to: All // from: Paul

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (The Message & NKJV)
Who can you serve today?

an apology, a sermon and an adventure

hi friends.
I have to apologize.
I promised a Lyrical Friday and I didn't post one.

This past Friday, we launched a new series at our youth group: Freedom. The Lord blessed me so much with the opportunity to be the first speaker alongside with my friend Willie. I had the girls in the main sanctuary and Willie took the boys to the video sanctuary. I titled my teaching, "Freedom to Live: Made for More." It was an amazing experience but at the same time terrifying. I didn't fear the young women who filled the room... I feared saying anything outside of God's will. I feel for our Pastors. Man, do they have a lot of responsibility as they stand behind pulpit and share God's Word. Overall, it was beautiful. Incredible that God wooed His daughters into His presence through a broken vessel like myself. I'll share more this week.

An hour after youth group was over, I headed to Orlando. A family from church invited me to join them. I went to Island of Adventures and Universal Studios for the first time. We laughed a lot, we rarely waited in lines and the weather was perfect. Oh, and we were soaked in the Popeye ride (AVOID IT AT ALL COST), we rode on dueling dragons in the dark of the night, we were nearly swept away by Twister, went on a bicycle ride with ET, saved Fiona from the terrible Lord Farquaad, escaped mummies, and we celebrated a birthday. I had a blast.
Needless to say, I am exhausted!

But I cannot go to bed without encouraging: Psalm 34:4-7
I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.
He freed me from all my fears.
Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened;
he saved me from all my troubles.
For the angel of the Lord is a guard;
he surrounds and defends all who fear him.

I'm back

Hi Friends.
November was a wonderful month!!! I have to give God all the glory for all the amazing post. I absolutely loved sharing my fiends and family with you. I had a blast last month. It was refreshing to be the reader.

I guess I hadn't noticed how much a part of my life this blog, you my new friends are to me. I have missed you.

Everytime God revealed Himself- I wanted to share it with you.
When I read an awesome verse- I wanted to share with you.
Moments of correction- I wanted to share with you.
What I learned from the guest posts- I wanted to share with you!
I so wanted to share so much with you- but I remained still.

The Lord definitely stripped me of all glory, praise and well, he stripped me of me. I'm glad I stayed away from posting because it is not about me, it's about the Lord. I would have robbed you from all the glorious gifts the Lord had in store for you. I praise Him for his faithfulness throughout November. And I thank you for joining the celebration.

All this to say: I'm so happy to be back!!! Tomorrow Lyrical Friday will resume. Stay tuned throughout the month for Flames from James, To All // From Paul, and many more blog post.

God bless YOU!

birthday surprise! It's Anelle.

We've made it through the month of November celebrating the faithfulness of the Lord. And now for our last cheer, our last hoorah, the cake topper, the grand finale... I present to you my sister Anelle! Things I won't say about my sister in her presence: I admire her wisdom, her jokes are pretty funny (that's why I steal them), that I love her and will forever wait for her to tie her long shoe laces (inside joke). She is one of my best friends and really my life wouldn't be as blessed without her.
May the Lord bless you greatly through her post:

"Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! 9 Why have you despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. 10 Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11 Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, before the sun.’”
13 So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”

And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.” 15 Then Nathan departed o his house." 2 Samuel 12:7-15

How do you respond when you're confronted with your own sin? Do you readily accept your guilt like David did, or do you deny that you have done any wrong?

Part of what makes the Bible so fascinating to me is that it tells the story not of how God has dealt with blameless people, but of how he has dealt with a pack of failures like you and me. What set David apart from other Biblical figures, what made God call him a "man after His own heart," was what David did with the aftermath of his mess-up. "I have sinned against the LORD," he said. Let's see how other people match up:

a. A short while after Cain killed Abel, God asked Cain a very simple question, "Where is your brother?" That was Cain's cue to confess what he had done, but did he own up to anything? No. Instead of showing any type of sorrow or any shadow of repentance, Cain 1. lied to the Almighty God and 2. gave Him attitude by saying these now famous words: I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? (I can almost picture him crossing his arms and rolling his eyes, Sheneneh-style).

