God's grace is amazing

Greetings:
There isn't a song or a hymn that speaks to my heart more than Amazing Grace.
The tune keeps repeating in my head as I am reminded of God's mercy and his amazing grace for teaching down and touching me at a time when I needed it the most.
Each day, I thank God enough for loving me, even when I didn't deserve it
The song “Amazing Grace”, which my pastor friend The Rev. John T. Parish, of Benton, KY, has labeled the National Anthem of the Kingdom of God, has stood the test of time with a message that is as fresh today as when it was written and published in 1779.
The song brings tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat every time I hear it and realize God's goodness and grace in my life.
It's humbling to understand how God works.
With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the grace of God, the song was written by Englishman John Newton, who once was the captain of a slave ship. He converted to Christianity after an encounter with God during a violent storm at sea. He eventually became an ordained minister in the Church of England.
Through this song, I've realized that the Lord is looking for people who are weak enough to be used. We read in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. The key to experiencing liberating strength is personal weakness and then ability to admit we are weak and he is strong.
Understand that personal weakness does not mean weak character or faulty Biblical knowledge.
On the contrary, God is looking for a people who have come to the place where they have lost confidence in their fleshly power to accomplish the work of the Spirit. Only when we embrace the weakness of ourselves apart from Christ can we become strong and "graced"enough to accomplish things for the true advancing of God's glorious Kingdom.
The song sings to me a melody of opportunity, of obedience and service.
I am in awe that God would save a wretch like me. I can do nothing to pay for the debt of salvation.
Thank you Lord seems so short and shallow, but it's all I have to offer.  I am without words on this snowy morning that can express the amount of gratitude that is in my heart.
God, let me be a better person today than I was yesterday.  Let me strive to put a smile on someone's face by what I write, say and do.
God's grace is truly amazing.
Be blessed.
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Husbands love your wives; wives love your husbands

Greetings:
To all of the ladies, my sincere wish of Happy Valentine's Day – with a special greeting of love to my incredible wife, Sharon, who has endured more than any woman should be expected too in our marriage, which will soon observe its 40th anniversary.
There have been plenty of peaks and valleys over the years, but through many things God's love for both of us has made it all work. For that, I am forever thankful and indebted to this special praying woman of God.
While I've disappointed her, myself and God in thoughts, words and actions, I am thankful for her love, kindness, compassion and forgiving spirit. I am thankful to God for the love we have for each other that has endured many years and I pray many more years are in our future.
We've brought two wonderful daughters into his world, who are married now and we are blessed and thankful they have Godly husbands and they have and continue to bring offspring into our family. We are truly blessed with a growing family and I pray a special blessing on each of these marriages on this special day of love.
While there is some question about who St. Valentine was since three early martyrs shared the name, the best guess is that Valentinus was a priest in Rome around AD 270. One story says that the emperor, Claudius II, believed that single men made the best soldiers and so he forbade weddings. Valentinus performed weddings for Christian couples anyway in defiance of the emperor. He was arrested and imprisoned. As a prisoner he won the emperor’s favor until he attempted to convert Claudius to faith in Christ. His personal evangelism proved fatal. Claudius had Valentinus killed on February 14.
While marriage is important because it provides companionship, an outlet for sexuality, and a setting for procreation and rearing children, the Apostle Paul made it clear that marriage is preeminently a picture of the love and fidelity between God and his people.
Couples can find much guidance in the words that Paul has for the church in Corinith that we read in the first book of Corinthians. These scriptures are commonly used in wedding ceremonies, but doesn't hurt to read them often and let them sink into our soul.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NIV) reads,  “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
In 1 Corinthians 13:4–8 we read, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
1 Corinthians 13:13 sums it up, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
 In marriage, we have a picture of God’s covenant faithfulness. The love and fidelity of the husband and wife —inconsistent and imperfect as they may be—are an icon of God’s perfect love and fidelity.
In this nation, marriage has fallen on hard times and an all out attack and needs to be rescued — first of all in the Church.
We pray for our nation and our state as lawmakers mull over changing ideals and are too accepting of ungodly acts like same-sex marriage, which is clearly contrary to God's law, his Word and teaching about spiritual unions.
It's wrong.
If we need to legislate against it, then the Church and God's people should be out front sounding loud support for laws and amendments to constitutions that support the preservation of marriage as between a man and a woman with no variations from that.
God’s people need to be the bright spots in a declining marriage moral culture and too often, we are not.
Renewal begins as we understand and begin to live out the high calling of Christian marriage. Husband love your wives. Wives love your husbands. That's our mission.
Be blessed.

