Hey, I've got great news! My sister finally... after 7 months of waiting... got her wife-visa and in 2 days she had her ticket and flew back home to her beloved husband. I think it is so amazing how the Lord leads two people together! I can't find the verse that I was looking for... but it says something like: it is a mystery how a man finds his way into a maiden's heart... and I think it is. There are so many wonderful people around us... but there is just the one who is truly right for us... only one who is one with our soul. It really is the only way to be married - to the one whom the Lord has especially designed and crafted for us. I believe that just like the Word says that there is NO way that we will ever (during this life) be able to get to know the Lord fully and understand Him fully... it is the same with the person the Lord has for us. We will never get enough of learning to know him/her. There is always the new excitement of finding out new things about that one special person... new excitement of growing more together... new excitement of doing things together... the excitement of being one with him/her. There is this security of knowing the person next to us... and at the same time the excitement of finding out more all the time! Wow! It is amazing how perfect the Lord has designed everything.

This made me think how far men and women who do not know the Lord have actually moved from men being truly masculine and women being truly feminine. I think the only way to find our way back to true masculinity and true femininity is through truly learning to know the Lord. He said in Genesis 1:26 that He created us in His image, in His likeness. Only He knows what is true masculinity and what is true femininity. Although the world has moved so far from those roles, we all have the innate desire and longing - men for feminine women and women for masculine men. What we see all around us are women who are becoming more and more masculine by putting their careers ahead of their husbands and children, boozing sometimes even more than men, smoking... And men are becoming more and more vain, concentrating so much on their looks and beauty routines... "Self" has become the center of our lives... without us even realizing that this makes us only more and more miserable.

I have watched those women who truly know their God. It is so amazing to me that those women actually become more beautiful with age... not only on the inside but also on the outside. Something is added to them that they did not have in their youth. I think it is the true intimacy with God and the resulting true femininity. They are so beautiful and radiant, so strong on the inside and yet so gentle and vulnerable. Often those women have also developed successful careers or ministries but not at the expense of their marriage and family. And what I've noticed that their husbands are happy with them. They are still in love with them. Such women are my heroines! :-) Also the men who have learned to deeply know their Lord are truly masculine - strong on the inside and at the same time really daring to be gentle and vulnerable, treating their wives with love and respect and caring for their children... Both, true masculinity and true femininity are God's image and character... and we have the innate longing for both. When we as women lose our femininity, we lose our identity... we lose ourselves. The same is with men. When they lose their masculinity, they lose their identity.

God tells us in Proverbs 3:5-8: "Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; reverently fear and worship the Lord and turn [entirely] away from evil. It shall be health to your nerves and sinews, and marrow and moistening to your bones." We think we know better what is good for us... but the truth is, God surely does know better. God's Wisdom prolongs our days and it gives us lives worth living!

The more we learn to know the Lord the more we learn to understand ourselves, the dreams and desires in our hearts. The more we learn to know the Lord the more capable we become, the more able we become... the more we understand how much more is possible for us and available for us. Proverbs 21:30 says that "there is no [human] wisdom or understanding or counsel [that can prevail] against the Lord." God has got ALL the wisdom that there is. He knows all. He understands everything. He has got all the answers. Whatever we want to know, He already knows it and is ready to share it with us for James 1:5 promises: "If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him." ...though if we think we are more wise than God or we go to Him with a wrong attitude... the Lord says that "a scoffer seeks Wisdom in vain [for his very attitude blinds and deafens him to it], but knowledge is easy to him who [being teachable] understands." (Prov. 14:6) ...I guess this is one of the reasons some people boast of having read the Bible but finding nothing usable there. Their attitude has made them completely blind to the wisdom.

