Hebrews 4

I was reading Hebrews 4 this week and it was a message that I needed to hear "1Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. 3Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' " And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. ...... 6 It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. 7Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.""
This is what i took from this passage
1 - God keeps his promises, in spite of us, so be sure that you are doing what you are supposed to be doing
2 - words, such as committing to God to follow his will, without faith are meaningless
3 - Those who have faith enter into rest - peace - God's will for your life
6 - disobedience = no rest
7 - God has a plan for your life and in his time rest - peace - fulfillment will happen, so be obedient, and listen up.

Just my take on this, if you have another thought I would like to know :-)

So something I didn't mention is that already God has made provision for us,
We received a letter in the mail from the IRS - usually not a good thing - but in this case it was GREAT, they had approved our revised tax returns and are sending us a nice refund check in the next 2 weeks.

I was talking to some friends after church and I realized how much God has done for us in the past year or so. I am listing a few things here as praises.

Drason put his hand through the bathroom shower wall, turns out it was water damaged we priced out tile and supplies at about $300.00 plus installation- the next day I went to Lowes and was talking to a guy who gave me a shower surround for 50 bucks

Two days before Thanksgiving 2006, and for the first time in 8 or 9 years my entire family will be together and my stove blows up - I call a friend and they say it will be 200.00 to fix it, well I had about 250.00 I could spend, so I decide to check out Lowes and they have the most perfect GE oven - for $450.00 -which I can't afford. So I am walking to my car and I am so discouraged and I want to go home but I feel impressed upon to go to the Home Depot (some of you are rolling your eyes - too bad for you) so all the way there I am thinking - geez, they aren't going to have anything, but I'll go anyways - all the way to 21st street, in the rain and the cold. So I get there and I am looking around and they don't have anything any better priced. I get ready to go and I stopped and talked to a sales girl who tells me that they have a few returns she will check out for me - low and behold they have the IDENTICAL GE OVEN in beige (which happens to match my kitchen) which was returned due to the color for .........................................$250.00

We had just moved into our home and when we closed they told us that rather than the customary 30-60 days before a payment, our first payment would be in 15 days - yikes, We knew this was the house God wanted for us so we went ahead and closed. About a week later we get a check back from the escrow because they miscalculated our insurance and taxes - what do you know it was enough to pay our mortgage.

A few months later we were short on the bills for some reason and a check shows up in the mail for 6 or 7 hundred dollars where the home we had moved out of, the propane company had come out and emptied the tanks and refunded us the cost of the fuel that was there - out of the blue - we wouldn't have known the difference had they kept the money.

I can't even tell you how many times I have been having a bad day and opened an email from a friend - like the cross one the Salyers sent out a few weeks ago - and just felt better, encouraged by a friend in Christ. Or had someone tell me that they had been praying for me and my family. Or had the opportunity to pass on the joy that comes from just living one day at a time to person who needed a pick me up.

I came home from Church tonight wanting to disown Mason for how he was acting - He is still among the living- but I did call his Daddy and send him to bed. How easy it is to get pulled down by the smallest things - like a tired kid - and just want to throw up both hands and quit. And for those of you who may read this and know just how distracting Mason was - I'm sorry, I think I let that go on way too long, I hope I can find someone to watch the boys next time.

This is a long blog - so what is the point ?

Have Faith! Life is not going to be all roses and sunshine, but if every time something bad had happened we had run away, ignored God, tried to figure out "the plan" ahead of Him - the "Today" that was promised would have never gotten here.

Enough for now,
Amanda