"All About Me"

"And you, being dead in your trespasses and uncircumsion of your flesh, HE has made alive together with HIM, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And HE has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross." Col. 2:13,14

Dear Praying Friends and Family,

This past week, my dear husband took Hannah Beth and me to a target range to brush up on our shooting skills-and i needed a lot of brushing up. After working through lunch at the restaurant, Johnny went to the store and finished getting what we needed in the way of ammo,(thankfully that is still available). When he got home he prepared the guns for us and had everything ready. Except for us helping him load up and carry everything to the truck, he did everything else to get ready. Johnny and Hannah Beth set up the targets that Johnny had brought along a big huge bank of red dirt. Those old political signs we've had lying around behind our garage came in handy for hanging targets on, and he and Hannah Beth clothes pinned the "human" paper target to the sign. We unloaded all the equipment, and Johnny and Hannah Beth began loading the cartridges the bullets go in. Hannah Beth showed me how to do that so i helped her while my husband was getting other gun things ready. We got on our ear protection, and i wore double, ear plugs and a head set, and it was still loud to me. Our pastor and his wife joined us and brought their guns and ammo and we had a "blast," literally. We started off shooting the handguns. I had been wanting to practice with one particular gun that i have claimed as mine. I liked it because it was lightweight and easy to carry, but Johnny knew when i actually ever shot it that i might not like it as well as i thought, and he was exactly right. I walked to the place to stand to shoot and Johnny had to remind me how to hold my gun-it had been a long time since i've taken a gun safety class. I held my gun the way Johnny showed me, and tried to pull the trigger. It was hard to pull. I scrunched up my face, and finally managed to get my nerve up to pull the trigger and shoot at the target. I don't think i got anywhere near where i was aiming. I did that a few more times, my finger reluctantly pulling the trigger each time, and i was humbled after that...i was a "winnie" when it came to shooting that gun, and i didn't want anything else to to do with it. The gun kicked everytime i shot it and hurt my hand and my arm, it was loud, and i missed terribly where i was aiming. Thankfully, Johnny didn't give up on me, though i did give up on that gun. He lovingly provided me, and the others with all kinds of guns to try, and i found a Glock, and another gun that was smooth and easy to shoot, and i was able to hit the target where i was aiming. Johnny spent most of his time helping Hannah Beth and me stay in guns and ammo, giving us pointers how to shoot, and reminding me not to walk in front of folks who are getting ready to shoot. I don't even recall him shooting while we were shooting the handguns for helping us do everything. When he and our pastor and HB went to shoot the "big guns," he did some shooting then. The rest of the time, it was "all about us."
Later on as i reflected on my husband's love to help his bride and my daughter learn to defend ourselves, I thought about how my husband really reminded me of CHRIST sacrificing HIS life for the Church, HIS bride. You see Johnny had already worked that day at the restaurant through lunch, and i know that every step he takes to provide for us, whether it be making a living, or teaching us to protect ourselves, is a step of pain, pain from arthritis in his joints, but he does that for us because he loves us.
A couple of weeks ago, at our ladies retreat our dear leader, Kathy Bond shared on the topic of "All About Me." I've always associated "All About Me," with a negative connotation, being focused on myself instead of CHRIST and others. When she shared, it made me think of "All About Me," in a whole different way than i ever had before. She started sharing, it really is all about me and you...how much CHRIST loves us and gave HIMself for us and gives and gives to us each and every day. I could see this in the way my husband lovingly gives and gives for our family each day as he lays down his life to provides spiritual leadership, love, protection, finances, wisdom, peace when termites invade our den like they did this week, and a myriad of other needs to me and our family. JESUS is our BRIDEGROOM, and the Church, those HE gave HIMself for to redeem from the bondage of sin, is HIS bride. HE shouts HIS love to us through all the blessings HE lavishes upon each and every moment of our lives...and most often our greatest blessings come from our greatest trials.
As i have been reflecting on the concept of "All About Me," since the retreat, and as i read through GOD's WORD, every page of the HIS WORD, shouts "I love you, I love you, I love you," from our Husband, JESUS. "For thy MAKER is thy HUSBAND." Isaiah 54:5

