Rev. Deb

Piedmont Campmeeting

I wanted to send out a big HUGE thank you to all our Valley Word Family who came out to Piedmont Campmeeting last night.

Thanks for coming to support Pastor and thanks to our Music and Sound team.

The Praise and Worship was so awesome, it was very high energy, I really enjoy it when the congregation really joins in.  Of course Pastor Eddie brought a great teaching on "Destiny". 

We had so many people come and talk to us after service that said they really enjoy his style of teaching.

And of course no night at Piedmont would be complete without the fellowship over hot dogs after service.  It was a great evening.

I will be speaking at Campmeeting this Thursday morning at 11:00, if you can come plan on staying for lunch afterward.

Hope to see you there.

What to say when you feel overwhelmed!

In yesterday's post I talked about some steps I take when I start feeling overwhelmed with life.

Today I want to focus on how important our words are when we feel this pressure.  Feelings of being overwhelmed can make you want to express a lot of negative emotions.  Many times people say "I just needed to get that off my chest".  Well there is a certain release to expressing how you feel, but if you don't follow up with a positive confession what have you done?

It is so important that we are speaking the promises of God over a situation and not just continually rehearsing the problem itself.  Many people are expressing the pressure they are under but if they don't follow up with the Word there is no lasting relief or solution.

There are many great examples of what we need to do in Scripture.  In the book of Psalms we see lots of examples of David pouring out his heart to God about his troubles, but then we also see him expressing his hope in God.

"Why am I so sad?  Why am I so troubled? I will put my hope in God, and once again I will praise him, my Saviour and my God."  Psalms 42:5

Watch out for words like this that want to come out of your mouth when you feel overwhelmed.  Nobody cares, no one will help, everybody has deserted me, I can't go on like this, I can't do this anymore, etc.

When we begin to let our negative emotions spill out of our mouth,  we reinforce them instead of speaking the Word of God which has our answers.

What do you need? 

Find the promise of God in His Word  and  begin to speak that over the situation.  At first it may seem hard, but keep pressing in, instead of giving in to the pressure.  That word will begin to bring hope first, then faith.  You speaking God's words can take the pressure off and turn the situation around.   

Are you feeling overwhelmed?

I know as a Pastor's wife many times I hear people express feelings of being overwhelmed.  I not only have heard this many times but many times I have felt this way myself. 

Today I wanted to share with everyone what I have learned about this.

Notice in the title I used the word "feeling".  When I "feel" over whelmed, it feels like I have all this pressure on me to perform and it is more than I can handle.   When I feel overwhelmed, if I will just take a few minutes to examine what is going on I can get that feeling of pressure off of me. 

First of all I know this feeling of pressure is never from God.  The Holy Spirit leads us, he never pushes us, so I establish that in my mind first.

Second I pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help. Help me get my priorities straight, get my mind settled down and get back over in peace.

  Then I start writing down what the important things are that I need to get done.  Once I have gone through these steps I can formulate a plan and be effective again.

Tomorrow I will continue this teaching and we will talk about how important your words are when you feel overwhelmed.

Ladies Meeting

Tonight at our VWC Ladies Meeting we had Cathy Mink as our guest speaker and it was such an anointed meeting.

To start off she had a precious word to share with all our single ladies, something the Lord had given her to share with them.

Then she began to talk to us about how the Lord wants us to share our faith with others and about the boldness he has put within us as His girls.

Then she ended the meeting sharing with us about how God wants to increase us and how we can believe for things that God has put in our heart.  She shared some testimonies about some things that God had done for her and how we don't always have to have money to receive things but that we can purchase things with our faith.  She  shared several  Scriptures out of Isaiah, Matthew and Mark and how God had led to her believe Him for things that were the desire of our heart.

At the end of the meeting tonight Cathy prayed over each of us and there was such a sweet anointing there.  I know that we will hear lots of testimonies soon of what God did in our Ladies tonight.

Tomorrow morning Len will be ministering at our 10 am service.  See you there!

Birthday wishes

Wow! what an awesome weekend we had at VWC with Mark and Trina Hankins ministering. I know if you were there you were blessed.  We are so grateful that they were able to come.

Today I would like to wish a Happy Birthday to two very special people and co workers.

Brenda and Karl both celebrate their birthdays today and I hope everyone will find a way to express your love and appreciate to them.

We are so blessed to have these two working with us in the ministry, they both have such a great love for ministry and God's people.

Thank you Brenda and Karl for your faithfulness and love.

God Bless you and may this coming year be your best ever! 

Prayer

We have been having special prayer times for a few months now for an Awakening.  We are believing for those who are spiritually asleep to wake up and we are praying for people to awake to the Gospel message that aren't born again.