Proverbs 29:18 says: "Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish." ...we do not perish physically but we do perish emotionally and spiritually. When we have no vision from God for our lives, when we have no deep revelation of the truth, we go downhill. We might have all the wealth and power and great honor in people's eyes but if we have rejected God and His wisdom, we are dieing on the inside. We do not know who we truly are. We do not know where we are going. We have no security. We constantly feel that we have to fight for ourselves and prove ourselves. We seek and we search but are not fulfilled nor whole. And yet God knows the plans He has for us... He has put the very best ready for every single one of us. Psalm 139:16 says: "Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them."

I think it is so beautiful. God loved us so much. He created each of us so special, so unique. He put special gifts and talents within us. He put special dreams into our hearts. He wrote down the plan for our lives... the flawless, perfect plan... a plan that would lead us straight to the good for us... to the one true love of our lives, to the dream job for us, to the dream home for us... He created us all to win! He created us all to be successful! But as this world is ruled by the devil (Ephesians 6:12), he is trying to get us out of the plan of God all the time. This is his job. But even when we stray, God's will for our lives never changes. His will is still the same... and we can always find our way back to it... by seeking Him first and putting Him first in our lives. When we learn to know Him better, we will find out His best for our lives and then we can just receive it from Him.

We were created in God's image and in His likeness. He knows us the best. When we learn to know Him intimately, we learn to know ourselves. When we learn to know Him intimately, we can finally become all that He created us to be... which is the only thing that will give us complete fulfillment and contentment in this life. Wow! ...nothing missing, nothing broken!

Heaps of blessings to You all,

Liver is most active during Spring-time. All nature is being renewed. A new cycle of life begins. This affects our livers, causing most grown ups, especially in the western busy world to have overburdened livers. Overladen liver causes dry skin, dry hair, hair loss, migraines, headaches, high blood pressure, indigestion. Overburdened liver is also called „over-heated” liver. As heat moves upward, it causes problems in the head section. Emotional problems that occur due to congested liver are: irritation, anger, mood swings etch.

Huge number of diseases have their roots in unhealthy liver. Most people who have developed heart problems, have had an extended period of overburdening their livers. People in western world are constantly so busy, not taking enough time to calm and be at peace emotionally. Too many ambitions harm liver. Great desire for power, wealth, fame, sex, money... also emotions of anger, hate, un-forgiveness all cause stress that puts too great pressure on liver. I believe this is one of the main reasons the Lord insists in His Word that we rest in Him. Our disobedience to rest and give all our burdens to Him causes many health problems.

No wonder the Lord orders us to rest one day a week. Exodus 23:12 says "Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed."

Exodus 31:15 has a serious warning for us: "Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." ...I believe that this verse is telling us very clearly that we shall die prematurely if we wear ourselves out with too much work and worry.

Exodus 34:21 reminds us again "Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest [on the Sabbath]."

Isaiah 63:14 teaches us where is the true rest: "the Spirit of the LORD caused them to rest."

In Matthew 11:28,29 the Lord invites us: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls."

If we do not take this quiet time, our livers get seriously damaged, causing a myriad of health problems. We then visit a doctor who prescribes synthetic drugs for us, causing even greater damage to our livers. Sick liver in turn causes other organs to malfunction... and again we "need" a doctor. This is a vicious cycle.

Although it is not possible to heal the liver only with food and supplements (without resting in the Lord), there are things we can do to calm and heal our livers. An important thing to remember is to eat the lightest foods in Spring. Our bodies are in need of a good Spring-clean, so, we need to feed our bodies with light foods that are easy to digest.

We have to cut out (hopefully for forever) all white flour products, white sugar products and unhealthy fats. We can substitute white flour with corn four or other whole flours, white sugar with unrefined raw sugar, honey, molasses or rice syrup, and unhealthy fats with pure butter and extra virgin olive oil. We should reduce the consumption of meat, cheese, eggs and salt.