Would you match with a WISE HUSBAND? Haste then, sinners, come away to Jesus: He is the fountain of wisdom, and makes all that come unto him, wise unto salvation: "He is the wisdom of the Father: the Lord possessed him in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. When he prepared the heavens, he was there; when he appointed the foundations of the earth, then was he with him, as one brought up with him; he was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." As he is wise, so is he HOLY; and therefore, in the words of our text, he is stiled, "The Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:" and by the angel Gabriel, "That holy Thing." The apostles, addressing God the Father, stile him his "holy child Jesus:" and the spirits of just men made perfect, and the angels in heaven, cease not day or night, saying, "Holy, holy, holy." Nor is his BEAUTY inferior to his wisdom or holiness; the seraphs veil their faces, when they appear before him: "He is the chiefest among ten thousand, nay, he is altogether lovely." And, as he is altogether lovely, so is he altogether LOVING: his name and his nature is Love. God, God in Christ is love: love in the abstract. And in this has he manifested his love, in that, whilst we were yet sinners, may open enemies, Jesus, in his own due time, died for the ungodly. He loved us so as to give himself for us. O what manner of love is this! What was Jacob's love to Rachel, in comparison of the love which Jesus bore to a perishing world! He became a curse for us. For it is written, "Cursed is every man that hangeth upon a tree." What Zipporah said to her husband improperly, Jesus may say properly to his spouse the church, "A bloody wife hast thou been to me, because of the crucifixion." For he has purchased her with his own blood. And having once loved his people, he loves them unto the end. His love, like himself, is from everlasting to everlasting. He hates putting away: though we change, yet he changeth not: he abideth faithful. When we are married here, there comes in that shocking clause, t use the words of holy Mr. Boston, "Till death us doth part:" but death itself shall not separate a true believer from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus his Lord: for he will never cease loving his Bride, till he has loved her to heaven, and presented her before his Father, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. Nay, his love will, as it were, but be beginning, through the endless ages of eternity.
-from the sermon CHRIST the Believer's Husband, George Whitefield (1714-1770), http://www.biblebb.com/files/whitefield/GW012.htm


It's amazing how you hear or read Scripture for years and then little by little it starts sinking in, as the HOLY SPIRIT reveals HIS TRUTH to us...that because HIS WORD is eternal, and alive. Then all of the sudden it's like a light bulb goes off in your head...that's sort of the way this concept has been as i reflect on the Oceanflowing LOVE of my JESUS for us. I've been reading in Deuteronomy the past few days and from those verses from my daily Bible reading JESUS has been whispering to my heart, "I love you, Mitzi, and it is all about how much I love you, and those I have chosen to set my affections upon to lavish MY love upon"-WOW!

