In our corner of the world, we have such accessibility to the Bible. It’s very easy to forget that there are many Christian sisters and brothers around the world who are desperate to own a Bible–much less be able to freely read and openly study the Scriptures without fear of persecution or prosecution. There are, also, still so many others throughout our world who do not yet know, and have never read for themselves, the grace and truth of God that is found in the Bible–the written, inspired word of the Living God.  God’s words that are our life.

Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day…They are not just idle words for you-they are your life. Deuteronomy 32:46-47

Personal Reflections from Sylane:                                                                          I have to admit that I take my easy access to the Bible for granted way too often.  Just as I do the air I breathe, the food I eat, the water I drink. Even though I desperately need each of these to live.

It is the same with the Word of God. God calls each of us take to heart all of His words and to live by them. Because they are our life. 

God’s words are not just idle–like a vehicle going no where, just sitting, running its engine–with no movement, and just getting emptier and emptier of all of its energy source.

Rather, God’s words are to be taken to heart–taken to the very core of our being and strength. Taken to heart so that God’s words may give us all that we need to live.

We need love–God is love–1 John 4:8

We need unfailing love–Exodus 15:13                                                                     

We need to love–God, others, self–Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:30-31; Matthew 37-39; Luke 10:27

We need hope–God is our hope–Romans 15:13                                                         We need to put our hope in God’s word–119:24

We need peace–God is the Prince of Peace–Isaiah 9:6                                             We need peace beyond our understanding–Philippians 4:7

We need forgiveness–God offers forgiveness–Psalm 130:4; Acts 2:38

We need eternal salvation–which  is fully dependent on God–Psalm 62:7–coming only through the name of Jesus alone–Acts 4:12

We need life–the LORD is our LIFE–Deuteronomy 30:19-20; John 14:6

No, God’s words are not idle–they are powerful, healing, filling, freeing, purposeful. God’s words are our very life.

Let’s  choose, really choose, to get to know God’s words and take them to heart–in every area, every relationship, every circumstance, every moment of our lives.

God has given us such a love gift through giving us the Bible–God’s written, inspired, life-giving words. Never to be taken for granted. They are to be taken to heart.

And we are to freely, fully share God’s words of life with those whose hearts have not yet taken them in!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane 

God never forgets the promises He makes to us who put our trust in Him. But sometimes, especially in those hard and hurting times in our lives, we need to pray back to God His own words.  We need to name the truth that we believe about God. We need to claim the hope that God gives us.

For our sake. God knows His Word is faithful and true. Because He is. God knows what He has for us and who He wants to be to us. Our full hope, our very life. 

Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life. Psalm 119:49-50

Personal Reflections from Sylane:                                                                           Have you ever prayed anything like this? Like I have?

“Hey, God! Remember when YOU said that You are my Hope? My Strength? My Joy? My Light? My Defender? My Protector? My Provider? My Helper? My Healer? My Comfort? My Wonderful Counselor? My Mighty God? My Ever-lasting Father? My Prince of Peace? My Way? My Truth? My Life?

God those are YOUR WORDS! Not mine!

Well, I need YOU to be ALL of THOSE for me, right now!!! “

And God, in His love, answers us quietly, but firmly,  ”I AM WHO I AM. I never change. My Word is True.”

God knows who He is. God always remembers what He promises to His children.

It is we who forget. Or we, at least temporarily, do not keep in the fore-front of our minds the truth of God’s love for us, the peace of God’s presence with us and the hope of God’s promises to us.

It is we who need to remember. Remember what God said. Remember who God is.

So! Go ahead pray back to God His own words. God loves it when we know His Word! (For help check out Genesis 1:1–Revelations 22:21!)

Now, trust God at His Word! God remembers His promises. God remembers you.  

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

It is true that our God is a Holy God and God hates sin. That will never change. However, through the sacrifice of Jesus we are pardoned and forgiven. When we confess and repent–sincerely, with not even one shred of self-justification, nor any blaming of anyone else at all–God delights to show us mercy!

God actively and intentionally separates us from our sins. Our Lord Jesus completely crushes them under His nail-pierced feet. And with His nail-scarred hands, He flings them forever into the depths of the sea. Never to disrupt our relationship with God again. 

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl our iniquities into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:18-19

Personal Reflections from Sylane:                                                                           Our God compassionately chooses to completely forgive us of each of our sins and free us from all the power of shame and entrapment those sins would hold over our lives.

In Jesus Christ our sins have been thoroughly and eternally punished. On the cross, even in His agony, Jesus cried out in victory, “It is finished!”

And He meant it.