Very important Spring-time supplements are seaweeds. We can find good seaweed products like Spirulina, Chlorella, Wild Blue-Green and others from our local health food stores. Seaweeds help heal liver. Omega-3-fatty acids should become a part of our Spring diet. Unrefined goat milk and lamb milk are very beneficial. Spring foods that help calm liver are rice, buckwheat, sprouts, beans, lentils, seeds, fresh vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables and fresh fruits, especially apricots. Herbs that are beneficial are: basil, balm, cardamon, ginger, black pepper, mints, laurel, horseradish and especially dandelion.

A good cleanser for the body is comprised of 1 tablespoonful of apple cider vinegar or brown rice vinegar and 1 tablespoonful of raw honey, mixed in 1 glass of water. Drink it before a meal.

I wish You all a beautiful Spring and a calm liver.

Most of the health tips are from Chinese Medicine doctor Dr.Toomas Tiik's article "Spring Wisdom For Our Bodies".

For more health articles visit: http://www.TheSpringOfLife.net

Love & blessings,

I just got off the phone with my friend... who has lately rushed around and made many wrong decisions... hurting herself and others. We were talking about waiting for God. To my greatest surprise she repeated again and again, I hope I will not miss the right thing... voicing her concern that when she takes the time to wait for the Lord, she might miss the right thing. I never thought that anyone could think like that... but then again when I first heard about waiting for God, I just could not figure out how waiting for God could change anything or solve any problem. It was just totally beyond me. I mean, I would just be sitting and meditating on the Word and things would change... yeah, right!!

Now when I have taken time daily to meditate on verses about waiting for the Lord, I am starting to understand how it works. When I wait for the Lord, it is not a passive sitting and staring at a candle. Nor is it sitting and repeating one word (I was shocked to hear that in yoga (can't remember which one) they repeat a meditation: sa-ta-na ...which actually comes from the word satan... inviting the devil himself to join their meditation... hmmm.... what great wisdom can come out of that!). When we wait for the Lord we take all of our attention from our problems, from our worries, from our circumstances and we put all our attention to the Lord... Who has ALL the answers. When our attention is on Him, we can hear His answers to our problems... which actually means that we won't have to rush around, wasting our time and energy to find solutions... but we can instead relax and rest and receive the answers from the Creator Himself... answers that would get us from where we are to where we need to be much faster and easier than any other way!

It is just our human thinking that we NEED to be doing something ALL the time in order to be productive. We are trained to think this way. I mean everyone else does it. It must be right then! ...yeah, right! Where have we got with that?! At the same time when people have really taken the time to wait for the Lord, they have even invented things that no one had ever seen before! Many scientists have been Christians (or their search for the Truth led them to the Bible) who had learned the lesson of waiting for God... and their lives became very fruitful. We think that only a few people were created to be geniuses, but this is not true! We all have been given gifts and talents that we are not even using. God knows those gifts and talents He has given us. He wants us to use them. He has planned a wonderful life for every one of us, "prepared the roads for us to travel" ... but without Him we just don't find them. ...Doesn't it actually make sense to wait for Him, His wisdom, His guidance?!

Psalm 33:22 says: "Let Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, in proportion to our waiting and hoping for You." God's mercy toward us and His loving-kindness are absolutely limitless! There is no end to His mercy! There is no end to His loving-kindness... and yet here He says that He can display His mercy in our lives and His loving-kindness towards us only in proportion to our waiting for Him and hoping for Him. Hmmmm....

Although Luke 1:37 promises us that "for God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment." ...still it is not only up to God to move powerfully in our lives and bless us abundantly. There is a part we need to play. So often we find a verse in the Bible that seems to be an answer to our problem and we speak it and claim it just like the Word teaches us to do... but nothing happens. Then we... like a lot of Christians have already... decide that the Word of God does not work... that it just doesn't help to rely on the Word of God... and we try to fix our own problem.

Yet Isaiah 59:1 tells us that "the Lord's hand is NOT shortened at all, that it cannot save, nor His ear dull with deafness, that it cannot hear." We can be absolutely sure that God does hear our prayers. We can be absolutely sure that He is right where He promised to be: with us, ready to help us and minister to us... so what is the problem?? Verse 2 has the answer: "But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear."

