Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Planning the Seeds of God’s Word

Psalm 91:1-16 “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you say, “The LORD is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. “Because he (she) loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him (her); I will protect him (her), for he (she) acknowledges my name. He (She) will call on me, and I will answer him (her); I will be with him (her) in trouble, I will deliver him (her) and honor him (her). With long life I will satisfy him (her) and show him (her) my salvation.”
Good morning ya’ll. 
I pray that you have a magnificent day today.
Much weight has been laid upon our hearts over this weekend and the past few days as we have heard the news and seen the footage of Russia invading Ukraine. Innocent lives have been lost, entire families and communities have been uprooted from their homes and forced to live in underground train stations as shelter. Threats of further escalating violence and attacks still circle and linger leaving any one of us feeling vulnerable and exposed to possible attacks from anywhere. Yet, we, who are God’s children, can find rest still. We can still walk through these unsteady and uncertain times with a sense of peace about us that others cannot understand. We can still speak and sing with confidence, our praises to God’s perfect and Holy name because we know where our eternal home will be even as we do not know what threat or attack may exist just around the corner. Psalm 91 is a scripture that plants the seed in our hearts and spirit, which teaches us that as God’s children we needn’t be anxious, discouraged, dismayed, or fearful, because God loves all of His committed children deeply and He will command His Angels to surround us, to watch over us, and to protect us. This scripture is a powerful seed for all of us to plant within our hearts and allow it to take root. For the wars, rumors of wars, threats and attacks will always be around us all, but the love and care of our Mighty God will always be even closer ready to keep us all guarded in His perfect ways from the attacks, plots and plans of attacks, and traps of the enemy each and every day.
Have a spectacular day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

Good morning ya’ll.
I pray that you have a fantastic day today.
God is God and we are not.
Scripture teaches us that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are unlike our thoughts.
Though we may want to control every tiny detail of our lives there comes a time in all of our lives when we learn that this is never how it was meant to be. When we learn this, we then can find comfort, rest, peace, and freedom in letting go, letting God’s perfect plans unfold, and trusting Him as we follow along. There’s a reason why God’s plans are always going to be better for us than our own plans could ever be and that’s because God sees the bigger picture of our lives from His higher perspective and because He is the author of our story, He already knows the outcome. Whatever the season you may be in right now. Pause, take some deep breaths, let go of the reins you are so tightly gripping and remind yourself, “God is God and I am not. He is perfect! He is wise! He is awesome and His love for me is greater than anyone on earth could ever love me. I will be still. I will trust My God Who loves me so and Who will always do what’s truly best for me. Thanks be to God. Amen!”
Have an outstanding day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

(Photo courtesy of Sherryl Davis)

James 1:22 “Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what the word says.”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a great day today.
The word of God is truly powerful in so many ways and for those of us who have faith and who find the strength and faith to believe in the promises spoken to us in God’s Word, we know just how great and powerful the Word of God can be. There have been many times in my life when I have faced difficult seasons and I have tried to make things happen as I felt they were supposed to happen only to see my own efforts fail, sometimes quite miserably. However, when I stopped working so hard to try to do these things on my own and I turned to God’s word I was able to refresh myself in His truth and His promises. I was then able to grab hold of a few of those powerful scriptures of God’s promises, pray over my situation using these promise-giving scriptures, then watch in complete amazement at how God suddenly worked everything out soooo much better than I ever could have. All I needed to do was trust, have faith, ask God, and believe. God’s word is alive, it is always relevant, and it is always constant. God’s word was spoken by God Himself, written to always give us hope, strength, direction, wisdom, and guidance. For us to simply read or hear the word of God, nod our heads in agreement, and say a few “Amen’s” without really letting God’s word in does such a disservice to ourselves and to those around us. Letting God’s word fully into our hearts, living God’s word truly every chance that we get. This is what makes all the difference in the quality of our lives all together. Don’t just read or hear God’s word and say “Oh that was nice.” Instead live, trust, believe, pray God’s word over your life, your situations, your children, grandchildren, and loved ones lives, see what awesome things God can help you do, then when you lay your head down to rest in the evening you can say, “Dang! It sure is amazing what our awesome God can do.”
Have an outstanding day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

(Photo courtesy of Amanda Forman)

James 1:6 “But let them ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a wonderful day today.
This passage from scripture is just one of a few times that we are taught in God’s Word to ask God for help, for direction, for blessings, for miracles, and ask Him having complete faith that He will answer us and we will see God move in amazing ways. There is a reason why Jesus teaches us “the mustard seed” size faith lesson, and that’s because Jesus is illustrating for us that even our most miniscule amount of faith is still faith enough to allow God’s mighty, strong, capable, and awesome hands to move in the most extraordinary ways. We all have hopes, dreams, passions, and goals we so very much want to achieve and it’s time that all of us stop believing the lies of the enemy who is telling us we are simply going to fail or we will never see our dreams become a reality, and instead choose to ask God to help us and believe 100% that God will not only give us the help we ask Him for, but with even our tiniest amount of faith, God will bring us greater hopes, greater joys, greater successes, and greater blessings than we could have ever dreamed possible. Ya’ll, this world is moving faster and faster in a million different directions and all too often many of those directions seek to lead the weak minded, weak hearted, and weak spirited in the wrong direction far away from God’s amazing path for us. Whatever dreams, hopes, and passions you hold in your heart may be, commit them to God, ask God to help you achieve them according to His perfect plan, keep moving forward in the right direction having faith that God WILL help you achieve those hopes, goals, and dreams in His amazing way and at His perfectly appointed time.
Have a fantastic day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

