Just Be Loved

December 22, 2014December 22, 2014 - Amy Leave a comment

Have you ever researched what your name means? I didn’t for a long time for fear of finding out that it might mean “harry goat” or something. It’s actually quite interesting to find out what the origins and variations are.

I never gave the meaning of Amy much credence until somewhat recently. My name means “Beloved”.

Dearly beloved or beloved.

I love the surprise that my name means something that I tend to have struggles with. Beloved.

Be. Loved.

I think God might just be trying to tell me something. My own struggles with accepting love stems mainly from self-love, mostly. Which in the scheme of things doesn’t mean a hill of beans compared to the love that God has for me. So why is it so hard?

This is a path that I am walking out with help of God’s mighty grace. Learning to love yourself how you are right now takes BIG grace. It takes BIG mercy and even BIGGER strength.

Just be loved. Accept it. Be loved by your husband. By your children. By your coworkers. By your friends. By your parents. By yourself.

By God.

The LORD your God among you is powerful— he will save and he will take joyful delight in you. In his love he will renew you with his love; he will celebrate with singing because of you. – Zephaniah 3:17

I recently got the pleasure of listening to Christy Nockel’s CD Into the Glorious. God knew that I needed to listen to this one. I am a big fan of her’s. We use some of her songs on our worship team at church so I’m familiar with many. In fact, one of my favorites is on this CD- “Waiting Here For You” is so good.

Some new ones on this CD that I had never heard that I now love are, “Sing Along”, “Wonderful”, and “Into the Glorious”. But they are ALL so good.

After turning on this album, God lead me to track #5 which is called “Be Loved”. There were tears. It speaks to my struggle.

Be loved. Beloved. That is what my name MEANS! I mean, God places just what we need in our path at the right time. This song washed over me like a refreshing river of truth.

If you can relate at all to my struggle, this whole album is so good for you. Highly recommended!

Track List:

Ever Lifting
For Your Splendor
Wonderful
Into the Glorious
Be Loved
Waiting Here for You
Sing Along
Love Can Build a Bridge
Your Love is Moving
Hearing is in Your Hands
Already All I Need
How I Love You

You can grab a copy of Christy Nockels’ album Into The Glorious at Family Christian for $11.99. You can also get the whole MP3 album for $9.99.

How about a giveaway so you can get a copy?!

$10 Family Christian Appreciation Certificate Giveaway

I was provided with Christy Nockels album for review purposes by Family Christian. All opinions expressed are 100% my own.

This giveaway will end on Monday, December 29th at 11:59pm CT. I will contact the winner on December 30th and they will have 24 hours to respond. If I have not heard from them, I will name a new winner.

What Can You Do in Five Minutes?

November 1, 2014November 1, 2014 - Max Leave a comment

The following is a post written by my husband, Max.

Sunday November 2, 2014 is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

What is Christian Persecution?

This topic may feel distant to many of us Western Christians. In 2013, I first got an understanding of what Christian persecution was when I read the book Tortured for Christ authored by Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of Voice of the Martyrs Ministry. If you are interested in receiving a complimentary copy of this book, you can get more information here. Richard Wurmbrand showed radical obedience to the Gospel in Romania despite the horrific persecution and torture that he both experienced and witnessed while spending more than ten years in prison. His life is a beautiful testimony of the Gospel and what it means to love.

The definition of Christian persecution from about.com is:

Persecution is the act of harassing, oppressing, or killing people because of their difference from society. Christians are persecuted because their belief in Jesus Christ as Savior does not conform to the godlessness of a sinful world.”

Christians around the world are persecuted every day. According an article on Christianity Today, some 70 million Christians have been martyred for their faith since AD 22. “Is there a global war on Christians?” Michael Austin asks. “That question is asked in this issue and judging from the number of deaths and torture in recent years, my conclusion is, yes – and the casualties are staggering. […] Sadly, the names of Christ’s heroes and their inspired stories go largely unspoken today and their cause goes unreported in the popular press.” Voice of the Martyrs’s Rou Stults adds that there is not enough awareness in the Western Church: “Many Christians in the West either deny or are ignorant of it, but persecution is part of present reality.”

Why are Christians facing persecution?

They are suffering persecution and dying for living lives that honor Jesus and being a witness to the Gospel, as we were commissioned by Jesus:

He (Jesus) told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and earth. 19 Therefore go and make disciples in all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and then teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you; and be sure of this—that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” – Matthew 28:18-20

Spiritual warfare is active and real – and it is warring against Jesus’ Great Commission. We must remember this is a spiritual war and continue to love all, including those who persecute Christians.