God is ALWAYS doing His part. God is ALWAYS keeping His promises to us... it is us who are not doing our part! And sometimes this sin that Isaiah 59:2 is talking about is NOT waiting for the Lord or truly hoping for Him. I remember the testimony of Rufus Mosley who said that one time when he was really deep in trouble, he was in his hotel room, crying out to God... until suddenly a revelation came... here he was crying out to God and telling Him what kind of trouble he was in, doing all the talking to Someone who knew it all without him repeating it over and over again... while not even taking a bit of time to be quiet and listen to what He - Who had ALL the answers - had to say. R.Mosley said that to his greatest surprise, when he finally shut up, God started to talk. ...yes, God is a true Gentleman, He does not intrude nor does He speak when we are doing all the talking.

Psalm 33:18 says: "Behold, the Lord's eye is upon those who fear Him [who revere and worship Him with awe], who wait for Him and hope in His mercy and loving-kindness." ...the Lord's eye is upon those who wait for Him and hope in His mercy and loving-kindness... He looks after those who wait for Him... He ministers to them... He shows them the right way. There is NO chance that we miss the right thing when we wait for the Lord. I mean how on earth could we miss it when He has got ALL the answers and He is ready to reveal them to us when only we take the time to listen!

He has promised us in Isaiah 30:18: "And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!"

He has promised us in Lamentations 3:25: "The Lord is good to those who wait hopefully and expectantly for Him, to those who seek Him [inquire of and for Him and require Him by right of necessity and on the authority of God's word]."

...and finally, one of my absolute favorites, Isaiah 30:15: "For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength."

There ARE great benefits in waiting for the Lord. Yay! ...but no, I don't think waiting comes naturally to any of us ;-)

Many, many blessings to You,

Lately a message about waiting upon the Lord has come through so many sources. Waiting is also the message the Lord has been giving to me. There have never been faster-paced life-styles than at this time. We are busy, busy, busy all the time. There are so many things to do, so many places to go to! There are so many possibilities all around us and we only have this one life! So, we've got to try as many things as possible to get a glimpse of what real life is all about... or so we think! Even when we realize that we need to spend more time with the Lord, we still can't really find the time to do it.

It is so true! Life is exciting and there truly are so many possibilities all around us... but do we know which ones to choose? Our thinking is so limited. Even if we have learned to expand our thoughts, still, without getting God's thoughts, our thoughts are greatly limited. God sees the whole picture. He knows what He has put ready for each and every one of us. We are worried about today and today's decisions... but He sees so much further. He knows all of our future. He knows all of our thoughts, our plans, our business. He knows when we are about to make wrong choices and create a mess that will take months, even years to clear.

When we seek the Lord, we all have certain knowing in our hearts about things. We do sense Him leading us this way or that. Unfortunately if we do not take the time to calm down completely and listen to His plan and His thoughts, we will translate what we have heard with our own limited thinking and are ready to rush out and fulfill the plan on our own. I have done that. God has shown me things and I have translated them with my own limited thinking, without waiting to hear what He has to say about them... and of course I have messed up!

...but we do not need to mess up. We do not need to try this and that in order to then stumble on the right thing eventually. God never meant it to be like that. We need to listen to Him. He has got all the answers. He knows the way... and He is ready to lead us straight to those things that are right for us, without us having to go through those trial and error stages. We often think that we do not have time to listen to Him. We need to act! But this is wrong. We NEED to take the time to listen to Him. It might take hours or days or even months to hear the right answer... but when we do wait for Him daily, He is able to lead us much quicker to the right place instead of us rushing around and trying to find the right answer on our own... and in the end when we do get to where we are supposed to be at, through trial and error... we are tired and worn out. But when we take the time and wait for the Lord, when He shows us the right answer, we will be ready and rested and relaxed and full of new energy to speed forward in His Wisdom. And we will win... for we have the wisdom of the Creator Himself... whose thoughts are heaps and bunches higher than our tiny, limited thoughts.