"For you are a holy people to the LORD your GOD; the LORD your GOD has chosen you to be a people for HIMself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set HIS love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people (or smarter, or richer, or American, these were the Israelites), but because the LORD loves you..."Deut.7:6-8.(He loves me). This was written to GOD's chosen people, the Jews, but because of what CHRIST has done for us on the cross, we Gentiles who have repented of our sins, and believed in the LORD JESUS are engrafted into the family tree... Romans 11:11-21. "But GOD demonstrate HIS love for us in that while we were yet sinners, CHRIST died for us."(I love you) and in Romans 11:25 Paul says, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery brothers, so that you may not be conceited:" Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in."(I love you) Those "Gentiles," are you and me, (anyone who is not a JEW) that GOD has set HIS love and affection upon...those HE has elected, vs. 28, to love us, save us, redeem us, bless us, and take us home to be with HIM and rule and reign with HIM. HE's preparing us right now for the position we are going to have with HIM to rule one day. II Tim.2:12, "If we suffer with HIM, we will reign with HIM: if we deny HIM, HE will deny us."
"Therefore know that the LORD your GOD, HE is GOD, the faithful GOD who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love HIM and keep HIS commandments; and HE repays those who hate HIM to their face, to destroy them." (I love you and I am a just GOD who repays those who reject MY gift of my SON to pay for their sins).
GOD is a GOD of justice who cannot look upon sin, and must punish sin. This is such a great and marvelous part of HIS dear love to you and me. As i began to understand more and more how very much GOD is holy,holy, holy, and we are born into sin, then i marvel at HIS dear love to me to send HIS perfect SON to pay the price for my sins, all of them. The past several weeks i have been reading about the sacrifices of the goats, bulls, pigeons, and grains in the Old Testament that were necessary for the priests to offer up in the Tabernacle so the sins of the Israelites would be forgiven. The Jewish religion was such a bloody religion as sacrifices from these animals were being made continuously for the sins of the people. Though i have realized for years now that this was a "picture" of the time that CHRIST would come and sacrifice HIMself for our sins once and for all on the Cross, this time as i read about all these sacrifices, it is dawning on me how very seriously that GOD takes our sin...sins like it states in 2 Timothy 3:2-5: "lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of GOD-having a form of godliness but denying its power....I'm guilty as charged, over and over, and that's only a partial list of multitude of sins I've committed, some even today, that CHRIST died to pay for for me.
I've been a CHRISTian for 27 years, but GOD is opening my eyes more and more that sin cannot dwell in HIS presence, and all those sacrifices in the Old Testament, pointed to the time when CHRIST would offer the perfect sacrifice and pay for all our sins. Over and over he warned Moses, to that "no outsider could come near to offer incense before the LORD." In other words, no one who was not a descendant of Aaron, the chosen line of priests, could come near and offer sacrifices. And we are told over and over in Scripture, that all those who are outside of CHRIST, will not be able to come to GOD. JESUS said in John 14:6, "I AM the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE, no man cometh to the FATHER, but by ME." In Matthew 22:1-14, JESUS tells the story of the wedding banquet and said,"
the kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who have been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, "Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet. But they paid no attention and went off-one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murders and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, "The wedding banquet is ready, but those i invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite anyone you find. So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing the wedding clothes. Friend, he asked, how did you get in here without wedding clothes? The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, "Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are invited, but few are chosen."

How do we get the wedding clothes to attend the KING's wedding banquet? GOD, in HIS great love for us, provides them to all who turn away from their self and repent of their sin, and trust in CHRIST 's sacrifice for our sin alone. "HE came to HIS own, and HIS own received HIM not. But as many as received HIM, to them HE gave power to become sons of GOD, even to them that believe on HIS name."John 1:11-12. JESUS clothes HIS bride in HIS robes of righteousness.
"I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my GOD. For HE has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Isaiah 61:10
Our KING in HIS dear love for me and you, sent HIS precious SON JESUS to shed HIS blood and be the Atoning Sacrifice, once and for all for our sin, and to be our Great High Priest who is Perfect and Sinless. Hebrews 7:25-28 states: "Therefore HE is able to save completely those who come to GOD through HIM, because HE always live to intercede for them.(I love you) Such a high priest meets our need-one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.(I love you) Unlike the other high priests,he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificied for their sins once for all when HE offered HIMself.(I love you) For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law appointed the SON, who has been made perfect forever."(I love you)
1 Peter 2:9, " But you are a chosen people,(just as my husband chose me to be his bride 27 + years ago) a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to GOD,(I love you) that you may declare the praises of HIM who called you out of darkness into HIS wonderful light." GOD has "rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the SON HE loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgivness of sins." Col.1:13 (I love you, I love you, I love you!)...
It is "ALL about Me and You," and those GOD has called to be HIS children...HE loves us so very much! "How great is the love the FATHER has lavished on us, that we should be called children of GOD! And that is what we are!" 1 John 3:1 GOD sends us out as HIS love ambassadors, like the king at the wedding banquet above, to show and tell others about HIS great love for us through HIS SON JESUS CHRIST and invite them to CHRIST. "For GOD so loved the world , that HE gave HIS only begotten SON that whosoever believes in HIM shall not perish but have everlasting life." (I love you!) GOD takes sin serious, dead serious, and it has to be paid for, atoned for...that's why GOD's love for us is so great...HE did it all for me and you to pay for our sins. For those reject HIS wonderful gift of HIS perfect SON who died for us...there is everlasting hell. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of GOD is eternal life through JESUS CHRIST our LORD."Romans 6:23 (I love you). Hebrew 2:3 says, "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?"
In Ephesians 5:25-27 Paul shares, "Husbands, love your wives, just as CHRIST loves the church and gave HIMself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to HIMself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (I love you)
If we have been partakers with Jesus in His shame, we shall be sharers with Him in the lustre which shall surround Him when He appears again in glory. Art thou, beloved one, with Christ Jesus? Does a vital union knit thee to Him? Then thou art to-day with Him in His shame; thou hast taken up His cross, and gone with Him without the camp bearing His reproach; thou shalt doubtless be with Him when the cross is exchanged for the crown. But judge thyself this evening; for if thou art not with Him in the regeneration,(born again), neither shalt thou be with Him when He shall come in His glory. If thou start back from the black side of communion, thou shalt not understand its bright, its happy period, when the King shall come, and all His holy angels with Him. What! are angels with Him? And yet He took not up angels--He took up the seed of Abraham. Are the holy angels with Him? Come, my soul, if thou art indeed His own beloved, thou canst not be far from Him. If His friends and His neighbou rs are called together to see His glory, what thinkest thou if thou art married to Him? Shalt thou be distant?

