The Stars at God's Command

Isaiah 45:12 =  [This is what the Lord says] It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hand stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.

I love the New Living Translation which says, "All the starts are at my command."

What an awesome and powerful God we have!

Chosen By God

I am God's Masterpiece (and so are you!).

For my first Bible journaling entry this year, I felt lead to do Isaiah 43:10: "You are my witnesses," declare the Lord, "any my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.

Wow. I just love this verse.

For my journaling entry, I wanted to make the page beautiful. I like the combination of orange and pink together so I used my gelatos to blend in a sunset style background; something that is very pleasing to my eyes. I gave it little more "pop" with colors by adding some floral washi tape with pink and orange flowers--perfect!

After meditating on how to visually show the verse, I was pulled to write out the words to add even more emphasis to them. It's fabulous to show the verse with pictures but I wanted to add even more focus on the words. . .

. . .because I AM chosen by God! And why did he choose me? SO THAT I may believe and understand that there is no one like God and He has called me to be His witness!

Just soak this verse into your soul. It's so refreshing and encouraging.

All Praise to the God and Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the spiritual realms with every spiritual blessings in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)

One Word

I can't remember the last time I started a New Year's Resolution.

Part of the reason I haven't made a resolution is due to my stubbornness--I don't need a new year to make a change; and part of it is due to my fear of failure--I don't want to commit to something I'm not going to be able to finish.

This past Sunday,  I was teaching in Children's Church. Before service started, a team member asked me if I made any New Year's Resolutions to which I responded, "Oh, no. I don't do that." She said she didn't do it either and then asked if I had heard of "one word."

She went on to explain that instead of choosing a New Year's Resolution, you choose a word to focus on and strive towards throughout the year. I remember thinking it was a cool idea, much better than a resolution, but I wasn't inspired to focus on one word myself.

I love how God works.

After Children's Church, I drove back home to pick up my family so we could all go to church together. Multiple friends had invited us to attend their church so instead of going to our regular church we decided to go to theirs. Let me just note, I absolutely love my church so I was little sad about "missing it" to attend another church but my husband had been wanting to try it since different people kept inviting us to go.

So, I'm sitting in this beautiful church, a little reluctantly simply because I'm missing "my" church, when the Minister mentions that it doesn't matter why we were there this morning but we were there for a reason. This perked my ears up a little bit and I prayed, "Okay, God I'm listening."

And do you know what he preached on? His sermon was on choosing one word to work towards this year. I could have written this off as a coincidence but I know better. Twice in one morning my attention was brought to the idea of striving towards one word this year and I decided right there during that sermon that I was going to do it.

The Minister mentioned a few different ways to determine the one word but the general theme is, "What do you want to be like at the end of the year?" He suggested finding a Bible verse to go with the one word so that you can focus on throughout the year. When he mentioned the Bible verse that I remembered God had already given me one to focus on this year! I heard a whisper, "Then you already know your word."

Some examples of words to strive towards are: Grace, Love, Stewardship, Trust, and Light. The word God gave me is: Masterpiece. After hearing the other examples, I thought my word is a little weird but it works for me.

I am striving to see myself as God sees me this year; what better way than to focus on the fact that God says I am his MASTERPIECE! Created anew in Christ Jesus to do good works! Which God Himself has gone ahead of me to prepare just for me to do!

My one word helps me to redirect my focus on God in an area I struggle with--my identity. Focusing on who I am in Christ will help me overcome distractions of doubt and keep my eyes on Jesus.

Everything I Need

My dog ate my Bible.

No really, he did. I rescued an adorable mutt two-years ago; part Labrador retriever and part German Shepherd/Collie. He's a really sweet dog with a great personality.

Well, one day, I left my Bible sitting on the couch after reading it. My puppy acting like, well, a puppy decided to check it out for himself. I didn't notice until I was looking for my Bible later that day that my sweet little pup had opened up my Bible and ate a number of pages out of it.

To replace that Bible with the eaten pages, I got a fabulous new Bible. Nice soft (imitation) leather cover--so it's enjoyable to hold, New Living Translation--so it's enjoyable to read, and a Parallel Bible (it has Study Bible plus Life Application Study Bible notes)--so it's enjoyable to learn. I also have an English Standard Version Bible (which is the Bible Journal that was gifted to me years ago.) I like the ESV version because it's a great word-to-word translation of the Bible.

I enjoy reading the Bible in different translations because the context never changes (God's Word will never contradict itself) but the wording sometimes does. When this happens it causes me to look at a verse in a new light and with new understanding.

The Bible my dog ate was a New International Version translation. It's kind of the in-between of the ESV and the NLT. It's not as wordy as the NLT and a little easier to understand than the ESV. The NIV is normally the translation I use when I memorize scripture. Ever since that sweet little pup of mine ate my NIV Bible I've wanted another one. Sure I can look up the NIV translation on the internet but there is just something about holding God's Word in my hands. For the longest time, since I already had two great Bibles that I use, I couldn't justify buying a third. . .

Until now.

In case you couldn't tell from my previous posts, I enjoy Bible Journaling immensely. For 2016, I decided I was going to splurge and get a brand new NIV translation Bible that I can use for Bible Journaling in 2016.

