Niki’s Thoughts

  "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth." Psalms 34:1 We were created to praise God. It's ingrained in us, it is a deep desire fueled by the joy we have in simply having the honor of being called HIS!  Our mission, our purpose, our goal is to share God's good news with all the world. Jesus commissioned us to go and do likewise, that is to love others, to share God's Word, and to praise God in all we do. One of the best ways can do this is by living our lives in a way that brings God honor and glory - turning all we do into praise to Him. And when we live a praiseful life, we will inevitably be sharing God's good news with those we encounter in our lives.  We all have moments where we can clearly see God delivered us, and we should feel drawn to praise His holy name for His great mercy. Furthermore, the more we seek Him, in all we do, in our daily live, through prayer, through studying His Word...the more we will see t...

““When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to a land far or near; yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, and have committed wickedness’; and when they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been carried captive, and pray toward their land which You gave to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and toward the temple which I have built for Your name: then hear from heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You.” II Chronicles‬ ‭6‬:‭36‬-‭39‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ I’m going to expand on last week’s thoughts, something I haven’t done much of. This is on my heart thoug...

 "Many times He delivered them; but they rebelled in their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity." Psalms 106: 43 It is easy to lose count of how many times God's people have turned from Him, to sin, to idolatry, to doing the total opposite of what God asked them - asks us - to do. I am in the middle of a reading plan which is taking me through the entire Bible. It provides suggested reading every day from the Old Testament (OT), the New Testament (NT), and the books of Psalms and Proverbs. In the OT I'm currently a little more than halfway through the book of I Chronicles, the thirteenth book of the Bible. Months ago, I lost count of how many times God's people fell away. In this week's Psalm, I have been reading Kind David's recap of the times he saw or read about the Israelites turning from God.  It made me sad to think about all the times the Israelites stumbled, fell, and downright turned away from our loving Father. I then thought of a lin...

  If you have a few extra minutes today, I encourage you to read all 22 verses of Psalms Chapter 34. Out loud even. It is one of the comforting Psalms we can turn to when life gets too heavy. I don't know about you, but I am far from righteous. However, I have noticed that the harder I seek God the more things that jump out at me in this life which are clearly trying to get in the way of my path towards God. Many afflictions, many distractions, many challenges, many distractions. I am so thankful to God for His peaceful, calming promises in His Word.  In verse 4, God reminds us He delivers us from all of our fears. Fear is not something that comes from God. II Timothy 1:7 reminds us of this. Even still, He does not leave us alone when we fall prey to our fears. He clearly tells us through His Word, over and over, that He will deliver us from all evil - including our fears.  In verse 6, God tells us again that He saves us when we cry out to Him! Verse 15 says, "the eyes of...

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6 "But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26 The devil is always trying to overwhelm us. He wants us to feel that walking the path a Christian should walk, a path that follows where God leads is too big a task. The devil wants us to rely on anything and everything except for God. And to his credit, a life of sin can be fun. A life without responsibilities is enticing. A life where we don't have consequences for our choices looks so much greener through the tainted lenses Satan presents to us. Friends, I think we can all agree that the "grass isn't always greener on the other side." If we follow the devil long enough, pulling us to look away from God, we will probably eventually see the grass is dead and ...

  "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Genesis 1:27 "You who love the Lord, hate evil!" Psalms 97:10a "...You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Matthew 22:39 "Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world..."" John 18:36 If we are going to call ourselves children of God, we ought to be able to define who God is, and what we believe about Him. In Matthew 16:15, Jesus asks His disciples (and each of us today) this very question, "But who do you say that I am?" And it is a powerful question. It sparked quite the heated debate within the church of Bible times. Many church leaders did not believe Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. There were many theories about who Jesus was or might have been.  Biblical scholars, and other folks much smarter than me, got together in the 300's AD (yup, that long ago!) to put together the Nicene Creed. If you are i...