When we confess and ask our Holy God to forgive us for the stupid, ugly, dark, evil sins that we have done. He does.

In His unfathomable love, God removes all of the blame and all of the shame of our sins. God delights to show us His mercy and compassion. God then does a victory dance, crushing our sins under His Holy Feet. His Holy Arms–once outstretched on the cross–then take our sins and hurl them into the depths of the sea!

So, Darlin’s, that means: NO FISHING ALLOWED!

Do not go grabbing for your Shame-On- Me-Fishing-Pole–and continue to drag out your sins–and beat yourself up over and over and over again for the sins you have sincerely confessed and from which you have truly repented. (If you haven’t, then, that’s another matter altogether.)

That Shame-On-Me-Fishing-Pole is really built from pride NOT humility. It is pride that keeps us entrapped in the pain, the embarrassment and the shock over the fact that we could have sinned in this way. It is pride that keeps us from accepting the full truth that only in Jesus are we forgiven. That we cannot add anything to the work Jesus completed on the cross for our forgiveness.

We cannot make ourselves any more forgiven by staying in a state of remorse. Our sins are ugly. The remorse we feel should only bring us, in full humility, to the foot of the cross so we will let the blood of Jesus completely cover our sins.

In humility there is freedom. Our sins and our shame have been hurled into the depths of the sea. In humility, we celebrate the grace and truth that it was Jesus who put up that sign: NO FISHING ALLOWED!

So! Don’t even go there! Don’t go that place where your heart is entrapped in pride and shame. NO FISHING ALLOWED!

Instead, take up your Freedom-Fishing-Pole, follow Jesus and become Fishers of men and women! 

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

God’s word is living and active. It is not dead, dull or dormant! God’s word is meant to penetrate our minds, permeate our actions and purify our innermost beings so that we will reflect Jesus, the living Word of God, more and more fully in all we do…in all we are.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Personal Reflections from Sylane:                                                                           Have you ever heard  (or said!) the phrase: “Well, he certainly isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed?” 

He (whoever he is!) may seem a little clueless–a bit oblivious–about what’s going on around him. Or maybe he lacks the knowledge level or skill required to accomplish a specific task.

Well, let me tell you, the Word of God–is absolutely the Sharpest Tool in God’s Shed!

God is fully aware, fully knowledgeable of what is going on in every circumstance, in every relationship, in every individual–nothing is hidden from the eyes of our Loving and Omniscient God.

Our God is the true Master Swordsman–the Master Surgeon–who wields His Word–His living, active, double-edged sword–with perfect precision and with the precise purpose of transforming each of His children to become more and more like Jesus.

God does indeed have His work cut out for Him! But in His LOVE for us, God is tireless and relentless in penetrating our innermost being–our thoughts, motivations and attitudes. God cuts through our self-focused perspective in order to free us to live–really live–in a trusting and intimate relationship with Him and with others.

For this to be accomplished we have to hear and honestly allow God’s word to point out where we are motivated by our own personal version of truth–by our own twisted thinking–as we interact and respond to others and, even, to God Himself.

God must continually divide and separate out from us anything and everything that does not line up with God’s word of Truth and Pure Love.

This is a life-time process for us to submit to God’s living and active Word so that He may reveal our flawed thinking and heal our bruised hearts.

Sometimes this cutting away, separating and dividing work within our innermost being can be a very painful process. So too, is physical surgery. Yet, most of us are willing to submit ourselves to a human surgeon’s skills when we are faced with a cancerous growth in our bodies. So that we may live.

How much more should we trust ourselves over to our God who not only has the perfect skill to cut away any and all emotional and spiritual cancers within us–but does this out of His Perfect Love for us! So that we may live!

Our job is to LET God–actually invite God AND trust God–to do His cutting, penetrating, separating work deep within us. This is God’s freedom work so that we may live–we may perceive, think, act and respond as Jesus does.

This is God’s great and loving purpose for us. And to fulfill it, God places us on His Cutting Edge of Love. The very safest place we could ever be.

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

I am absolutely convinced that God is able to fully heal and restore any life and completely transform each of us by the renewing of our minds. What I am not so convinced of is our own desire to let God do His powerful work in us according to His Way.

God had to really challenge me to truly look inside myself and decide not just if I believed God could heal my heart after so much emotional and physical abuse, but I had to decide if I truly wanted God to heal my heart! 

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?” John 5:5-6

Personal Reflections from Sylane:                                                                           Oh, my! God used this passage of Scripture sharply–and through an in-my-face-because-God-loves-me way to show me that there was something still in me that was refusing to fully want God’s power instead of my self-pity. Ouch!!