It is my goal to do a Bible Journaling entry once a week for the whole year in 2016. If the Holy Spirit leads me to use my Bible Journal more than once a week, then I will, but I made my goal for a once-a-week-minimum to keep it a realistic goal that will not overwhelm my schedule or stress me out. It seemed fitting that I decorate the inside of my new NIV Journaling Bible with my focus verse for 2016:

 

I put Ephesians 2:10 on the very first page of my 2016 Bible Journal and dressed it up with some washi tape. The next page asked who this Bible belongs to and I wanted to express who God says I am (this inspired my previous post "Who I am?" here).

When the Holy Spirit lead me to my focus verse for 2016, He also showed me a supporting verse for it (read more about my focus verses here). I wrote the supporting verse from Ephesians 6:19 as a prayer for myself and made an image that with it that I would enjoy looking at. I printed this out and added it to the title page of this Bible.

I love how I am asking God to give me the right words to boldly explain His mysterious plan right before I read His Words in this Bible. God has already given me everything I need.

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 1 Peter 1:3

Who am I?

So, tell me about yourself. . . 

Those five words just may be my least favorite to hear in a conversation. 

I don't know why but almost every single time I draw a blank and then ramble off who I am in relation to other people; I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a volunteer. All of these things are a part of me but who am I really? Deep down, who am I?  

Last week I was lead by the Holy Spirit to choose a theme Bible verse for my life this year in 2016. I am focusing on Ephesians 2:10 which says, "You are God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus, to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do." 

This year, I am striving not to base who I am in relation to other people but focus on who  God says I am.

So, who am I?

Coloring God's Word

I enjoy Bible Journaling as it's a way I can meditate on God's Sord while playing; creating an image that reflects what His Word says. It helps me to stay focused and not get bored. I like it so much, I made a Bible Journaling Playset that I can easily move anywhere I like. (In a previous post, I shared what items I have in my Playset, you can read it here).

But what if you are too nervous to write in your Bible?

I will admit, it was nerve-wracking for me to draw in my Bible that first time last month but once I leapt that hurdle it's been wonderful. Even still, I understand that it may be a little harder to take that first step for others.

Is there another way to color and think about God's Word? Yes!

Another great option I've found is Adult Coloring Books with Bible Verses. With these, you can color while focusing on a Bible verse without actually needing to color in your Bible. I bought a number of these coloring books for Christmas gifts this year because I enjoy Bible Journaling so much but understand that not all my friends feel comfortable coloring in their Bibles--and that's okay! But I didn't want them to miss out on the fun of coloring and meditating on God's Word so I got went with this alternative option.

Check out this picture of a coloring page I completed this week:

This picture took me about 5 or 6 hours to finish (it may not look like it's time consuming, but there are lots of separate pieces to color!). While I was coloring I would repeat parts of the verse in my mind and then work my way up to repeating the whole thing at once. Since this is a shorter verse, I did not repeat it the entire time I colored. At one point, I put on some Christian music, put my feet up, and relaxed; just soaking in the Christian songs as I colored.

It was glorious.

Right now I have two Bible verse coloring books and I think they will last me all of 2016. Even the pages with less details still take a decent amount of time to finish coloring completely. I received some sparkle and metallic gel pens for Christmas and they are wonderful! I probably haven't used gel pens in 15 years and I had forgotten how smooth they move as you use them. I particularly like them for coloring as they make a nice solid color instead of showing streaky lines like some of my markers do.

In addition to being fun, studies have shown that coloring helps reduce stress. Bonus!

Adult coloring books with Bible verses are a nice alternative (or addition!) to Bible Journaling. It's another fun way to meditate on God's precepts and consider His ways (Psalm 119:15).

How do you meditate on scripture in a fun way?

Focus Verse for 2016

Have you ever had words seem to jump off the page as you were reading?

I have.

When I was reading through Ephesians the other day, the verse from 2:10 seemed to do just that. As my eyes were moving over the words, I thought: This should be my focus verse for 2016. Now, because I hadn't even considered picking out a verse to focus on in 2016, I know this was a prompting from the Holy Spirit--a nudge from God Himself. Never before have I picked out a Bible verse to focus on for a year but since God told me to this year, I'm going to! 

So, I took Ephesians 2:10 and I created a picture I would enjoy looking at throughout the year. I also "added myself in" by switching the words "you are" to "I am" in the beginning and the word "you" to "me" at the end. This way, when I read this verse throughout 2016, I will automatically apply it to myself. I am God's Masterpiece. 

I printed the picture a couple times and haven't decided where I would like to hang it. I don't have a lot of wall space in my computer room and my fridge is cluttered. I'm leaning towards my bathroom near the mirror so I'll see it every day when I get ready, but I haven't hung it up yet ... I still have a few more hours to decide. 

As I continued reading through Ephesians, I had another new thing happen: a second verse stood out. While Ephesians 2:10 is my main focus verse for 2016, I was given a supporting verse to help me do the good works which God has prepared in advance for me to do. I made another picture but this one I wrote as a prayer using Ephesians 6:19.

In Jesus' Name, AMEN! 

I'm excited (and a little nervous) for God's plan for me in 2016 but I know God is able to do infinitely more than I could think or ask through His mighty power at work within me (Ephesians 3:20). 

Did you pick out a focus Bible verse for 2016? Which one? 

If not, you are welcome to share mine; comment below or message me on Facebook and I'll email you a FREE printable PDF version of it!