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Keep climbing, keep going

A look at the ice-covered Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area
 near Linton, IN.
(c) Nick Schneider/NJS Photo Images

Greetings:
This morning the Lord is impressing on me that our Christian walk is a stroll up a staircase.
The steps are steep and there are many challenges along the way. These challenges are learning moments designed to increase our faith –– show to us God's mercy and loving grace.
I am reminded that the staircase is like the eight Beatitudes described in Matthew 5:1-12 because they are all aspects of being in close communion with God.
There is a pattern and a progression. Each step leads to the next. Remove any one of steps, and we fall or we are stopped. It is a carefully built staircase. The steps are not in a random order. To reach the second step, we need to make it past the first step.
We are directed to keep climbing, even when it seems it takes every ounce of our strength to keep going up. It's difficult to put one foot in front of the other on some days.
We don't know why, but for some this flight of stairs is a long one.
The Lord has made a way where there is no way, if we just keep walking, keep climbing, keep trusting in his guidance which whispers in our spirit.
As we keep climbing, sometimes we wonder if we will ever make it to the top. Our muscles and bones ache and our heart pounds with fatigue at times.
We pray for an another route to make the climb easier, but there is none.
Keep walking and keep climbing.
We must consciously make a choice to go to the next step, and God is not in a hurry. He waits patiently, lovingly and relentlessly for us to catch our breath and relax along the way.
At these times of rest, we know that by looking down, we see and comprehend what we have overcome just to get to this place. But if we look up at the number of stairs still left to climb, it seems daunting and almost overwhelming.
God showed me that we cannot look at only the stairs. We need to fix our eyes on what we cannot see. We must gaze at the top, keep looking up, and taking one step at a time. It's by faith that we walk.
Our soul speaks to us and prods us on because we know that climbing back down would be a mistake. Going back down is not an option.
There is no going back. We've been set free.
At times we just want to sit right where we are at without continuing in the climb. We just hang out for a while in one place.
That's a time of rest. But we shouldn't get too content and we must continue upward and know that the temptation to stop is not a viable option because we hear the Lord calling us to keep climbing.
In our heart, we know that when we finally arrive, we will be so happy we kept climbing. There is no hurry, but no advantage to slowing down either. So we pray today for a steady pace, understanding each level and making a conscious decision to move up and onward as we climb the stairs on this day.
 Be blessed.

These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.