b. More than once, Saul disobeyed God. In 1 Samuel 15, when Samuel rebuked Saul for not following God's orders, Saul first played stupid (v.20) and then admitted guilt, but with a justification attached. He admitted that he had sinned but then added, "I was scared of the men, and so I gave in to their demands." Like that was supposed to make it better. He sounded kind of like Adam and Eve: "the snake made me do it..." "the woman you gave me..."

c. In Genesis 18, we find Sarah eavesdropping in her tent while 3 messengers are telling Abraham that she will bear a son in a year. When she heard that piece of news, she laughed to herself. God brought that to Abraham's attention saying, "Why did Sarah laugh?" The Bible tells us that Sarah got scared, and her best come-back was, "I didn't laugh." And God said, "No, you did laugh."

It reminds me of the time that some of my 6th grade students accused this one boy of eating in class. When I asked him if it was true or not, the boy looked at me straight in the face and told me-- with chip crumbs all over his mouth-- that they were lying. I had to laugh. It takes a lot of guts to admit wrongdoing, even when you're caught red-handed. It's hard to realize that we're just flesh and that we do fall (very) short of perfection. I hate lies, and, still, I straight-up lied to my sister once because I didn't want to deal with the truth of what had happened.

And yet, the worst thing we can do after we sin is keep it concealed. The Bible says that the truth sets us free (John 8:36). 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness." James 5:16 says, "Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed."

When God grants us the opportunity to confess our sins, we might as well grab hold of that chance, and of the healing that comes with it, because I've learned that with Christians there is no such thing as secret sin. It will eventually come to the light.

Who will you be like? Will you be a Cain, a Saul, a Sarah, or will you be a David?
God bless!

birthday surprise! It's Christy!

Hi Friends. Today's guest blogger is my amazing friend Christy. The best way to describe her is Proverbs 31:26, "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness." I know that God will speak to all of you through her post. May the Lord bless you abundantly as you seek to know Him and make Him known. 

Whenever food comes up in conversation with anyone I have to mention Latin House Grill. It's a restaurant on wheels that travels throughout the city serving the most amazing Mexican/Cuban inspired dishes. I feel like I'm holding back and depriving you if I don't let you know about this delicious place!  Imagine the kind of friend I would be if I didn’t tell you about this life changing restaurant (seriously, the place will change your taste buds).  Imagine if you found out through someone else and then found out I had been going to this place all this time. This desire to share good news (hint hint) about the restaurant, can be likened to my desire to share with people whose lives need fixing, the amazing power of my Lord and Savior, who changed my life when I was 17 years old.

I'll spare you all the details, but I pray as you read this tidbit on my life you recognize that God sees you, knows you, and loves you unconditionally in spite of you :)

In high school I was pretty popular.  I had a group of friends who I partied with, a car, money for whatever I needed and the freedom to use all these things at my leisure, however, like all people, I always wanted more.  And the more I wanted, the duller life got. I remember driving home from clubs at 2 and 3 in the morning wanting to cry or leaving a party and asking about my self "who was that in there?"  I was empty, I had a void in my heart I felt no one could fill, however, for years, I strived desperately to fill it with myself.  Something was missing and I never could figure out what that something was.

Around the time all this was going on in my heart, my mom, who had recently been saved, invited me to church.  You would think that a person living in the rebellious state I was in would automatically say no, however, I went without much hesitation one Sunday morning.  The night before I had partied so late that the following morning I still had on the same make up.  Tears streamed down my face as I felt God begin to work in my heart and show me my need for Him to fill the void I desperately needed filled.   That morning, the void was filled, however, my life didn’t change much. 

The year that followed was brutal.  I spent the rest of my junior year in high school battling conviction and struggling to live a life both in the world and in the Lord, something Jesus makes clear is impossible (Matt 6:24).   It wasn’t until my senior year that I finally gave up the battle to live two lives and surrendered my life fully to the Lord.