Though it be a day of judgment, yet thou canst not be far from that heart which, having admitted angels into intimacy, has admitted thee into union. Has He not said to thee, O my soul, "I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness"(Hosea 2:19)? Have not His own lips said it, "I am married unto thee, and My delight is in thee"( Jeremiah 3:14)? If the angels, who are but friends and neighbours, shall be with Him, it is abundantly certain that His own beloved Hephzibah, in whom is all His delight, shall be near to Him, and sit at His right hand. Here is a morning star of hope for thee, of such exceeding brilliance, that it may well light up the darkest and most desolate experience.


Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, March 26





My husband loves me, as CHRIST loves the church, and he has laid down HIS life for me and my kids for the past 26 years. When we got married, all i came into the marriage was myself, and a 1966 Mustang that my Dad restored while i was in high school. The engine in it blew up shortly after we got married, along with my health going south. GOD has used my husband to love me and provide for my many, many needs and wants through the years, ( kayaks, pets, bicycles, trips to see the Greene's, etc, drum set, campers, dulcimer, mandolin, etc) sacrificing his position as pastor, to care for me. My medical expenses made him feel the necessity of staying in the restaurant business with his family, instead of looking for another church. As much as my husband has done for me, he is still made of flesh and blood, and like me, he is a sinner. JESUS CHRIST, my ETERNAL HUSBAND, the SINLESS ONE, is the only one who can meet my deepest and most expensive needs- that of forgiveness for my sins. HE paid the price no one else could pay with HIS own life. "But GOD demonstrates HIS love for us in that while we were yet sinners, CHRIST died for us."(I love you) HE spends all of eternity lavishing HIS love upon HIS bride, the CHURCH.
The Greene's, (www.thegreenesgospel.com) sing a beautiful song called "All for Me," on their "Far Down the Road," CD that i've used before in my emails. The message of CHRIST's love, "All for Me," is so perfect for what i've been trying to share with you this morning...lessons that JESUS is continuing to lovingly teach me day by day, how very much HE loves me and you and HE really is "All About Me" and you.

"All For Me" by Jason Burton

A crown of thorns upon your head where one of gold should go instead
Pressing down until YOU bled, all for me, all for me.
Bruised and beaten by the crowd, Mocked and scorned they led YOU out
Grief and pain was all YOU found, all for me, all for me.

Chorus:
If i had been the only one, YOU would have done it still for love
What grace untold, what love indeed, all for me, all for me

Blood flowed down your wounded side, the people laughed your FATHER cried,
The SON of GOD laid down to die, All for me, all for me.

YOUR body weak and wracked with pain, the SINLESS ONE, the KING of KINGS
Hung on a cross between two thieves, All for me, all for me
YOU took the chains so i'd go free, All for me, all for me
The SPOTLESS LAMB became unclean, All for me, all for me.

With all HIS love,
mitzi





Please join me in praying for our President's salvation:
http://christianadc.org/resources (7 Reasons Why Barack Obama is Not a CHRISTIAN)


White House Correspondent Bill Koenig and Jan Markell go around the world in 120 minutes:
http://www.olivetreeviews.org/radio/mp3/


http://www.watch.org/ Great site for White House, World News, and Christian encouragement including, Charles Spurgeon, Oswald Chambers, Streams in the Desert, Daily Light, and more