"How to Make Victoria Sponge" the book is here. Colossians 3:23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

Colossians 3:23

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

When I became unwell a few years ago I wandered what the Lord wanted  me to do with my life. It was one of those crossroad moments. I knew that I could not carry on as I had been doing, but then I also knew that God had something in mind for me to accomplish. So I prayed and took a step into the unknown with God as my navigator. He told me to write and that is what I did. 

Philippians 2:13

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

I am so pleased that I did what God told me to do, as today I received the first printed copy of my book "How to make Victoria Sponge - A journey of faith". God put the desire on my heart and inspired me to write, He took me on a journey that I thought was not possible. Writing a book was a monumental task, more akin with climbing a mountain while carrying a goat on my shoulders. God broke through my misgivings, my own limitations and showed me that with Him all things are possible. 

Luke 18:27

He replied, "What is impossible for people is possible with God."

This is so true and I could not have accomplished writing a book without God's help for He made it possible.

If you are interested in obtaining a copy then please feel free to visit my blog page for the book at:

http://howtomakevictoriasponge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/victoria-sponge-book-its-here.html

God bless

Margaret

Faith requires action. James 2:14-17

James 2:14-17

14 What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

17 So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. 

Faith can never be static for a christian because it requires action. Our belief in God can diminish if we stand still. Our belief needs to be underpinned by faith and our faith requires action because it is dynamic. 

So often we are waiting a response, and if we do not receive it our belief starts to dwindle. We begin to question God, asking why He has not answered our prayers. 

In these times we often ask the question, 'What is God doing?' But surely the question needs to be 'What am I doing?'

Faith requires action. 

When we attend our churches/meetings/prayergroups/house groups/services, our faith requires action. Do we stand and mouth the responses bored of the repetition because it is so familiar? Do we stand and watch others as they raise their hands thinking that their response is a bit over the top? Do we shy away from sharing our testimony because we feel it is not as amazing as someone else's, or we feel it isn't that important? Do we sit and watch the other people and wonder why their life is better than ours when we know they have sinned big time? 

It is easy to loose our belief. It is easy to judge and become disgruntled by apparent misjudgments, if our faith lacks action.

When our belief is dwindling our faith needs to take a front row position. We need to remember Faith is dynamic it requires action. 

When our brother's or sister's are struggling we need to act because that action will fuel our belief. God can and will act alongside our actions. His Holy Spirit will light up our actions. That first thought of help for someone else, that deciding to embrace a holier response to the mundane in church, that brave lifting of your hand in praise, that decision to say a few words that might encourage someone else to testify when they see you take the first step, that forgiveness for thinking others have life better than us even though you know they have sinned, are all responses to action driven by Faith. All will fuel your belief. All will bring about answers. 

Stepping out in faith, is exactly that. It is the first action of a conscious decision to believe in a Greater answer. It is not selfish, it is giving, and in that giving someone else will decide to be brave and take action.

Faith is contagious when it is selfless. When it is driven by Light. Faith does not grow in darkness, in the selfish world of our wants and needs. 

Faith is connected directly with the Resurrection. If Jesus has just died our belief would have died with Him. But Jesus continued on to the Resurrection, to the Light. His actions saved us through His Mercy. 

Faith is Light and Mercy, action and compassion. Actions are faith in motion through a compassionate heart. 

Each day our 'Yes' to Faith needs to be backed up by action. Each small act is a victory for God and a thorn to the fallen world and its rulers. Each small act is a personal victory for our faith and an encouragement to our belief which we can witness next time at our church/meeting/prayergroups/house groups/service. When we next ask 'What is God doing?' we can answer this question with examples of our faith in action, as God is in the center of them through His Light opening our eyes to the needs of others. Our actions when coupled with faith have a domino effect, because God is in them. 

Faith requires action. What will be your response today? 

Spiritual blessings Ephesians 1:3-8

 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

What a wonderful passage this is. Because we are united with Christ he bestows on us His blessings. 

This first blessing is election. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  

The second blessing is sonship. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.  

The third blessing is grace. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured on us who belong to his dear son. 

The forth blessing is redemption and forgiveness. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.   

The fifth blessing is abundance. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.  

God elected to make us, He chose us, He wanted us, He loved us.

God adopted us into His own family. Adopting a child is a very special thing because you choose to have a child. You go through a process that is long and hard, you think about it carefully and decide that this is the right choice. God chose you and me to be adopted into His own family. He wanted this with all of His heart. His love desired us. 

Now that God has adopted us he pours grace upon us because we belong to his dear son. 

Being a member of Christ's family and through God's grace we are redeemed and forgiven. So that is because of God's rich kindness and grace, not because of anything we have done.  

And anything God makes he blesses and pours abundant blessings upon it. He has showered his kindness, not just dripped or drizzled it but showered it upon us. This includes His wisdom and understanding. The wisdom and understanding of the Holy Spirit. We have it all, the election, the sonship, the grace, the redemption and forgiveness and also the abundance of the Holy Spirit. The Trinity. 