For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies—the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world.” – Ephesians 6:12

How should Christians respond?

Don’t put your head in the sand. Stand up with your brothers and sisters in Christ that are being persecuted and losing their lives for the Gospel. We can serve them through words of encouragement, prayer, time, and financial support.

Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also.” – Hebrews 13:3

This powerful list of 10 ways to pray for our persecuted family in Christ is from the Voice of the Martyrs Ministry:

Pray that the persecuted believers will sense God’s presence (Hebrews 13:5)
Pray that they will feel connected to the greater Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:20, 26)
Pray that they will experience God’s comfort when their family members are killed, injured or imprisoned for their witness (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
Pray that they will have more opportunities to share the Gospel (Colossians 4:3)
Pray for their boldness to make Christ known (Philippians 1:14)
Pray that they will forgive and love their persecutors (Matthew 5:44)
Pray that their ministries activities will remain undetected by authorities or others who wish to silence them (Acts 9:25)
Pray that they will rejoice in suffering (Acts 5:41)
Pray that they will be refreshed through God’s Word and grow in their faith (Ephesians 6:17)
Pray that they will be strengthened through the prayers of fellow believers (Jude 20-25)

Join with brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for persecuted Christians, and more urgently, for their mission, the spread of the Gospel.

If you need help getting started, I encourage you to start by earnestly and reverently praying. As the introductory video “What can you do in 5 minutes?” shows, a start could be as simple as praying for the persecuted church for 5 minutes once a week. Let us join together in prayer on Sunday, November 2, 2014 and continue thereafter.

Plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out more laborers to help you, for the harvest is so plentiful and the workers so few.” – Luke 10:2

Additional resources

New Series: 21 Days of Affirmation

April 23, 2014April 23, 2014 - Amy 2 Comments

I’m starting a new series today on something that I have always found difficult. If you’ve ever felt down on yourself or sought to really dig in and change negative thinking, you may have been told to say affirmations.

Affirmation, (noun)- emotional support or encouragement.

This is one of those things mentioned in Gary Chapman’s book The Heart of the 5 Love Languages. Words of affirmation is a biggie in that book. And he explains that some folks receive love better with sweet words. So your partner would benefit from knowing that so they can speak your looooooooove language.

But what about ourselves? How can we truly show that we love ourselves if we speak negativity about ourselves? I will be the first to say that I struggle with putting myself down on a regular basis. I have trouble actually believing positive words about myself, but straight from the Bible, these are the ultimate truths. This is precisely the reason that I wanted to do this series with you. It’s probably more for me than you! I would love for you to join me in challenging ourselves to speak these truths over us each day.

The challenge: each day that I post a new affirmation, say them to yourself OUT LOUD at least 5 times that day. This can be when you first wake up, when you’re driving down the road, when you’re laying down to sleep, when you’re feeling low, when you’re feeling great about yourself, or at anytime you please. Even if all 5 have to be said in the same minute! There is power in words.

Each time a new affirmation is posted, add that one to the list! And at the end of this little challenge, I pray that you begin to believe these truths about who are you are not only to yourself, but to Christ. I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts about each of the affirmations and I’d love for you to give me yours as well. Let’s get started!

To the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he has made us accepted in the beloved. -Ephesians 1:6

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! -Psalm 139:17

Even though we fall short of perfection (which is ok you know!), by His grace, we are completely accepted. It’s extremely hard for me to accept that I am accepted. If that makes any such sense at all. But the fact of the matter is that no matter what we have done and no matter what we will do, God will always have us.

His thoughts are always on us. They can’t even be numbered! It’s kinda like being in that beginning stage of love. You know, when you’re on the phone saying “no, YOU hang up”. God feels that way about us all the time.

When someone else says something bad about us behind our back.
When we wake up with nappy hair and stinky breath.
When our jeans fit too tightly.
When we were speeding the other day on I24. (this may or may not be a true story)
And even when we are hard on ourselves (which I am all the time), God still accepts us then.

How can we ever be worried about rejection with a love as amazing as that? I am going to ponder this very affirmation each day through this series.

Do you have trouble with feeling accepted by others? Do you find comfort in the fact that the only person’s acceptance that we need to worry about is God’s? Leave me a comment!