Gateways to Joy

N othing but the truth is acceptable to God. We sing to Him We speak of Him We serve Him BUT.  Hypocrisy closes the door on FATHER accepting acts of service from CHILD. ... lying ... pretense Father, forgive me, your fragile sinful child. He sees ... He sees through us. He refuses to listen ... MY BELOVED CHILD, he calls to me, " To be close to Me, you must be HONEST with Me. O LORD , do not Your eyes look for truth? You have smitten them, But they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; They have refused to repent. ~ Jeremiah 5:3

"D o not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise.  Why should you ruin yourself?" ~ Ecc. 7:16 Admitantly, I don't know much about the book of Ecclesiastes other than the "Time to ...," but that's close to it. What I got from this verse may be so different from what you've gotten, or maybe even so far from what the author intended.   I've been on both side of the spectrum of what Solomon is talking about. I've been what I call (don't think God called it that) "excessively righteous and overly wise."  Thinking this way has gotten me in so much spiritual trouble.  Through much trial and error God showed me that my problem was a lack of balance. Balance.  That's the key ingredient in our walk.  Balance seasoned with grace.  The older I get the more I'm learning to appreciate both. Where would you be?  Where would I be if our Loving Father didn't know how to bestow balance and grace unto us? I th...

A h my dear friends, hello and welcome back! It's late and I'm tired.  But I'm oh so glad to have this opportunity to meet with you again and share my heart-felt words. Our Internet service has been down.  We switched from ATT Uverse to Clear. Tonight I had a chance to stop by an old friend Ann Voskamp .  As usual she ministered to my soul in only the special way God has given her the ability to do.  I got a chance to listen to her speech at the Relevant Conference , boy was that speech fitting. There are several things that Ann said that hit home with me, but one of the things that continued to ring loudly in my mind is I am a woman born to blog for such  a time as this.  Ann contiue using the phrase "Such women you are for such a time as this..."  Guess what?  My dearest friend it's not by accident that I heard that speech and it's not by accident that you are reading this post.  You too, regardless of where you are in your Chri...