Hebrews 13:15NIV
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.”
Romans 12:1
“Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.”

Back when I was a teenager, I went to a weeklong youth camp. At this camp they had a lot of things to do, one of them was something called the blob the blob was like a blown up air mattress where you would jump on it, land on your butt, slide to the edge, and wait for someone else to land on it, and launch you in to the water. Sounds fun right? Well, it would have been, except for one small problem, I landed directly on my ankle, not my butt, and slide off the side of the blob. Now picture this, I’m under this cold, very cold water, and my foot is in major pain. I somehow made it to the shore and found out that by God’s grace, I did not break the foot.
Fast forward to the evening worship service, and I remember sitting there, in massive pain, and God speaking to me, for me to get up, and praise him. I did, and by the end of the week, my foot was completely healed.
That’s great, but what does that have to do with a sacrifice of praise?
Good question, before I answer let me draw your attention to another story, one that happened just today.
This past week, I had surgery on my knee, and have been slowly healing Yesterday, I was on the worship team, my knee was propped up in a chair. When worship started, while I wanted to be there, my knee was still in a good deal of pain. I had people asking me if I was ok, and I said yes, I’m all right, just sore I’d taken what pain medicine I could, so I knew that this would have to be one of them trust God moments.
As we worked our way through the worship set, I distinctly noticed about halfway through, that my knee, was reduced in pain. Yes, I felt it, but it was like someone had flipped a switch and for that moment in time, I hardly registered that my knee was hurting, even though I knew it was. This allowed me to focus on singing and leading the church in worship to God.
Once we were done, the switch flipped off again, and the pain I’d felt was back up again, but I knew why God had done it, he gave me enough grace to get through and accomplishes what he wanted from me.
In both cases, God wanted something from me, he wanted a sacrifice of praise, even though I was in a great deal of pain each time.
What about you? Is there something in your life, that God may be asking you to praise him in spite of? A trial, a loss, something?
I will not say that to do so is easy, but when you do offer him that praise, it is well worth it in the end.
I hope that this is useful to someone, God will meet you where you are at, and he will walk with you through it.
In Christ, Teresa Blaes.

What do you do when you’re told no?

You hear the call, the need for help, and you want to get involved in a ministry? As far as you can tell, your heart is in the right place? And yet, God says no whether it be directly, or through others?

I get it, hearing this can be hard, as I have received such an answer a few times in my walk, in fact, I wanted to work back with the kids at my church on a more regular basis, but was told not yet, you’re not ready.

In this case, I knew the reason why and trusted the one who gave me the reasoning, but even still this was a hard pill to swallow. I somehow still managed to choke it down regardless.

Yet this opens the door to a broader question, what do you do when God says no in general?

Maybe your asking for healing of a loved one, or for yourself? Maybe you want or need a better job, maybe it is something else entirely, but God says no.

I am reminded of the seen in the first God is not dead movie toward the end, the teacher is lying on the ground about to die, and he makes a statement that I am rather sure a good number of people through the years have said

“God says no a lot, doesn’t he.”

So, what do we do when faced with this?

I am not going to pretend to you my friend that I have a full answer to this question. I know that at this moment, I have found myself praying, “God, I don’t want to sit on the sidelines, I want in the game, I want to do this or that.”

Yet I know what I have been told, that God has only good mint for believers “for I know the plans I have for you plans to prosper you not to harm you says the Lord.” Jerimiah 29:11

“for all things work together for the good of those who love God, and are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

In those scriptures we have something that seems so simple, God has good planned, and specifically, in the Romans passage, we are told that even the things that don’t seem so good, work for the good of the believer.

However, let’s get real, can we take that to the bank? Is God telling us the truth in that, does his plans for us work out for good, even if they mean he has to say no, like a parent of a child who wants a cookie before dinner?

Or is God as some believe, a cosmic dictator?

I will not post the answer to that question here but will leave that for you to decide.

Can you think of any other reason God might say no, and furthermore, can you in your experience what you have done to cope with that answer, even if it was something you did not want to hear?

Please post your responses in the comment box, and I look forward to hearing from you.

In Christ, Teresa Blaes.

The 4th chapter of the book of Genesis tells the story of two men who took very different paths in life. These men were the brothers Cain and Abel. The Bible says that Abel brought a sacrifice to God of the best of his flock, while Cain brought the leftovers of the crops that he grew. God looked favorably on Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s.

This is the backdrop for what would come next and where I want to focus. Cain became very angry with the Lord and God responded.

Genesis 4:6-7 (NIV) reads:

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Because of his jealousy, Cain killed his brother and suffered the consequences of that action for the rest of his life. However, let’s look at this scripture from a different angle: doesn’t sin crouch at our doors every day? And are we not called to crucify the flesh every day, so that we can live for God? (Galatians5:24)

God calls us to be masters of our sin and slaves to Christ.  The important question is how exactly we can do that faithfully, every day.  One of the first things to ask yourself is this: in what area am I not submitting to Christ’s authority? I ask myself this often, and I find that it pops up as I go through out my day.  Am I letting my thoughts rule me, instead of me taking each and every single one of the blasted things captive? (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Cain let his bitterness rule him, and in the end, he killed his own flesh and blood out of anger. Do we do the same? Jesus said that if you hate someone in your heart, you have already murdered them. (Matthew 5:21-26) Hmm, that sounds a little convicting, doesn’t it? What about lust?  Our Lord said that if you lust after a woman you’ve already committed adultery in your heart.

There are many more examples I could give that the Lord speaks to, but you will find one common theme with all of them – it starts with the heart. The Bible says to guard your heart, because out of it comes the wellspring of life. (Proverbs 4:23)  It is in our heart that we decide daily whether we are going to serve God or serve our sin.  Cain learned this the hard way but luckily, we don’t have to.

I hope this was helpful to you, and you can always contact me if you have any questions.

In Christ, Teresa Blaes

I wrote this the day I returned from the Calvary Chapple women’s conference in El Passo Texas I just took some time and journaled My prayer is that this is a blessing to you the reader and that you will grow in Christ.

How can I find words to explain what I encountered, so much more than a religion so much more than just an average God of the Christian faith, so much more… what is the gospel? It is a romance offered by the lover of our soul, who sees us even in our deepest need so much more than a payment for Sin he ransomed us from the slave block of death, and the master called Hell we were bound to it, but Jesus out of love, nothing but pure love, of a kind we cannot even take hold of came and died, to ransom us, and take the key from the master, and lead us from the block. What does he want in return? He wants our love. And if we love him, we will obey his commands.

This isn’t a quick pro quo oh, you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. Not only does he pay for our debt, but then, when the Holy Spirit comes to us, to live inside of us, we then suddenly want to obey his commands, out of love for him, an all-consuming love we are not being held over a barrel what Jesus is saying, is if you have accepted my love then you will want to obey, your desires will change. You will want to please me because you love me.

And on the matter of pleasing God, what do we have to prove, to the one who knew us so completely so fully, and yet still, chose to love even the worst filthy sinners of us? We can prove nothing. to even to attempt to do so, is the depths of pride, and an insult to God. Of this, I have been guilty.