Dove-Solutions

Loving you through it all! Praise the Lord! Awesome testimony to what God can do. He never leaves us or forsakes us. He will be our ever present help in time of need. He loves the honesty that you brought to him. I think sometimes we are unwilling to bring our troubles to God but he wants us to. We think oh this is to small a thing for God but he says, no problem is to small and no problem to large for me. I love you with an everlasting love and I will be your ever present help in time of need. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Even when we can't see Him, he is there. Hold on to Jesus and cry out to Him. Awesome testimony. love in Jesus, Connie

Thanks everyone for your prayers. I so appreciate them. Cholette it was my brothers daughter Kimberly.

Well said GoldenEagle. We are a work in progress. Just keep your focus on Him and these things will fade away. He will remove them from you and you can count on him to wash away every sin because we have been forgiven not only the sins we committed before we were saved but also those after. God bless.

Anytime!

Anytime!

Movies, TV, Radio any media really. Just listen to the news these days. Everything is so negative and they talk of murder, theft and everything is news worthy if it is gossip and the like. We listen to it everyday. What we hear we eventually believe, yes. So we must be mindful of what and how much we listen. Just my thoughts.

Anytime!

Hi! to you all! I love these little guys too! I also like the and the . Hope you guys are having lots of . Nice to meet you! Have fun! Love in Jesus Connie

o]]`Goldeneagle, These are just my thoughts so please understand that I say this in love. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. He needs to tell her the truth. I feel that your cousin needs to tell this woman he does not love her and he wants her to go. I also understand that now he has a child with her. That can certainly complicate things but like Cholette said he allowed this thing into his life. I will lift him in prayer today for his situation. On the mind you own business thing, this world does to much of that in my own opinion. Family means caring for one another through the good and the bad. We look out for each other and sometimes we have to get involved. My concern would be what would happen if I did not get involved. Would Jesus get involved? You bet! He would rebuke the demon and heal the wounds of those needing to be healed. I would be praying for them. The Lord will touch her heart and convict her of her wrong doings. Pray for your cousin as well and for the baby. I would also pray that your Aunt has conviction in her spirit about pressuring him into marriage. That is a sacred vow with God and to go into it knowing that you don't love the person or knowing that you may break the vow is well shall we say not going to help his situation. I would pray the Lord reveal the truth to your Aunt. Love in Jesus, Connie [/i]

Good morning to everyone. I am asking people to touch and agree for my brother and his son and for me. My brother Mark had been married with 3 adopted children. Each of his children was a special needs child. Johnny was severly abused, Jacob a paraplegic and Kimberly was blind. When he got them they had been severly abused and neglected. Him and his wife took them in adopted them and cared for them. They did what they thought was best for them and I commend them for that. I did not always agree with what they did but I was not the one there every day with the kids. I am asking you to pray they have the peace of the Lord with them now and that they have the love of the Lord hovering over them. My brother is a saved man but I am not sure how active he is in his faith and I do not know if Johnny knows the Lord and he is the age of conscent so I worry about that. I pray that this will draw them closer to the Lord. As many of you know I am a minister and they are asking me to officiate at the funeral which I have agreed to. Please pray for my travels and that the Lord would give me the words and the strength to accomplish this task he has assigned me to. I will be leaving on Wednesday morning and will return on Sunday evening. Thanks so much for the prayers in advance. Love in Jesus, Connie

Father we come to you today to lift up our friend goldeneagle and thank you Lord for them. We thank you that you are the God that heals his children. We thank you the Rheumatoid Arthritis has to leave in Jesus name. We come against the spirit of infirmity and command it to the feet of Jesus, in Jesus name. We come against all principalities that would try to exhalt themselves and command them be gone now from this child of God. We speak healing into their life right now and paint the blood of Jesus over them and thank you Father that they are pain free now in Jesus name. Father we give you all the glory and the praise! For you alone are worthy of our praise. We pray these things in Jesus name, amen

Sirianta, That is so awesome! Just obey the Lord's instruction. Ask him for the words he wants you to put down on paper. He is faithful to help us accomplish the task he has given us. Love in Jesus, Connie

Glad to be of service.

I better be Wilma. I loved her character.

I say Praise be to God! Keep praying and listening for his voice.