In the coming weeks after my encounter with God my junior year, the rest of my family followed. One Sunday afternoon I was trying to rush through lunch to go to the beach with some friends (Sundays, I thought, were for the beach) when my mom casually turned to me and said I wouldn't be going to the beach, from now on we were going to be together on Sundays (a tradition we've continued for 8 years now). Part of me was angry, but a greater part of me was relieved. I felt as though I was beginning to take off some of the masks in my life.   Again, it wasn’t until almost a year later that I finally allowed God to begin changing my life, however, God was faithful, despite my faithlessness, and never gave up on me.

See God had started a work in my life which He has been perfecting ever since. He gently began taking away the people, hobbies and desires that were not only unpleasing to Him, but were killing me.  The things I thought would be impossible to let go, the wounds I thought would be impossible to heal, the life I thought would be impossible to restore, He healed, He restored and He transformed. 

I share this with you because Jesus changed my life. You may have seen that on a billboard or bumper sticker somewhere but the truth behind the words run deep in my life and the life of so many others. He is the only One who can fill our emptiness.  Some of you right now may think that your life is unfix-able, the place your in is unreachable.  Let me share something with you: It has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Him.  “God gave Christ for us.  God hates our sin but loves us.  We can be so quick to buy into the lie that we first need to fix ourselves, then find Him.  Reality is we need Him before we can ever be fixed.  Wherever you are today, wherever life has brought you, you aren’t too far away from Him. As Paul said in Acts 17:26-28, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, for in Him we live and move and have our being”  All you have to do is open up your heart, no matter how broken, no matter how small, and let Him mend it and enlarge it.

birthday surprise: It's Francine.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am so thrilled that today is finally here, my favorite Holiday: Thanksgiving! And because it's my favorite day of the year, I asked a very special lady to guest blog. When I asked my friends to guest blog, I also gave them liberty to write and when to submit their post. However, after spending some time with the Lord one day I felt him prompting me to ask Francine to write the Thanksgiving Day post. The Lord is brilliant and He knows what He is doing. Francine truly is a crown o glory in the hand of our God (Isaiah 62:3). She is so precious. May you be blessed by Francine's post and encouraged to rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks. God bless YOU.

Thankfulness, Thankfulness is what I want from You

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 16-17

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful reminder to us to be thankful for all God has, is and will do in our lives. I am thankful for the reminder.

Ever been through a horrific season and found that it became increasingly difficult as the trial continued to hold on to your faith let alone to praise God for your circumstances?

I have experienced some major seasons of drought, fire, despair, times I felt that I would drown, times I felt so alone that I was almost convinced there couldn’t be a God, times of such agonizing pain that I literally thought I would die from it. There is a specific time in my life where the trial was long and the suffering so intense that at one point I thought I had lost my faith and felt that if I didn’t hold on I would never get it back. I spent months of crying and pleading to God to heal my sweet husband Bill.

Bill was not well and in a lot of pain for 3 years. We were married for 2/1/2 years, all of which was during this time he was in constant pain (chronic pain) and we sought many treatments for nerve repair, spent a small fortune on changing his diet, juicing, all natural treatments, etc., etc. He was on 2 class 2 narcotics plus a host of other meds to treat his pain and symptoms from that pain. During this time he started getting swollen nodules in his neck. Two biopsies were done; they thought it was cancer and we prepared for the worst. The first biopsy wasn’t conclusive so they did the second to rule out the possibility of cancer. He had appointments with an Oncologist who was sure it was cancer and was preparing us for the worst. The swollen lymph nodes were all throughout his body even in his lungs. The second biopsy ruled out cancer. Then they thought for sure it was a fungus, so off to the Infection Disease doctor we went for more tests. We saw a few other doctors along the way but nothing was conclusive. Finally, his pain management doctor, after many trips to the emergency room for overdosing on his prescribed meds, determined that it was the medication itself that was killing him. His immune system (lymph nodes) was holding onto the meds so that he wouldn’t kill himself. All of this is too complicated to go into in great detail here but you get the idea.

