Inspirational Writing

ABOUT ME – and MY BLOG

~ kathrynspen ~ Leave a comment

Because I think it’s important that you know a few things about the person  who is writing and sharing with you on this blog – and the purpose for doing the blog – I’m going to share about that here with you…… So the following is a little bit of “my story.”

As the Apostle Paul once said, “I haven’t arrived yet – but I have come a long way from where I started.”  That’s the reason I am doing this blog.  I want to help others who are walking in some of the places I have walked – and could use a little help to keep moving forward in their relationship with God.

My heart is full to share things that have helped me and blessed me along the way.  I remember and feel very keenly the longing …. just to hear Him!  I’m hearing much better now – and I’m still hungry to go further – but at least now I know more about “how to get there!”

Jesus is my Savior – and I have had such an incredible journey getting to know Him that I have a lot  of things to share!  Mistakes – yes, I’ve made them – but I have come such a long way since I received Jesus in 1978.  I was a young single mother then, and boy did I need Him!  I needed the change that knowing Him began to bring – and in the years that followed, I received a lot of His wonderful healing.  I began also to receive some of the “gifts” that God’s word says belong to us – and on this blog I will share out of the particular gifts that He has given me.

To be a little more descriptive about the things you will find on this blog site, I can tell you that it will include: Inspirational and devotional writings, Psalms and poems – which I write as I hear; writings that lend to personal worship; and short teachings on subjects where the Spirit of God has instructed me.  The substance of what He gives me as I have fellowship with Him is what I will share with you on this blog.

I value your input – through comments or questions.  And now I would like to welcome any and all who visit this blog – I’m so glad you are here!

WHILE I WAS “AWAY”….. and THINGS THAT TRULY MATTER

~ kathrynspen ~ 2 Comments

I’ve wanted to post on my blog for over a week,  but important things were happening that needed my attention.  Sunday, I lost my mother – she had been very sick – with things rapidly deteriorating over the last couple of weeks.  Mom was 90. Yesterday we had her funeral – returning her body to the ground from which the word of God says that God formed and created man – finishing the master piece of His creation by blowing “the breath of life” into man.

My two sisters were with Mom when she took her last short breaths – for her, they told me,  there was no struggle – it was very peaceful.  There was some sadness of course as I heard that she had passed (from this life into the next)- but I am okay.  Actually  I am “more than okay”-  because I know and am very confident about where she is.

The last 3 days before Sunday, she was becoming unresponsive to the point of  being almost in a coma-like state.  A day or two before that, we had tried to engage her in humorous or otherwise memorable things that we had all experienced together as we were growing up – and got only small interest roused in her about those things – but accolades should go to my  two sisters for trying.  Just knowing some of her children were there with her must have meant something to her.  All of us very much wanted to do something that would make things easier for her – we knew she couldn’t be here with us very much longer and we did not want her to suffer …..

Then on Saturday afternoon while I was at home in the kitchen,  I began singing “How Beautiful Heaven Must Be” – an old song that I hadn’t heard in years (note here that I am NOT a singer) – but it was coming out of my spirit; and when I stopped singing for a minute or two, I caught myself humming the song.  All of this was happening while my mind was still pretty distraught – wondering what we could do to help Mama turn her mind away from all the pain we knew was filling her body – and look Heavenward.

The song just kept coming – until the realization came that although it was beginning to help my mind a little – “this song is for Mama!”  The Lord had spoken a scripture to me for her a day or so before – and with the added song, that realization stirred me to action.  I called my mother’s room – a sister answered the phone …. I told her that I knew Mama couldn’t answer me, but I wanted to give her a scripture verse and sing a song to her. Then as the phone was held up to Mama’s ear, I began singing the song, and talking to her about  Heaven and Jesus.  When my sister took the phone away from Mom’s ear, she said to me … “She heard you …. Her lips began to move as though she wanted to speak and her eyebrows moved as you were talking …. and her face, which had carried the look of death – my sister said – looked “happy.”  My sister was almost weeping as she told me those things and later my other sister who was at the end of Mama’s bed told me she saw the same thing.  That was all I needed to hear.  I had done what the Lord had shown me to do – and I was filled with peace!   A peace that has not left me since it filled my heart and mind that evening.

I got “the call” just about 24 hours later – my sweet mother had just passed – “about ten minutes ago” – my sister told me.  I had dreaded to face this day we all knew was coming…. but it hasn’t been that way for me.  If you think really knowing Jesus – and knowing how to “hear Him,”  doesn’t make a difference -think again!!

THE BEST BEGINNING OF ALL (1/15/15 Posts Continued)

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As I ended the 2nd January 15 post, I told you that I would continue the subject of our beginning in Jesus by sharing some scriptures that “relate to or describe” what happened to you that moment you were born again.  There are more of those scriptures than most people would think – so I can’t bring in all of them on this post today, but I will try to make a good start on it – okay?

When you were born again – a new dimension was added to your life.  That new dimension being the capacity  to know and fellowship with God.  This fellowship is the desire of His heart for you and I – and the reason we were created.  In this new birth that took place when you received Jesus – His life, even that same life that came from God the Father – overshadowed and enveloped you, came into your spirit – producing the new birth.  That’s what the bible calls being “born again.”  (I Peter 1:23;  John 3:1-8).  This brought you into a “living relationship” with God.  That is why Jesus (in I Timothy 2:5) is  called “the mediator between God and men.”   Thank you Jesus!

Our interaction/relationship/fellowship with God and His Son Jesus Christ began in the spirit – and that is where God tells us in Galatians 3:3 that it not only started there, but we are foolish to think we can continue by just obtaining head knowledge of Him.   WHY?  Man’s head knowledge is in the flesh (natural) man as opposed to what we can hear and know by what God shows us by the Spirit.  In addition to that,  I Corinthians 2:14 tells us that “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God because those things are foolishness to him/his understanding – neither can he know them because they are “spiritually discerned.”