The parable is talking about being prepared for the coming of the bridegroom. 5 are prepared and 5 are not. I have a segment from an article I read which I think helps to understand the message. Hope this helps you to understand. Although many things need to be said about how best to understand the meaning of this parable, four brief observations adequately suggest to us what Jesus was trying to say: (1) The delay of the bridegroom plays a critical role in the story. Had the bridegroom not delayed, all of the virgins would have been ready and waiting when the marriage procession arrived, and they all would have accompanied the bridegroom to the feast. Only because the bridegroom was delayed were half of the virgins caught unprepared and not able to accompany him to the feast. (2) The wisdom of the wise virgins consisted in their understanding that the bridegroom might be delayed. Why did the wise virgins take the flask of extra oil with them? Was it not because they had the foresight to anticipate that they might have to wait? Had they thought there would be no delay, it would have been completely unnecessary for them to carry extra oil. (3) In the end, the only crime of the foolish virgins was not being ready to follow the bridegroom to the feast when finally he came. (4) The bridegroom's response to the crime of these foolish virgins is severe: he bars them from entering the marriage feast altogether; and, more severely, he makes the astounding claim that he does not know them. At this point I must speculate. Although my knowledge of first-century Palestinian culture is not adequate for certainty, my common sense tells me that this last feature of Jesus' story would have seemed startling and outlandish to his listeners. Is it likely in the everyday Palestinian life of those days that a bridegroom would say to such foolish virgins, "I do not know you"? Would he not rather have opened the door and said, "Oh, Martha, it's you! You finally made it. I wondered what happened to you." Conceivably, their marriage customs would have barred these late-comers' entrance to the feast, but the bridegroom saying "I do not know you" seems highly unlikely. Here, I think, is the real "point" of this parable. Jesus makes this point by contrast, not by comparison; by disanalogy, not by analogy: In the world of everyday wedding feasts, not being ready when the bridegroom comes, though socially awkward, does not ultimately exclude you from the joy of the celebration. But not so if we are talking about the eternal wedding feast to come. When that bridegroom finally comes to take you to that ultimate wedding feast, which will be the occasion of all true joy and celebration for all eternity, if you are not ready to follow him, then you will never be allowed into that feast at all. That's how it is in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus is saying. So you have got to be ready. You dare not risk not being ready; the stakes are too high. You could lose out completely. Why is Jesus issuing such a warning? Because he knows that his coming will be delayed. It is easy to be ready if the bridegroom comes quickly. It is so much harder to be ready if he is delayed. And he will be delayed. If we are wise, we will know and understand the nature of God's promise. God will inevitably keep His promise, but He will not keep it quickly. The Kingdom of God will come in all of its glory, but it probably will not be soon. Knowing that, we who are wise will do what we must do to be and to remain ready to follow the bridegroom to the feast when finally he does come. Notice that both the wise and the foolish virgins fell asleep as they waited for the long overdue bridegroom, but there is a critical difference between the two. While the foolish virgins slept, their readiness to follow the bridegroom was depleted, consumed by time and the flame. The wise virgins' lamps burned, too, but their readiness to follow was not depleted, for they had a whole other flask of oil that had not yet been consumed by their vigilant flame. What is the analogy in our lives today? What does it mean for us to have oil in reserve, for us to be ready to follow the bridegroom? God requires one and only one thing of us: He wants us to want the coming of His Kingdom more than we want anything else in this life. It's little to ask, and it's a lot to ask. But it's the only thing He asks. At the end of this age, when nothing of this world remains, if He finds that we want--from the core of our being--the Kingdom He intends to establish, then citizenship in that Kingdom is ours. But if He finds our eyes, our desires, and our affections fixed on the stuff that is passing away, then we are unworthy of His Kingdom, and His words to us will be, "I do not know you." The oil that the foolish virgins found depleted when the bridegroom came is analogous to our desire for, belief in, and commitment to the eternal Life which God has promised. Many people will desire it; many will believe God's promise; many will commit themselves to wait for its realization. But only a few will find their desire, their belief, and their commitment in ample supply. Time and the flame of the weary, mundane ordinariness of life will try to lick dry our desire for the Kingdom and our belief in God's promise. For those of us who are foolish--in whom the desire does not run deep, the belief is not profound, and the commitment is only superficial and very fragile--our supply will soon run out. When the bridegroom comes, no longer do we really believe, no longer do we really want his Kingdom; long before, we had shifted our commitment to something else this world had to offer. But for those of us who are wise, our desire runs deep, our belief is profound and unshakable, and our commitment is more than superficial. So, our supply outlasts the bridegroom's delay. Though he does not come, his delay does not consume our readiness. We remain ever ready to follow him; for still we desire, still we believe, and still we remain committed to that which He has promised. Jesus said once, "Many are called, but few are chosen." He is saying something very similar to that in this parable: "Many are invited and will join in wait for the bridegroom, but few will actually remain to follow him to the feast when he comes." I would suggest that this parable sheds some light on what we at McKenzie Study Center understand ourselves to be about. I sincerely hope that we are like the oil dealers mentioned in Jesus' parable: the ones that the foolish virgins went looking for (although it was too late for them). Our desire is to persuade anyone and everyone who will listen of the surpassing value of God's coming Kingdom in order that we might fill the flask of their desire with a hunger and thirst for that Kingdom. We study a lot of different things; we talk about a lot of different things; our interests are wide and varied; but one thing--I hope--underlies everything that we do: we want to persuade those who have been foolish to get a little oil for their flask. In other words, we want to persuade them to trade in a faith that is fragile and tentative for a faith that can endure anything; to trade in a weak and fading love for God's kingdom for a love that runs deep and strong; to trade in a casual interest in the eternal Life which God has promised for a raging hunger; and to trade in a commitment that is divided and distracted for one that is single-minded and focused. Love in Jesus, Connie

Linda! I pray you have a blessed day.

I used to love that cartoon when I was younger. I grew up with that one. Ok somehow I think I just gave my age away.

I agree with dreamster. It opens the door for them to come in. So yes they can. Do not be fooled. The enemy will use any tactic he can to come in. He needs permission. When we open ourselves to certain things we give him permission. Love in Jesus, Connie

I come into agreement!

Happy Happy Happy Birthday to You! Happy Happy Happy birthday to you! Happy Happy Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Love In Jesus, Connie

Tell her that like Christ, you accept her as she is. Let the Lord help her find her place in church. I was totally turned off to church when I got saved. After a few weeks the Lord started showing me scripture and placing a desire in my heart to go to church. Talk to her about how Christ loves his children and accepts them exactly as they are. Church is two people discussing the Lord. He will do the work in her when the appointed time comes, in fact he is doing it already. Remind her that Christ does not condemn her and there is no guilt or shame. He takes her as she is. Tell them they are loved and accepted. That we all fall short of the glory of God and not one of us is worthy. Tell her that he died that she may live and that he knows all about her and that he loves her just as she is. Tell her, he is real and active, he is not dead but alive and that he will never leave her or forsake her. That is what she needs to know about our savior. He paid the price so she would not have to. Love in Jesus, Connie

Amen and