We have been given the honour of embracing a life of sonship with the Trinity. 

When life gets hard and we feel unable to cope we have the solution. God is bigger than all of our worries, troubles, sadness, and sorrows. He has given us sonship so that we can embrace His shower of kindness, wisdom and understanding. That understanding is:

God is bigger than everything, we are His sons and daughters and He will never forsake us. This is what he promises. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. God will never renege on his promise because He elected to make us His sons and daughters. 

The answer to our daily concerns:

You are bigger than this Jesus Christ. 

Believing in God is the only way, accepting our faults, turning away from the wrong gods, and asking forgiveness, directs us into the glow of the Trinity and moves us forward to live the feast of the transfiguration through God's Grace. 

Let us truly understand the Greatness of our God and live it in our lives today. Pray believing that miracles will happen every day of our lives. He showers us with His Grace. He wants us to be His hands. To heal, to love, to be compassionate, to forgive, to give, to be the answer. 

When we ask why is God not doing something about a situation in our life, or a global disaster, even genocide, He is, we are His messengers, His tools, His answer. We are the answer just as we are the problem. God through us can change things with His Grace. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. If we sit and do nothing, we are not receiving His shower of kindness, wisdom and understanding. We are not sharing this blessing. We have his kindness, wisdom and understanding through His Holy Spirit. 

Next time we say, 'Where is God in all of this?' remember we are His hands. His holy hands. Pray that we use them wisely, justly, with compassion, and above all lift them in pray and praise to the God who made us. May they not be to the destruction of God's creation as we have all been chosen in Christ to be holy and without fault. May we not be found wanting by our brothers and sisters who are in need. 

May we be able to answer the question 'Am I a real Christian?' Do I really believe God's message of election, sonship, grace, redemption and forgiveness. Do I abundantly give? Am I God's hands? Do I allow God to use me to be the answer?

Please don't get me wrong this is not a call to go and get rid of all that is evil by destroying; it is a call to be part of God's army, to reveal God to the world through our Christian calling. To show that God is bigger than everything that the world throws at us. If we are called to do great things in God's name He will reveal this to us individually and with confirmation through the Holy Spirit. 

There will always be evil in this world as we live in a fallen world. And as God's hands we need to be there for those who have fallen. Our lights need to be brighter than the false gods that try to blind our nations with false promises and lies. Our God is a God of freedom who empowers us and breaks our chains. He and He alone is the solution to the madness of this world. Only His promises are True. We must never forget that His Grace has saved us. And our calling is to be a real Christian. One empowered by God's love.

God only sees the good in us.

God is incapable of seeing the bad in us. He can only see the good that is in us. How do I know that this is a truth? 

Sin comes from the devil not from God. Sin is bad, evil, darkness and death. 

God is light, holy, goodness and life.

When Jesus called out to God from the Cross "My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt: 27:46), God could not look at His Son, Jesus, because he was carrying our sins. God could not look at the evil, because He is Light, Pure, Goodness and Life. 

When God looks at us he looks at us in Love, because God is Love by his very nature, therefore His love is pure. This pureness only sees good.

Ephesians 1:9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure

And God's good pleasure was to allow His son Jesus Christ to take upon himself our  sins so that we could follow the goodness of Christ and be worthy through God's Grace, and His Grace alone, to be with Him in his eternal Kingdom. 

Matt 6:33 Seek first the Kingdom of God

When we are baptized we are baptized into a relationship with God. That is what religion means and why relationship comes before denominations. If we all have a relationship with God then we can have unity within our world when we put God first.

Matthew 6:33

But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 

The moment I said "Yes" for myself. 

I have always accepted the baptism that my mother chose for me as a baby, but having the courage as an adult to freely choose God and His way for myself was life changing. As I stood in the sea I was not baptized into any church but into God's Kingdom, and His Grace and the beginning of a new relationship. I would never have believed this possible with my traditional upbringing but God showed me that he is bigger than tradition and His way is freedom. 

Choose God

The most beautiful thing you can do for God is to choose to love Him and to live your life dreaming of a forever after in His Kingdom. 

God will honour you and your choice. He will send blessings upon you and increase your love. 

He will live in you. What could be more amazing than to have God within you? Your body as His temple of Love? 

You will experience such joy. Your life will have purpose. You will live, not just survive. You will be fulfilled and filled with His Spirit. 

Breath Him in, breath Him out. Allow God to be your life force. It is life changing. 

Grow in love. Be in love with the God who loves you. Raise your arms in submission of His love. Receive His love. He wants you have it. To bathe in it, to be healed by it. To express it, to share it, to heal others with it. 

His love brings peace, destroys the warring powers within, and creates a new being. Accept His new life. Rise and be loved.