Waiting for God renews our strength, our courage and power:

Psalms 31: 24 says: "Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for and hope for and expect the Lord!"

Isaiah 40:31 promises: "But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired. "

No matter what we are going through, God promises that He is our Help and our Shield! He can keep His promise to us when we take time to listen to His guidance... for how could He protect us when we don't even hear His warnings? It has literally saved lives to obey the leadings of the Lord.

Psalms 33:2 promises: "Our inner selves wait [earnestly] for the Lord; He is our Help and our Shield."

Often when we have already messed up, we think that we need to go and quickly fix the mess... but the opposite is true. We got ourselves into the mess by running ahead of God and doing our own thing... we surely won't get out of our mess by repeating the mistake. God never told us to go and fix our own messes. He repeatedly tells us to wait for Him to get an answer from Him and thus get our mess fixed...

Psalms 40:1-2 promises: "I waited patiently and expectantly for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings."

Psalm 62:1 says: "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation."

Proverbs 20:22 teaches us: "Do not say, I will repay evil; wait [expectantly] for the Lord, and He will rescue you."

Proverbs 29:26 tells us what is true wisdom: "Many crave and seek the ruler's favor, but the wise man [waits] for justice from the Lord."

Lamentations 3:26 says: "It is good that one should hope in and wait quietly for the salvation (the safety and ease) of the Lord."

...unlike the Israelites who after God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, delivered them from their enemy and sure death, started to immediately do their own thing and brought worse things upon themselves:

"But they hastily forgot His works; they did not [earnestly] wait for His plans [to develop] regarding them, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted and tried to restrain God [with their insistent desires] in the desert. And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls and [thinned their numbers by] disease and death." (Ps. 106:13-15)

At times we may want something so, so bad, desiring it so completely that we are not willing to submit the desire to the Lord to even find out whether this is God's absolute best for us. When we are so insistent about something, God allows us to have those things. Unfortunately sometimes we find out far too late that those desires of ours have only brought disaster. But God promises us that not one single one of those who take time to wait for Him, for His wisdom and His guidance shall be put to shame. Those who wait for Him and listen to Him will get the kind of wisdom that the rulers of the world crave for:

"And kings shall be your foster fathers and guardians, and their queens your nursing mothers. They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick up the dust of your feet; and you shall know [with an acquaintance and understanding based on and grounded in personal experience] that I am the Lord; for they shall not be put to shame who wait for, look for, hope for, and expect Me." (Isaiah 49:23)

"The Lord is good to those who wait hopefully and expectantly for Him, to those who seek Him [inquire of and for Him and require Him by right of necessity and on the authority of God's word]." (Lamentations 3:25)

Isaiah 30:18 gives us an absolutely awesome promise: "And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!"

God's promises cannot be fulfilled any other way but through us waiting for His wisdom and guidance. We can't fulfill God's promises in our own limited strength and wisdom... for God never gives a vision or a dream to us that is so tiny and limited that we can fulfill it in our own human thinking... never! God gives us visions and dreams that require His wisdom and power and resources to become true. And there is another thing - we ourselves need to change in order to be trusted with such awesome visions that He has for us... and the only way we truly change is in His presence! Hebrews 6:12 tells us: "In order that you may not grow disinterested and become [spiritual] sluggards, but imitators, behaving as do those who through faith (by their leaning of the entire personality on God in Christ in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness) and by practice of patient endurance and waiting are [now] inheriting the promises."

We inherit God's promises when we take time to listen to Him and wait for Him... allowing Him to make us all that we can be. The powerful testimonies in the Bible are not cute, little stories written for us to pass the time... they are real-life stories of faith giants who inherited the promises of God. When we take time to meditate upon them, faith will rise within us and the wisdom of God will be given us to see our dreams and visions come true... His way, not our way.