Have a teachable spirit

Greetings:
One of the keys of growing in our Christian walk is having a teachable spirit.
As we delve deeper into God's Word and begin to understand what is said our mind and past religious teachings can sometime get in the way of our comprehension.
Often in my early years of being a Christian I can recall saying to myself 'that's not the way I was taught'.
We read it, see it in letters, words and sentences, but it doesn't soak in.
That's where we call on the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and open our hearts to understand God's truths and the light that connects our mind with our soul is turned on.
Proverbs 9:9 says,  “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.”
The benefits of having a heart that is open to instruction are exemplified in the lives of many Bible characters both in the Old and New Testaments.
Moses was a meek man with a teachable heart and spirit.
God was faithful to lead Moses step by step in his journey giving him instruction along the way. Moses was also hungry to learn from and lean on the Lord’s guidance.
David was  a man who sought to do God’s will.
Psalm 25:4 says, “Show me your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.”
David was  repeatedly calling out to God asking for his guidance and instruction.
 “Lead me in your truth, and teach me: for you are the God of my salvation; on you do I wait all the day.” David says in Psalm 25:5.
In Psalm 27:11 he cries out ,“Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me in a level path, because of my enemies.”
And in Psalm 86:11, he calls on God and says, “Teach me your way, O LORD; I will walk in your truth: unite my heart to fear your name.”
In David’s words we learn of the relationship between being teachable and following God. When we ask the Lord to teach us, we must accompany our request with a heart and desire to do his will. As we seek to know God’s will, we must understand that the process of discerning God’s will for our lives requires us to learn from him. It is imperative to have a teachable spirit.
Jesus himself was a great example of being teachable.
In Luke 2:40 it is written, “And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him.”
Jesus showed us that our ultimate teacher is not man, but God our Father. By giving us the Holy Spirit, the Father has made it possible for us to also listen to him and learn to follow his leading.
In John 14:26 it is written, “But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
It is tempting to try doing God’s will in our own wisdom and with our own strength.  Instead of trying to figure everything out in our heads, we should aim to discern the voice of God’s Spirit more intimately in our hearts.
Spending time studying God’s Word is essential to our growth in Christ.  But simply reading the Bible won’t do the trick.  We must approach God’s Word with a teachable heart and a willing spirit and ask God to open our eyes to his great things with understanding and comprehension of what it all means.
Be blessed.

These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.

Do what The Word says

Greetings:
This is a subject I've written about before, but it's heavy on my heart this morning so I want to share my thoughts.
How many times have we said, even cried out to God, ‘What do You want me to do? If you just show me, I’ll do it.
I've lost count of the number of times I spoke to God in this way, but despite my pleading he did not give me a specific task or job to do other than writing about my Word and the use of my God-given talents.
I've tried to do that in the last 11 months or so with daily message blog and many months have included photos that I have taken.
I have been blessed with compliments many times and learned through the tracking statistics that this blog has been viewed by individuals from 11 foreign countries aside from those in the United States.
I sincerely thank God for using me in this way.
On recent day when I was struggled to come up with a topic to write about I again prayed to God, “What do you want me to do?”
I was led to John 6:28-29 (Amplified Bible), which tells of the crowds of people questioning Jesus about doing the works of God.
“They then said, What are we to do, that we may [habitually] be working the works of God? [What are we to do to carry out what God requires?]
Jesus replied, This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger].”
His answer is so simple – believe in Him!
These words from Jesus hit me between the eyes and reminded me that we are ‘human beings’ not ‘human doings’. It’s not what we do, it’s who we are and what we believe in our hearts that is important to God.
Look at Hosea 6:6, “For I desire and delight in dutiful steadfast love and goodness, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of and acquaintance with God more than burnt offerings.”
Jesus himself quoted this scripture to the Pharisees when they asked why He ate with tax collectors and sinners in Matthew 9:10-13.
In Matthew 25:35-36 Jesus gives us our mission, our task for each day when he tells the parable about the sheep and the goats and describes the mercy we can all do every day. By doing these things for others Jesus said that we do them for Him.
The scripture reads: “For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you brought Me together with yourselves and welcomed and entertained and lodged Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me with help and ministering care, I was in prison and you came to see Me.”
Does anything else need to be said? That's my mission. That's your mission. Let's get on with God work and be the Word in action.
Be blessed.

These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my daily blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.