For over a week now I have heard testimonies from various people and the Holy Spirit has been speaking to me and saying that this a result of your prayers for Awakening.  I know that God is dealing with the Body of Christ about some things.  He has certainly been speaking to me about things I need to be praying about and doing.

God speaks to us when we listen.  It isn't any point or fun to talk to someone who you know isn't listening.  So we have to make sure we are taking time to listen. 

I have been working on getting myself in better shape physically this year and I have noticed that when I see results ,it spurs me on to do better.  I know though that when I am doing everything I can to get in shape and I don't see immediate results I am doing it by faith knowing that it is helping me.  

Even when we don't see immediate results of our prayers we know that we still need to pray by faith knowing that God is working and things are happening in the Spirit realm. 

We need each other part 2

This post is a continuation of the post I did on Tuesday of this week.  This morning I was reading a blog by a Pastor in SC and he said this "Jesus never apologized for asking people to make a commitment".  I started to think about this and realized the kind of commitment that was required from his disciples.  These men actually gave up life as they knew it to follow Jesus.  He never promised them large salaries or high positions.  He told them "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" Matthew 4:19.  I am not suggesting that anyone quit their job to follow Jesus.  What I am saying is that we all need to make time to work in the Kingdom.

Sometimes we say we don't have time to do certain things, but we all make time for what is important to us.  I have always tried to remember the truth that only what is done for the Kingdom of God will matter in eternity.  It is so important that we use our gifts and talents for Him.

There have been a few times in my life that I have felt a little down about life.  At those times I realized I was too focused on me. To get out of this I would have to get my focus off myself and go help someone else.  It is amazing how this can turn your attitude around.  

We have such loving and faithful people at VWC, I am always so grateful for the diligence and excellence I see in our leaders and teams.  If you haven't gotten involved yet there are so many opportunities.  You will be blessed.  

We need each other

This morning I was going over some of the Scriptures in Romans that tell us who we are in Christ and I really took some time to focus on these verses.

Rom 12:4-5
 5 so it is with Christ's body. We are all parts of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.
NLT

Rom 12:6-9

6 God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you have faith that God is speaking through you. 7 If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, do it! If you have money, share it generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

9 Don't just pretend that you love others. Really love them.
NLT
I like how these verses start out reminding us that we are all part of Christ's body and that we need each other.  In verses 6-9 it goes on to explain more about why we need each other.  It says that God has given each of us abilities to use for the Church.  Notice that it says "each of us" not just certain ones or a few, this includes everyone that is part of the family of God.  He has given each of us ability that He expects us to use to bless His Church and His family.

Verse 9 says don't just pretend you love others but really love them, I think we can do this by serving each other with the abilities that have been given. 

It is so important that everyone is involved in their Church.  We need every gift and ability in action.  If you are not involved in your Church, I hope you will find a place to get involved right away.  If your Church is not quite ready for what you think your gifting is then get involved where there is a need.

You will be so blessed when you serve your Church. 

Just a reminder

I am so glad Pastor is home, when he is gone I get a new appreciation for all the things he does.  I did enjoy ministering two Sundays and a Wednesday for him.  I was reminded of how much study it takes to do services every week.

The first Sunday that I ministered we talked about looking up the Scriptures that tell us who we are "in Christ".   I encouraged our congregation to read through the NT letters again and look for Scriptures with phrases like, "in Christ, in Him, in the Beloved, in the Lord, in Whom, By Christ, By Him, by His blood, through Christ "  etc.  As you begin to find these verses write them out and begin to meditate on them. 

One lady gave a testimony about how she did this a few years ago and it changed her life.  This morning I was meditating on some of these Scriptures and it was such a powerful devotion time.  The Word just began to flow out of me about his blessings and benefits.

This is quite a project, I know but it you will do it  it will make such a difference in your life. 

Love in action

A couple of weeks ago I was driving a familiar route here in Salem and something caught my attention.

I had passed a row of Crape Myrtle trees at least hundreds of times and never noticed them until this one day.  Why did they stand out on this particular day?  Because they were in full bloom. 

This beautiful row of trees had been there all along, yet they remained invisible to me until they were in bloom.

Last night at Church I touched on a scripture in Acts 9 where a lady named Tabitha had died and people were so upset that they sent for Peter.  Tabitha had a gift to make beautiful clothes and she didn't just do this for herself and her family but for the poor and her friends.  Tabitha was in full bloom with God's love.  She didn't just talk about love, she demonstrated love.

 The Bible tells us that they will know we are Christians by our love.  We can't just talk love it has to be love in action.  What are you doing that will make people stop and take notice of God's love in your life?  Let's be so in action with God's love that people will notice and will be drawn to Him.