His doctor sent him to a psychologist to help him prepare to come off the meds. He told him that if he did not stop taking all of the narcotics he would kill himself. The psychologist helped him to prepare. We went to our pastors and asked for counsel and guidance. Bill entered a 2-week detox program. Once he finished that he went to a Christian drug treatment program. He was there for 3 months.

When he came home it was a time of adjustment for him but he did really well. After 5 months of praying and seeking God for the direction our life would now take, we both sensed God calling us to move from Miami to Virginia to be a witness to his 9-year-old son, Bradley. Bradley had no Christian influence in his life and we readily moved 1 mile away from his house.

We were there for 6 weeks when the unthinkable happened. Bradley woke me one morning to tell me that Daddy fell in the bathroom and that he couldn’t get him up. My heart plunged.

You see for the first 2 years of our married life I had expected to wake up one morning and find that Bill had overdosed. After rehab that fear had dissipated. I knew before I ever went into the bathroom that morning that he was gone. I won’t go into all of the details of the situation but being away from my church family was extremely difficult. But from the first day God provided for my needs and spoke his peace and love into my life. The Calvary Chapel we were attending there has an amazing pastor. He and his wife and other members were there for me in anyway I needed them for the next 2 months.

Bill had secretly kept some medication. As I said he was taking class 2 narcotics. The meds he was taking were extremely strong. You had to “work your way up to them”. He had been complaining of pain for a couple of weeks and I can only imagine that it became unbearable for him. Sometime during that last night he took one of the narcotics and immediately went home to be with the Lord.

As I prayed about what to write, this was not my intention, it doesn’t feel holidayish, but I do feel certain that this is what God asked me to write.

I shared this with you to share this specifically, what I learned during this time. My loss was immense and it is just within the last couple of months that I feel completely whole in Christ. In the onset of my grief God asked me to praise Him in my circumstances. He had chosen not to heal my husband but to take Him home and yet He asked me to have a grateful heart. I must confess that I started off with mere words, my feelings were not gracious, nor understanding. But I did what God asked of me. After months of saying “thank you” to God during my prayer time and through out my days, one day I realized that I WAS thankful to God for taking Bill home.

Is. 57:1- The righteous perishes, and no man takes heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil.” God gave me this scripture within the first couple of weeks of Bill’s death. It did bring me comfort that God had spared Bill from evil that was to come. A couple of months later God gave me this scripture again and told me that He had spared me from evil to come also.

I now understand that 1 Thes. 1:16-17 that we are to give thanks IN everything. Not just for everything, while it is actually occurring. I believe that thankfulness is the same as forgiveness in that both are claimed in the Spirit and are done at that moment through the strength of Christ. The flesh eventually catches up as we continue to claim it and walk it out.

I want to encourage you to be thankful in the midst of your situation, no matter how bad it seems. Thanksgiving is a great time to think on all God has, is and will continue to do in your life and it is a special holiday to do this! But, please take it to the next level and give God the thanks He is due at all times and in all things. “All things work together for our good and His glory”. Either God’s Word is true or it isn’t. Let’s stand in faith that God hasn’t given us more than we can bear and let’s praise Him in the midst of our worst.

I pray that your Thanksgiving and Christmas is filled with God’s love through His Spirit and His people. The best blessing in life…that God loves us! Receive all that He has for you. Let go of any bitterness toward God and know that He is working all things out for you so that He will be glorified!

I moved back to Miami to be with my loving, supportive, church family. I am completely healed and take great comfort that Bill will never hurt again.

Blessings, peace and love.

birthday surprise! It's Caro.

Hello.
I am very excited to share with you a woman who is very special to me: Caro. I met her when she was attending youth group and I was her leader. Definitely a cool girl, in the sense that you know this girl loves Jesus <-- what cooler way to be!? She has flourished into an amazing woman. I absolutely love her post and pray that you be encouraged tremendously by it:

Seed Planters!


My way of thinking is very scatter-brain like. If I lose you in my train of thoughts, I won’t feel offended. hah!