Let God direct the paths

Greetings:
Letting go and letting God direct our paths is sometimes a tall tasks for myself.
I'm not the most patient person and letting go for me is no easy task. Sometimes, it's painful when we know what God is telling us, we know what the Word says, then we still go ahead and try to do it our way.
How has that worked out for us?
I like to be in control, but  I am slowly learning to trust God for things that are beyond my control.
How many of you know that we can not hurry up God or move ahead of God and find success in our prayers and petitions.
Laying our burdens on the altar requires faith.
Too many times, we want to give it to God, but then try to remind him all of the circumstances that are going to hamper him from doing what we have asked.
God doesn't need to know all that. He knows the outcome, he just wants us to line-up our faith with his Word in the Bible and wait for the Word to manifest.
I am constantly reminded that we serve God best when we step aside in obedience and just watch God work. It's then that I we realize that God really is in control.
Do you remember the action of Moses' mother. She physically let her baby go when she put him in the basket and placed it in the water to save him. Because she trusted God, she was given the opportunity to do more for her son than she could of ever hoped for.
Could we as parents do that?
What does it say in Psalm 50:15?
It reads,“Call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.”
This morning, I ask you to join me in asking God to help us to be able to get out of the way and let go and let God work in our lives.
Letting go is not giving up.
Giving up is quitting.
That's not what we're talking about.
Letting go is allowing God to direct our paths and next moves in a walk of faith.
Be blessed.
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"It's finished", receive your answer to prayer

Greetings:
How many of you are frustrated when it seems your prayers are not answered?
We pray and pray and pray and it seems like God has a deaf ear to your petitions.
Believe me it happens. But much of it depends on us and how we pray.
More and more I am understanding that God has already done his part.
When Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished” as we read in John 19:30, He meant just that. His work on earth was done.
The atonement for our sins was complete. He provided everything we could ever need. We aren’t waiting on him to give us anything. He is waiting on us to receive.
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
Any blessing we could ever need or desire from the Lord is not something to strive for, but something you already have.
The verse says 'has blessed us”. It doesn't say he is going to at some time in the future bless us. It says it has already been done.
God made the provision before we had the need. It is just a simple matter of receiving what he has already done.
1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
Again, the verse says “you have been”, that's past tense – meaning it has already been done.
It’s already a done deal. So, why do we pray for healing to happen in the future.
Instead, we should just receive the healing that the Lord has already provided. There is a difference between fighting to get healed and fighting because we have been healed. That difference is the difference between success and failure.
The Lord has been showing me this truth through my study and revelation knowledge from the Holy Spirit  in recent months and these truths have become alive on the inside.
Many people just can’t grasp them, because they are trapped in their five senses. If they can’t see it, taste it, smell it, touch it, or hear it, they don’t think it exists. Therefore, when you say they have already been healed, they check their physical bodies with their five senses, and if they don’t look or feel healed, they say they aren’t.
God moves in the spiritual realm. Whether or not we see manifest in the physical realm what he has done in the spiritual realm is not dependent on his giving but on our own receiving.
Sometimes the physical manifestation of what God has already done comes with little effort. Other times, there is major demonic opposition that hinders the manifestation of what God has commanded.
We have to know and believe that God has already done his part and that any delay in our manifestation is not his fault. That will keep us in faith. Remember that faith is our positive response to what God has already done by grace.
If I hand you a gift, you don't have to keep praying and ask for it. You already have it. Open it,  enjoy it and be thankful for it.
It's the same thing with God.
Press on in praise, worship and thanksgiving what what God has done and thank him for answered prayer. It might take a only a few minutes, a day, a week, a month, a year or more to manifest, but keep praising and thanking.
We must thank him, thank him and thank him some more for answers to our prayers.
Be patient and know it is God's will for us to be whole and that means healed.
We don't have to ask for it. We just have to receive it and be thankful that God loved us enough to provide the means and the provision for us to be saved, healed and delivered.  It's a deal that is already signed, sealed and delivered to each of us as believers.  Receive it and be thankful because we know the price was paid in full by the Lord Jesus when he died for us on the cross.
Be blessed.

These morning messages are now available by email. Simply write me with you email address at schneider.nick@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to forward them to your in-box. Also, all of the photos in my daily blog are for sale. Contact me for pricing.