Matthew 22:37-40 “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a terrific day today.
Jesus told us Himself. Straight from His lips and from the heart of God, these two GREATEST commandments. They trump even the previous and extremely well known ten commandments. “Suddenly giving us 12 to live by?” One might question, but actually, when we pay attention we merely have these two to live by first because the other 10 commandments will fall right in line with how we choose to act when we live our lives committed to these two greatest commandments. If we truly love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds, we don’t and won’t want to lie, cheat, steal, deceive, worship other idols, kill, or be jealous, because our focus will be on God and we will always have faith in what God can bring to us rather than trying to conjure up all that we want or think we need by our own power. And when we choose to love everyone else as much as we love ourselves then we can begin to see that ALL life is precious and everyone wants and truly appreciates being loved and welcomed and embraced for who they genuinely are. There is a reason why Jesus taught us in this scripture that we are to live by these two greatest commandments and that reason is because He is our Savior and He knew even then that His blood would be shed for us, His life would be given for us, and our gifts and thanks to Him would be for us to live and abide by these two greatest commandments. To imagine a world, the entire world, where ALL of us truly lived by these two greatest commandments would be to envision a world much the way God intended for the world to be: living in peace, love, harmony, and with abundant joy all around. Though we may never see that world this side of Heaven, we can still strive to live our lives following and abiding by these two greatest commandments. Thereby at least creating that beautifully envisioned world wherever our lives may lead us. Thanks be to God.
Have a great day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

Matthew 7:1-2 “Do not judge others or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged…”
Good morning ya’ll.
I pray that you have a marvelous day today.
It’s so very easy for us to walk around passing judgement on others. Somehow, in some kind of sorted way, it makes us feel better about ourselves to point out someone else’s flaws. However, this shouldn’t be the case. We should always want to lift each other up. We should want to help others who are making the mistakes or choices that lead us to judge them and help them improve, if indeed they are truly making bad decisions. Perhaps they are merely making choices that we would not have made ourselves, maybe then what we need to do is talk to them and try to understand what their reasoning is instead of immediately passing judgement on them. Coming from the South, it’s commonplace to hear your elder relatives talking about others around them, be them neighbors, other relatives, distant cousins, people in the community, even fellow church members, no one was immune from being the subject of gossip around a good Ole Southern table. However, in my years of growing and learning I have come to understand that we will all find more joy, peace, true friendships, and stronger relationships when we spend less time passing judgements on one another and we spend more time supporting each other, encouraging one another, and genuinely caring for each other.
Thanks be to God!
Have a fantastic day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

(Photo courtesy of Bubba Ratcliff)

John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a wonderful day today.
How many will be on their knees in the streets all over the world crying “Please!” Shouting, “Hallelujah!” Pleading, saying, “Amen!” At the right appointed time God created yet at the wrong moment of their lives. If you could close your eyes now, at this very moment, and picture what that day (or that night) might look like, really. The grounds beneath our feet shaking and cracking as the skies open up and individuals all around us, many who we love and cherish, just disappear before our eyes. Gone in an instant, taken up to Heaven. This is only a glimpse of what the Rapture will look like and those people who run the risk of not being taken up to Heaven, those are the people we want to receive the messages, we want them to learn, understand, embrace, and live the word of God. These are the people we pray for and we minister to, because we want all of us to meet Jesus that day and know we will all be together. We don’t want anyone to be left behind. However, we know that the moment of Jesus’s return will always be unknown to us until the day that it happens and we know that the choices we make in life will matter in order for us to see the Kingdom of Heaven. One of those most important choices is to accept Jesus into our hearts and believe that He is our Lord and Savior. To allow Jesus to transform our hearts, minds, and thinking comes naturally when we accept Him into our hearts and we fully begin to understand the sacrifice Jesus made for us. There will be many upon many who will be left behind on that fateful day or night when Jesus returns. They will weep, they will sob, they will ask for forgiveness then. At that time they will choose to believe, but the price they will have paid losing so many around them will be a constant reminder of their choice not to be 100%, completely in love and obsessed with Jesus when it mattered so much. It’s not too late now. Wherever you are in life right now, ask Jesus to come into your heart. Choose to truthfully believe in Him as your Lord and Savior. Let His presence in your heart truly begin to change you, restore you, redeem you, and remake you. Jesus IS the way, the truth, and the life, and we can come to God and see Heaven only and always by way of Jesus. Thanks be to God for this miracle.
Have an awesome day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