Our relationship with God began in the spirit and that is where it will continue – and “flow out into our natural mind from.” And, YES, it will have effect on the whole of our being  – because we are a triune being – spirit, soul, and body  (I Thessalonians 5:23); and just like what happens to one of your body parts , such as a broken leg or back will have some effect on the other members of your body – even so, the rest of our being beyond just our spirit will be affected somewhat by our new relationship with God when we are born again.  But the degree to which you or I will be overall affected by this new relationship will  depend on what we choose to do  with this incredible thing that has happened to us.  Please don’t be offended – but it’s going to take more than just sitting on a church pew to go on with God. We have been given the privilege, right, and capacity  – John 1:12 says –  to go on and progressively get to know  God the Father, our Creator and Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. That privelege comes with being born again – and although I could have done better with what has been given to me in this, yet I can honestly tell you that – there is no amount of money or earthly prestige that I would trade this relationship for!.  Now you decide what it’s worth to you – because that is  what each one of us will sooner or later do.

Even before you or I received Jesus, we were already spirit, soul, and physical body – but there was nothing “alive” or “working” in our spirit that we could know God – until we “bowed the knee” and asked Jesus to forgive our sins and come into our life. Then we were born again.  That was the whole point in His coming to earth – to give all men the opportunity to get reconnected to God – get that light back on in man’s spirit!

Proverbs 20:27 says that “the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord” …  Psalm 18:28  goes on to say that God will light our candle – and in so doing, He lights up the darkness that has been there.

The more that we understand these things that pertain to the new birth, the more we will be able to begin to understand many other things about God – and about our relationship with Him while we live on the earth.  I hope you will return to check out the next post and in the meantime that you will be looking in God’s word and asking questions yourself to God – as He loves to share and interact with us.

A POST ABOUT BEGINNINGS

~ kathrynspen ~ 1 Comment

In this beginning post, what shall I say?  Should I tell the people who come here – that tomorrow is my spiritual birthday?  It has been 37 years tomorrow since I was “born again.”  I would like to share that with them – because it’s a very special day to me – but even more importantly, I want each one of them to know what it means to be “born again”….. Such were my thoughts as I started this day.

Well, you  can see what won out in my thinking – for here I am writing to share with you about being born again.  The main thrust of this blog is to share with people who are already born again, but hungry for more help and information on how to go deeper in this life with Jesus Christ which they have begun; but there is nothing more important than mentioning to everyone that for one and all there is that beginning – a starting place – when our heart begins to want to “know Jesus” and we know  that we are in need of this Savior.  We’ve deeply realized that we’re not perfect – our faults, our “imperfections,” and some things even worse -* the word of God, the bible, calls these things “sin.” And it tells us that this applies to all men.  But the “invitation” is also to all – for the call goes out to us “Come, whosoever will”….. and “No one that comes to Me will I cast out,” *Jesus says.

What you do with this invitation is your choice, but I implore you to open your heart, and ask Him to come in – because I can assure you  that Jesus is who the bible says that He is.  For me, these 37 years (tomorrow!) of getting to know Him and God the Father, have more than sufficiently borne that out!  I’ll leave this part now about how to have your beginning in Him with these scriptures : Romans 6:23;  John 3:16,17;  John 6:37  to refer to for the things I mentioned from the bible between the two *  (in the last paragraph).

There are many things said in the  scriptures that can help you and I to better understand what the bible means when it says “you must be born again.”  Jesus said that to Nicodemus when Nicodemus came seeking Jesus one evening to inquire of Jesus who He was.  (John 3:1-8)  The explanation that followed Nicodemus’ question is so beautiful that it quiets our fears that anything and everything from the spirit realm is eerie and spooky, dark and haunting. Not so!  For Jesus made it clear that a man/human  must also be “born of the spirit” to enter into the Kingdom of God, or for that matter to even “see” the Kingdom of God (verse 3-5). He went on to further explain that there is the natural birth by which every man comes into this world – and there is a spiritual birth that comes to a person when they receive God’s plan of redemption in Jesus Christ.  “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit (of God) is spirit “ ( verse 6)– making a clear distinction between the two births a man can experience and the fact that “You must be born again ” to enter into the Kingdom of God!

I have more to share about this –  and I will take it up again in a post tomorrow. I hope to see you here then.

 

WHO MADE THE SUNRISE?

~ kathrynspen ~ 14 Comments

WHO MADE THE SUNRISE?

As I watch the sunrise, I begin to ponder

that what I see is the dawning of a new day …. .. And

I soon feel the “perfume of His presence” enveloping the way.

I cannot gaze at the sun rising in the morning sky

Without being aware ……

That God’s story of creation is not a myth – it’s not a lie!

For as I gaze at this marvel that we call “nature”……

In the sweetness of His presence, the God of all this creation

Joins me there – “Do you see My handiwork?

I made it to share …..

And when you take the time to gaze upon the beauty in My sunrise,

It isn’t hard to see – and feel –  My presence is alive!

It’s gentle beauty is not always so impressive as the sunset to your eye,

But it holds the promise of a new day,

And I want everyone to realize that I made it that way! 

  It was created for function. The beauty and the awe I added……              with you in mind –

So that you can look and know there is a Creator…

You can tell that these things did not just randomly fall into place –

Not in the order that you see that they are made!

So, who made the sunrise?

“I AM” the Painter of these beautiful skies !  ….. and

When you look at the sunrise, it’s not hard to realize

That someone put all these things together for you to see

And that someone,  Beloved, was Me.”