We can be absolutely sure that He is 100% behind His promises for Isaiah 55:11 says: "So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void [without producing any effect, useless], but it shall accomplish that which I please and purpose, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

Awesome!

Many, many blessings to You all,

A few nights ago I had a dream... a dream that (to my understanding) described very vividly the "power" of my prayers for someone very special... someone I have carried in my prayers for quite a while. From my dream I realized that my prayers did not have the kind of power they should have had. That really hurt. I know my prayers were earnest, heartfelt and continued. They were straight from my heart and poured out in love... but they lacked true power... and I knew why! I knew I had to put something right in my life before my prayers could have tremendous power, dynamic in its working!

I had allowed sin to be in my life. Without the Bible I would not have considered it sin... but Bible is very clear about what is sin and what is not. Sin always brings death. My sin reduced the power of my prayers. I guess the Lord knew how to show it to me in a way that would truly bring a change into my life. It hurt me the most to understand that my prayers for someone I so cared for did not have full power.

We so often (including me... especially me!!!) quote the Scriptures that show us the power of prayer and promise that every one of our prayers WILL be answered if we truly believe in our hearts... and it is true. Real faith is in our hearts. Our heart faith changes lives and circumstances. ...but we have strong faith in our hearts when our relationship with God is right. I thought I had... until God showed me this dream. It really hurt that I had grieved God by not getting rid of something that I knew was wrong in my life. I just didn't take it that seriously.

Oh, sure, we have bold access to the thrown of God through the blood of Christ. Of course we do. And we are cleansed of all sin through the blood of Christ. And we could live our whole lives by just accepting the sacrifice of God for us and know that in the end we will go to heaven... but what's the point if our prayers only have some power?! I mean what is the point of living a Christian life only half-way?! What is the point of just going to church and fellowshipping with other Christians ...and still entertain some secret sins in our lives! I mean no person might know about it! But God knows! Also the devil knows... and he sure is not going to leave us alone! The devil only seeks for those little openings to come into our lives and destroy!

1 Peter 5:8 says: "that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour."

John 10:10 says: "The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)."

God's desire for us it to have a good life to enjoy... have an abundant life to the full, till it overflows! This is God's heart's desire for us. He wants to bless us and to do good to us. He is there for us, waiting for us to pray to Him... wanting to answer every single one of our prayers! The Word says that nothing is impossible with God. Ephesians 3:20 confirms that, saying:

"Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]."

God is able and God is willing to move powerfully in our lives... but He can move only in exact proportion to the action of His power that is at work within us... the more we know Him, the greater is His power at work within us. The more we allow His Word into our hearts, the more we have Him in our hearts... Him and His power. It is not enough to just know what the Bible says... the devil knows it too... but to have the Word rooted in our hearts for James 1:21 says: "Receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted [in your hearts] contains the power to save your souls." So, if God is able to answer our prayers and He is willing to answer our prayers... there must be something or someone hindering our prayers if they are not answered. Isaiah 59:1-2 says:

"Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened at all, that it cannot save, nor His ear dull with deafness, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear."

It is our sins that are hindering our prayers from getting answered. Of course God does not love us any less. He still loves us dearly... but our connection with Him is hindered. I am so grateful that God is so merciful and loving. He does not push us away when we sin... and He does not tell us that sin is bad because He wants to control us and keep us from having fun in life. No, He sent Christ on the cross that we might have abundant and good lives that we truly enjoy! He is asking us to stop doing certain things because He knows that those things open the door for the devil to come and do havoc in our lives. If God shows us something through His Word, through our pastor or someone else in authority ...or shows us some things that are not even in the Word ...if He tells us to do something, we can always be sure that He tells us those things in order to be able to bless us and do good to us. It is worth to put things right with God... there are rewards in rightness... and He shows us the way to do it:
"Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working]." ...when we put things right, our prayers will have tremendous power, dynamic in its working!

Many, many blessings to You all,

Eve

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