1 John 5:21 “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a tremendously blessed day today.
We are all guilty of having done this at some point in out lives. Whether our children, our careers, our possessions, or something else, we have likely found ourselves more obsessed and more focused on these blessings we have been given by God more than we have been obsessed with God and Jesus Himself. I have done this myself and one of the loudest disciplinary things I read in my past that taught me this very important and freeing lessons in my life, was that our God is a jealous God and He will do what He can to get our attention to turn our focus away from those idols and back towards God. However, when we refuse to listen to the beckoning of God and we choose instead to keep our focus on those idols, God can and may use His own hands to move those idols out of our way. An even more important reason God wants our focus on Him and off of our idols is because when we give too much focus to the idols we insist in worshipping, this can pull our heart and minds into dark, dangerous places God knows are not good for us. How often have we heard of the awful and devastating stories of love gone wrong because one or both of those people became obsessed with the other? They made the other person an idol leading them to worship that person more than anyone or anything else, and certainty more than God. Or the sad outcomes of those who have worked their lives away missing the most important moments of their families lives because they made their careers their idols. Whatever our current lists of priorities may be today, now is the perfect time to shift that list and truly place God at the top of our list. I promise you, when we do this and we put God first, He will realign the rest of our heart, mind, and soul focus towards the right things for us and He will help us recognize those idols we have created and we have been worshipping so we can correct our focus, thereby avoiding the negative places and mindsets our idolistic focuses would have led us to. Thanks be to God.
Have a great day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

(Photo courtesy of Bubba Ratcliff)
Proverbs 12:1 “Whoever despises discipline is foolish.”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a wonderful day today.
None of us like being disciplined. Not when we were kids and not as adults. We can all agree that there are many things we have done- or tried to do- in our lives that, at the time, we would have liked to have gotten away with, but lo and behold, we were caught and likely disciplined. I can remember being a young girl and letting two of my “friends” talk me into stealing a candy bar I really wanted from the corner store. When I got home my dad caught me with the candy. He immediately shuffled me into the car, drove me back to the store, and made me walk inside, give the candy back, and apologize for taking the candy. I was sad, I was embarrassed, and I was candy-less. However, you can bet your life I had no more desire to try and steal another thing again. That’s called gaining wisdom. That’s called learning our lessons. And God is still in the business of teaching us, guiding us, and directing us in the very same way. We might think we are getting away with something, but you can trust and believe, God knows and He will discipline you at just the right time. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11 teaches us, and we know this is true. Remember these scriptures and this message when you face going through God’s discipline for you and know that His discipline for us will always help to purge us of what is not good for us while also helping to grow within us good fruit, Fruit of the Spirit, to help us stay on a better path in our lives.
Thank you God that you love us so much that you won’t hesitate to discipline us and teach us to help cleanse us of the bad, instill in us Your good, and to help us gain Your great wisdom. Amen!
Have a fantastic day today
I love you all
Love San 😃

Good morning ya’ll ministry messages: Embracing the Scriptures that Discipline Us

(Photo courtesy of Facebook PVN Group)

(Photo courtesy of Facebook PVN Group)
Titus 2:7 “In everything set them an example by doing what is good.”
Good morning ya’ll
I pray that you have a terrific day today.
We all want to be successful and we want to be remembered for being successful, but what the definition of successful may look like to all of us is likely a bit different than it might be to others. For instance, for those like myself and my siblings, who grew up living in low income housing sharing one bedroom between three of us four siblings while our youngest sister shared a bedroom with our grandparents and our mom had her bedroom in a house that was probably something around 800 square feet, you can imagine how the definition of success for us is much different than the definition of success might be to someone who grew up in a larger home, with whatever they wanted there for them at the ready, and easy access to any desire they had. To the latter, the definition of success likely looks much different and may come with higher expectations within themselves as well as from their parents. However, for all of us, it’s important that we come to understand that in the eyes of God, success isn’t measured by the lists of our accomplishments, our highest level of education, or the number of certificates and degrees we have lining our walls. No, to God success is measured in how genuinely we cared for those around us, how gentle we were towards our children, especially on their toughest days, how kind we were to someone we barely even knew, how thoughtful we were to the people God has placed in our lives. God sees success as how thankful we are everyday for the blessings that we have, how grateful we are for Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord, how joyful we are as we praise His name, as we share our own testimony, and as we find our way along the greater path God has for our lives. God doesn’t wait until we are fully certified or until our walls are properly plastered with the qualifications and certifications we feel we need to use us for His calling, rather, God has already created us with the ability to be the successful people He is calling us to be and really all He needs us to do to start becoming successful in following our true calling is to ask Him to reveal to us our calling, trust Him to answer and help us follow that calling, and have faith that what God has created us, equipped us, and called us to do will take shape and lead us to our own individual success by God’s definition at just the right time.
Have an outstanding day today
I love you all
Love San 😃