Strengthening Our Spiritual Health

By: Melissa Baker

We are getting to the end of the first month of the new year. Those who have made new years resolutions might still be hanging on, while others have either achieved their goal or have given up. A common resolution that people often make is to lose weight or get healthy. I know that this is something that we have been working on in our home as well. We are trying to eat right, trying to exercise everyday and trying to make good and healthy choices. We are trying to strengthen our physical bodies. And although our physical health is really important, our spiritual health is even more important. 

Just like we work hard to strengthen our bodies, we also need to strengthen our minds and our faith. We need to gain wisdom on how to achieve our spiritual goals, and grow our faith just like we grow our bodies. Staying in the Word of God is one way to strengthen our spiritual health. We must read our Bibles if we expect to strengthen our faith and grow in our walk with the Lord. We must feed our minds with the "food" it needs to nourish it. There is so much wisdom in the Bible, as well as important information we need to be able to walk the Christian walk. It is literally our instruction manual for life! So dig in everyday!

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

2 Timothy 3:16

Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

Romans 15:4

Another way we can strengthen our spiritual health is to attend a church. Not only will we get to fellowship with other Christians, but we will hear the word of God in sermon form, as well as get closer to God as we worship Him. Our family attends services on both Sunday's and Wednesdays at our church. We start the week off with our Sunday service, and by Wednesday, we need to refuel! We need that mid week connection with other believers and to hear the word of God. We need that mid week refuel to gain spiritual strength to finish the rest of the week. So if you don't already attend a local church, I encourage you to find one! 

And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Hebrews 10:25

Prayer is another very important step to strengthening our faith. It is our direct communication with our God. If we don't speak with Him, how can we communicate and grow our relationship? For example, if we don't talk to our husband or the people in our lives, how will we get close with them? How will we even have a relationship? It works the same with God. If we don't communicate with Him, there is no relationship. So prayer is a MUST! 

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

James 5:16

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Philippians 4:16

'Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is

God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.'

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

All these things will help us grow closer to the Lord and strengthen our faith and spiritual health. Let's not just focus on our bodies and other worldly things this year, lets renew our minds as well. It is so incredibly important to have a relationship with Jesus! And reading our Bibles, praying, attending church and worshiping Him will draw us ever close to Him and He will move in our lives like never before. We just have to be intentional about it, and actually let Him move! So weather you make new years resolutions or not, lets make a resolution right now to be intentional about strengthening our spiritual health and our relationship with the Lord. 

Talking to Jesus: A Fresh Perspective on Prayer

By: Melissa Baker

I have recently had the opportunity to read Talking to Jesus: A Fresh Perspective on Prayer by Jeannie Blackmer. This is such a great book. It is primarily focused on the book of Mathew. Each section of the book contains a story, followed by personal response and reflection with scriptures, and a space to write your own reflection or prayer. This book really reminds me that the people in the Bible that talked to Jesus really are just like us. They were human. They had troubles just like we do. And that really gave me new insights in my personal Bible reading and prayer life. I enjoyed reading all of the stories, most of which are well known and important stories. I also loved reading the personal responses after each story. It goes into depth and explains each story while putting a brand new perspective on the story and the people in them. The reflection section has several scriptures relating to the story, which gives the reader the opportunity to further study and dig deeper into what was just read. And lastly the observations section asks you a question about your own thoughts or observations about the story and ends in a prayer. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be closer to Jesus and who may even need a new perspective on prayer. I know I am always trying to get a new perspective on things, prayer being one of them. This book really does give you a fresh perspective on prayer!

About the Author:

Jeannie Blackmer is the author of MomSense: A Common Sense Guide to Confident Mothering and Boy-sterous Living: Celebrating Your Loud and Rowdy Life with Sons, and co author of Where Women Walked: Powerful True Stories of Women’s Perseverance and God’s Provision. Her articles have been published in Guideposts, Today’s Christian Woman, Thriving Family, MomSense and more. She is also a frequent guest blogger on several Christian Women’s blogs. 

Jeannie earned her bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Colorado in Boulder. She is married to Zane and they have three adult sons who, for now, all reside in Boulder CO. 

About the Book:

Sometimes it’s easier to pour our hearts out to someone we can see in front of us- our inability to physically see Jesus can make us feel far from him. We often wish that we could see him face to face as we pray.

Talking to Jesus helps us bridge that gap. Based on well known accounts of Jesus taken from the New Testament, this book shows that the people who met Jesus had the same worries, hopes, and questions that we have today. Through this collection of biblical encounters, we can take a fresh look at conversations between Jesus and those who believed that he could help them. The heartfelt requests of these people show Jesus’s love for everyone, from the earliest believers who spoke with him in person to modern believers who pray to him today. 

Talking to Jesus reminds us that we can talk to Jesus anywhere, anytime about anything, because he is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Back To The Basics

By: Melissa Baker

As we start this new year, I am reminded of something we should all be aware of. In the middle of our busy lives, we forget sometimes that it is supposed to be all about God. We have work, church, our kids, our husbands, extra-curricular activities etc, and we make our lives all about us. It is so easy to get distracted by everything we have going on, that we forget to put our focus on God. The very first sentence in the Bible said that God was the beginning. He was the thing that started this life, the solar system, the universe and everything inside of it. God created Heaven and Earth, and we sometimes forget that.  We try so hard to define what life is all about when it is all about God, and it will always be about God. 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
  Genesis‬ ‭1:1‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God is the beginning and the end. He is the maker of all of us. God still sits on the throne. And it is up to us to acknowledge that and let Him take control. I have read that one of the best ways to understand something, is to go back to the basics. The basic foundation of our lives is God.  Sometimes we let life get the best of us, and slowly we start drifting away from God, and before we know it, we don’t even know Him anymore. So let’s start this new year off right! We need to make this life about the one who it is supposed to be about. Reading our Bible and praying to God daily is so important. We need to make God the focus and foundation of our lives, even more so than He already is. Let’s get back to the basics. Let’s go back to God!

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Revelation‬ ‭22:13‬ ‭NIV

Say and Pray Devotions- Review and Giveaway

By: Melissa Baker

Say and Pray Devotions is such a cute devotional for little ones. Each page has a phrase, a scripture that applies to that phrase as well as a little prayer. For instance, on the first page, the phrase is "I'm ready for a happy day! See my smile?" The scripture is Psalm 118:24 "This is the day the Lord has made". The prayer says "Thank You, God, for each new day! Amen." The pictures in this book have the actual word so the child can read what it is (ex: if there is a towel in the picture, it has the word "towel" next to it.) My 3 year old immediately picked this book up and started looking through it. The bright colors and pictures kept his attention as we read it. I would highly recommend this book for babies and toddlers for their first devotional!

SAY & PRAY DEVOTIONS

Bestselling children’s author Diane Stortz has sold nearly 300,000 books—Bible storybooks, devotionals for children, and more. This brand-new title, Say & Pray Devotions, is the perfect beginner devotional for little ones.

Parents who already know and love the Say & Pray Bible will love Say & Pray Devotions as it helps their youngsters continue to engage their faith in a personal way. Featuring the same fun style of artwork and the educational elements as Say & Pray Bible, this devotional for little ones will teach the basics of identification and comprehension while sharing biblical principles for life. Each devotion offers a topical message to help little ones learn and follow biblical principles.

OFFICIAL  WEBSITE TO PURCHASE: http://store.faithgateway.com/say-pray-devotions 

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