daughter to provide for. She said to her daughter “Get dressed for church. Today I’m going to teach you how to have faith in God.” Her daughter Shanice was in her teens at the time and was convinced that her mother was crazy, but she did as she was told and got ready for church.

Dressed and with their bibles in hand the two made their way to the main road to get transportation to church. Ann Marie stopped a maxi filled with people and said to the the driver, “Drive my daughter and I need to get to church in Barataria (twenty minutes drive from their home) but we have no money.” In that instant God showed up and the driver told them to come and don’t worry about the money.

God’s work for Ann Marie wasn’t done there. She danced and praised and worshiped God during the service and on leaving the church she sat on the steps and said ” Lord if you are my God and you will provide just as you said you would send me a job so I can provide for my daughter and I.” When she got up and started walking down the steps of the church she heard a clapping behind her and someone calling out. She turned around and a member of the church who she did not know beckoned her. “Do you have a job?” he said, without responding to the man she said “Thank You Jesus”. Ann Marie was offered a job to clean two gyms the man owned.

Even now God was not done showing off for her. She still did not have money to get home or food for her and her daughter to eat. The two proceeded to leave the church laughing and giggling, not understanding what was the reason for the immense joy they felt in the midst of their desperation. Yet again she heard clapping and someone calling behind her, when she turned around a woman from the worship team was making her way towards her. The woman; who Ann Marie did not know, handed her forty dollars and said “God has directed my heart to give this to you.”

God had given Ann Marie a way to and from church and a job, but her faith in him allowed for him to prove himself even further in her life. By now Shanice was hungry and asked her mom if she could go to her grandmother’s house for lunch. Ann Marie told her “No! Today I will teach you to have faith like your mother. Don’t worry God will provide.” On their way home the two met a neighbor who inquired what they were going to cook for lunch. Speaking in faith Ann Marie called out a menu and agreed to send some food for the neighbor later that evening. Shanice, although seeing God work for them so far was convinced that her mother was mad.

When they got home Ann Marie said to Shanice, “Light the stove and put three pots with water on it.” She then proceeded to wash clothes in her hand by the sink without soap. While washing Shanice indicated to her that the water was boiling down. “Fill it back up, God is going to send something to put in those pots.” Shanice did as she was told and went outside to play. After twenty minutes or so Ann Marie heard her daughter skipping towards her shouting “Mummy, Mummy yuh not mad. God sent somebody, uncle just came and handed me this envelope and told me to give it to you because he couldn’t stay.” In that envelope was eight hundred dollars. Ann Marie now had the money she needed to buy the items needed for the menu she declared for lunch that Sunday.

I know by now you think that God was done proving himself to these two. However he had one more favor in store for them. When the two arrived at the grocery, the store owner had closed leaving a group of people standing outside the door. Ann Marie and her daughter were a part of that crowd and God gave them complete favor in this situation. In that moment; which would have seemed to be defeat for most, the grocery owner cracked the door and pointed to her “What did you want to get?”  Ann Marie replied “Just a couple items to cook.” “Come.” was the reply of the owner and he let them both into the store. People could not understand how this woman and her daughter got favor over them and started cursing and shouting insults at them. All the while Ann Marie was praising God because she knew that it was his favor in her life that opened that door for her.

Ann Marie taught her daughter a great lesson that day. She showed her daughter that if we put all our trust in our father and have faith in him he will see us through.

Like Ann Marie, if God has done anything in your life, please share your testimony with us at testifywithme@gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you.

God Bless You!