I’ve been thinking a lot on not being worthy for God. Thinking why God would choose me?? Why me?? I probably mess up more than I should yet He chose me anyway. (there’s a thought....)

There, right there you notice something about God. You notice that there is a purpose in his choosing and second the type of love He has. One that doesn’t stop once you become a complete fool but it’s a consistent love even when you mess up. Hmm, okay so here’s a new concept for people. “HEY I’M STILL GOING TO LOVE YOU NO MATTER WHAT, AND IT’S A REAL LOVE THAT WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD!” -God.

Woah, What, Really? A love that stands the test of time? One that will be pure, amazing and beyond spectacular!? Yep, that type of love. But that’s not what I wanted to write about...so you’re thinking “Okay, then what?”

I wanted to talk about God and why He chooses the most unlikely, the rejects, the strange, the mess-ups and pretty much the complete weirdos!

I’ve been reading Acts, and one thing that really jumped out at me is in Acts 9, The Conversion of Saul. Let me give you a run-down of this dude, he definitely hated the disciples, and the disciples were definitely scared of him. Wanted them ALL jailed/killed etc (the good stuff). The best part.... he DESPISED that they were from The Way.

The ironic thing is God ends up using Saul to further his ministry on earth...WOAH WHAT! back up, wait a minute..yeah Saul the most unlikely of persons is chosen by God to spread the Gospel. Who also is Paul (name change), the one that we all know and love! Let’s rewind and review: Saul who was not the most loving person (can we say jerk?) towards the disciples is called to join them and does so!

One of the things that astounds me of that story is that you see God’s guiding hand in the whole thing. You see that God had a purpose for each one of their lives, and has one for ours also. It also gives me the perspective that not one person is too sinful to get to know Jesus as their Lord.

I think when it comes down to us in our lives, (at least I do) we look at people, and we see that they are so far from the truth they’d never be willing to hear about the loving goodness of God. I pray that our assumptions of those be crushed so we’d be able to just share just how stinken’ good the Lord has been in our lives.
Let’s be the seed planters!!

...(and if you’re thinking why doesn’t God just blind the ones he wants and tells them clearly; read Matthew 28:16-20)

For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? Romans 10:13-14

I pray that God continually humbles us where we see everyone as someone who can be used for the kingdom of God. Lord let us not grow cold and presumptuous but continually remind us that at some point we were a Saul also.

Help us to love how you love us.
xoxo, Carolina

If you want to read more from Caro, ck our her blog HERE!

birthday surprise! It's Andreina.

Hi Friends.
Today's post comes from Andreina. It was a sweet surprise for me to read her words. She was actually replying to an email that I had sent her. Andreina's response was so profound yet so simple, I knew then and there that God wanted me to share this with you. May the Lord bless you richly.

First let's read the portion of scripture Andreina will be writing from.
Luke 9:28-35
Now it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, that Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening. And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep; and when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men who stood with Him. Then it happened, as they were parting from Him, that Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were fearful as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!”

From Andreina:
I was just reading my Bible study about how Peter, just like us, thought that he was able to figure out the "spiritual", and because of that He missed the point. He put Moises (law) and Elijah (Prophets) in the same level as Jesus (the cross) . We too do the same, when the only thing we know is that God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die for us in the cross....and we should listen to Him, because He is the only One that pleases the Father, not us .....humbling!!!! ONLY the Son's work satisfied the Father's justice, and we have to land (like Peter) under the cross and under His grace every day, knowing that He already has done everything we are unable to do (ever) because our rebellious and arrogant hearts.

The only thing we have to offer is to believe in the Gospel of His Son...FOR EVERYTHING to get to heaven and for our journey to heaven. We are to serve Him based on that truth; in response to HIS LOVE FOR US, for what HE HAS DONE FOR US and IN US. AY,AY,AY!!! He has already satisfied...are we listening??? That is a good news for me in the sense that it liberates me, but is not so good for my pride .

*I love her God-given wisdom.

Thank You Jesus.

Let's keep the main thing, the main thing. And the main thing is always Christ!