God’s Word (and Tim’s very brave challenge to me, when married only one year: “Do you want to be happy?”) was used in powerful and freeing ways to move me from being a victim–an emotional-spiritual invalid–to being more than a conqueror through Him who loved me. (Romans 8:37)

I have a choice. I always have a choice.

I have to, first,  honestly answer: Do I want to be well? My answer is, “Yes!” 

Then I need to answer: Do I trust God to make me well? Again, my answer is “Yes!”

So, now the question is: HOW do I get this healing?

 Well, first of all, it certainly is not by relying on any of my old practices or personal resources to make me feel better. Nothing the invalid did over those 38 years moved him any closer to healing. He could no longer rely on any of his ways or his plans. He had to want to get well and be willing to do it God’s way.

This was true for me. We each have to be willing to let God intervene and interrupt our patterns so we can take on His ways of thinking and acting.  

The question: Do you want to get well? Is really asking us if we are willing to let go of all our tendencies to think and speak, act and live as an emotional-spiritual cripple.

God’s Word and God’s Love provides all the healing we could ever want! When we do it God’s Way!

There is a reason God is God and we are not.

Well, actually there are several, but a major reason is that God is always working all things out for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

We, on the other hand, are often so darn busy blaming others or stuck in destructive self-pity or self-focused sin that we keep getting in the way–getting in God’s Loving Way–for bringing about the true healing and freedom into our lives that we claim we want.

God wants the best for us. In every way. In every circumstance. And God’s best will come into our lives as we yield our pride, our self-pity and our perspective to the Truth of God.

Because the truth is, God wants to make us well.

I want what God wants for me on this one! So, LORD, show me Your Way to get me well and keep me well–every step of the way.

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

As a nation we are facing tremendous economic struggles. This is true for some of the largest, well-known, long-established industries, for mid-size corporations and for the small, family-owned businesses.  As well, many individuals are dealing with the far-reaching consquences of carrying excessive personal debt. Often this debt resulted from poor planning and unwise decisions. Other times this debt resulted from no fault of their own–when emergency circumstances suddenly hit their home (flood, fire, etc), their health or their financial safe-guards (employment, benefits, saving funds). Either way, this debt can be a crushing and humiliating experience.

God cares so much about all the details of our lives–including our financial debt. Yet, there is one debt that God desires us to keep as outstanding and carry it indefinitely: the debt of loving others.

This is the one account that we must never consider as paid in full. 

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another… Romans 13:8

Personal Reflections from Sylane:                                                                           I have to admit that I am ridiculously obsessive when it comes to balancing our check book and making sure that every bill is paid on time and entered correctly. I am a maniac in keeping my records and our bank records absolutely in agreement, perfectly accounted for and always in balance. I have spent hours finding out why there is a difference, even as small as 3 cents, between my check book and the bank records.  (BTW the bank has always been right. But! My math struggles will have to be dealt with another time.)

It really is wise to be careful with our finances–to know what we have and how it is being spent. However, I do blame some of my overly obsessive tendencies to growing up as a trailer-girl with four other siblings and not a lot of extra liquid cash flowing freely around us. My baby-sitting money (which started at 50 cents/hour) had to be stretched pretty far.

So, I am very serious about not building or carrying debt–and this is partly a reaction to once being relatively poor, with very limited resources.

However, as believers we are ambassadors of Christ, and in Him we have been given endless, over-flowing resources to “pay towards” this debt of love into the lives of others. Our God is LOVE. And God knows that the need for His children to love others–actively, constantly, practically, sincerely, sacrificially, humbly–will always be a reality on this side of Heaven.

The Word of God clearly tells us that when it comes to LOVING ONE ANOTHER, we must consider this as the one debt that will always remain outstanding. The records of our loving acts will never be balanced with the need for love in this world and in the lives of others.

Praise be to God who gives us His limitless resource of Love–God’s very Character and Power–to flow from us so that we may love on others–in practical and spiritual, temporal and eternal ways.

God has given us His Outstanding Love, as our perfect resource, as we carry our outstanding debt to love one another…all the days of our lives. 

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

Do you ever just feel absolutely overwhelmed or overcome by the evil in the world? Or by the evil that comes at you from the people or the circumstances in your own life? I do. And when that is the case, we must remember that we have not been left powerless or without choice. Sometimes our choice is much simpler than we remember. God directs us and enables us to do things God’s way: overcome evil with good. 

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21

Personal Reflections from Sylane                                                                             Confessions of a counselor and ambassador of Christ:                                              Sometimes I just want to run away and hide. Sometimes I want to just stop listening and talking to anybody. Sometimes I want to stop trying. Sometimes I feel overcome by all of the evil and pain and meaness and ugliness and poverty and cruelty and selfishness there is in this world–there is in us people and in the way we live.

And, then, there it is–there it comes again, unfailingly: God’s powerful, sweet whoosh of LOVE. God’s Good Love.

And God quiets me. God is my hiding place. God gives my mind His Sabbath rest. God renews me with His eternal perspective. God reminds me–tenderly and strongly–that Jesus Christ has already overcome evil with His Good Love.

Okay. I can breathe again. I can listen and talk and stay in the moment–even in the midst of the ugly and evil–to love on people again–in and through the power of God’s Good Love.

We are not to be overcome by evil. Not Ever.

We are to overcome evil with good. Always.

Choose to hear, embrace and live in the truth of what God’s Good Love has already done. And overcome evil with one thought, one word, one action–in one life–at a time.

Be thankful–to God, to others, to yourself. There is so much that is GOOD!

Be kind–in your words, in your tone, in your time.

Do good–intentionally and actively to your family, to your neighbors, to strangers, to yourself.

And watch the power of GOOD–God’s Good Love–overcome evil with one thought, one word, one action–in one life–at a time.

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane 

Often times we wait for the other person to make the first move in restoring a relationship. After all, they owe us an apology, or they are the ones who need to change first, and certainly more than we do, in order to improve our relationship with them.

Oh! We sooooo need to get over ourselves and recognize the responsibility we have to live at peace with others. I know that peace with certain others will not always be possible; we have no power to change someone else. However, we can certainly yield our stubborn pride to our Lord, and ask God to show us what we can, and should do, to live at peace with others. 

The possibility for peace is at work only when we first take up our own responsibility to be peace-makers, not peace-breakers . In each relationship. In all circumstances.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Romans 12:18

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane

People can make us absolutely crazy, tick us off and really frustrate us. God knows that. And I’m pretty sure I do all of the above to other people and to God–waaaaay too often!

What does God do? God loves me and forgives me. God loves and forgives you.

What are we to do? God calls His children to follow His example to love our enemies and actively pray for them–not against them–so that they too may know the love and mercy of our God that cost Jesus His life. 

You have heard it said, ‘Love you neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Matthew 5:43-44

Personal Reflections from Sylane:                                                                           Our God is a God of No-Loop-Holes!  Jesus means what He says.  His “But I tell you…”–isn’t directed at the teachings of the LORD that was given to His prophets and historians through the writings within the Old Testament.  When Jesus said, “But I tell you” it was to correct some of the teachings that had been given to the people, even from some very wise rabbinical scholars.

Jesus wanted to align the people’s understanding and practice of LOVE more fully to the heart and truth of the Living God and to His Holy Word.

God hates sin…and will judge and destroy all who remain in their sin–and live as enemies of God. Well, guess what! That’s a position that we all had at one time–as an enemy of God:

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in you minds because of your evil behavior. But now God has reconciled you by Christ’s  physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation…”–Colossians 1:21-22

Our Holy, Righteous God loves us so much! So much so that Jesus endured a horrific and humiliating death for the love–the forgiveness and the reconciliation–of His enemies! That would be us.

And while suffering the fate of his persecution and dying on the cross, Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them…”–Luke 23:34

And, our God of No-Loop-Holes, asks us to do for our enemies what God has already done for His: Love them. Pray for them.

So let’s get busy loving and praying!

May God’s reconciling love be multiplied in and through each one of us–and in and through our current enemies so that they, too, will very soon be our precious brothers and sisters through our God of No-Loop-Holes!

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane  

We might not always understand why we experience hard and hurtful things in life. To put it bluntly: this is a broken world. Our experiences and relationships can wound us deeply. Whatever these may have been, or are now, we need to let God have His rightful place in our lives. We need to embrace God’s love and truth as the authoritative power which focuses our thoughts and frees our hearts.

I  believe that God always hated the abuse I experienced within my family.  But it is through the love and forgiveness of Jesus that every shred of power has been ripped away from the sin–and from those who sinned against me. God has taken away my past pain so that it cannot destroy or diminish me any further. In any way. It is forgiven.

Instead God takes something so ugly and uses it to unveil His amazing beauty. God totally transforms what others intended for evil into uncompromising evidence of God’s good intentions for our lives: to declare God’s eternal love, God’s gift of salvation and the fullness of healing and life offered through Jesus Christ.

Joseph said to his brothers, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Genesis 50:19-20

In love, peace and purposeful passion,                                                               Sylane