Happy New Year!

First off I want to wish all the readers of this blog a very blessed 2013 – may you receive all the abundant blessings that Jesus paid the full price for!  That is what I’m determined to receive this year, and I wish it for all of you too.

Then the next thing I want to do is share a message with you that I heard on the 30^th of December because it made a huge impact on me.  It is once again a message that I stumbled across – I was watching TV while DH was taking a very long nap and there was just nothing on the regular channels, and when I saw that Cref.lo Dol.lar’s program was on TBN, I decided to watch it as I wanted to see one of his programs for a while now, but somehow just never got around to recording one.  I believe the Holy Spirit was guiding me to watch this specific program…  Since I did not plan to watch it I did not record it, so I’ll have to tell this from memory, and I hope the message comes across as strong as I heard it…

Luke 1:26-38 (NKJV):  “²⁶ Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

²⁹ But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. ³⁰ Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. ³³ And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

³⁴ Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

³⁵ And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. ³⁷ For with God nothing will be impossible.”

³⁸ Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.”

Just put yourself in Mary’s shoes here for a moment.  Just think how difficult it must have been to believe that what the angel said was true.  Never in all of history was a baby conceived without the act of intercourse with a man.  Even in today’s day and age it is generally thought to be impossible.  Any doctor will tell you so.  It’s just us Christians who actually believe that is what happened.  But Mary never heard of such a thing, yet she believed the angel Gabriel.

The angel Gabriel told her; “³⁷ For with God nothing will be impossible,” and she believed him.  More than that, she replied; “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”  In Mary’s case God’s Word acted as a sperm and fertilized one of her eggs, because the Bible says in John 1:1-5: “¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehendit.”  The Bible is speaking of Jesus here, calling Him the Word.

Now just think of all the impossible things in your life and this New Year start to believe for that.  Believe that all your debts would be paid off supernaturally, or that you will be miraculously healed of something that the doctors say cannot be cured.

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”

Do you think it’s impossible to fall pregnant?

“For with God nothing will be impossible.” 

Do you have a problem that makes it impossible to get pregnant naturally?

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”

Whatever your problems are insert them in here:   ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

“For with God nothing will be impossible.”

³⁸ Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”

Why don’t you insert your name here in verse 38; “³⁸ Then ……………… said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word,” and speak this verse out over your life.

Not only that, but go to God’s Word (the Bible) and see what it says about your specific problem and speak that over your life too.  Let God’s Word act like a “sperm” in your life too, like it did in Mary’s life, so that you too can become “pregnant” and receive the impossible in your life.

I’m sure your problem is not as impossible as what Mary had to believe for, but even if it seems impossible to you, stop limiting God, and just trust that He will take care of the impossible for you…

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Receiving Blessings:

I want to share a part of a teaching from An.drew Wom.mack again, How to receive God’s best, about receiving blessings from God and how we are still blessed even though we don’t deserve it and what stops the blessings in your life:

“Here’s the thing you’ve got to get:  the blessing of God is not dependent on your holiness.  Whether or not you are worthy of it.  Abraham was blessed by God and Abraham wasn’t the greatest man around.  Abraham lied about his wife – twice, and was willing to let other men take… as a matter of fact she went into the harem of other kings.  Because Abraham was chicken and wouldn’t stand up for his wife and afraid somebody would kill him to get to his wife, she was so beautiful.  The first time that happened she was in her 70’s, the second time he was afraid somebody was going to take her because she was so beautiful, she was in her 90’s…  Boy, that woman was blessed!

But Abraham, you know what, even though he didn’t do things right and he wasn’t the holiest man, he believed God and he believed the promise that he was blessed and because of that God didn’t rebuke him for what he did, He rebuked the kings!  And He told that king; “you are but a dead man for that man’s wife.”  And the king said; “I didn’t know she was that man’s wife, he said; ‘she was my sister!’”  God said; “I know you, I know you weren’t guilty that’s the reason I’ve warned you, but if you don’t turn her back over to her husband I’m going to kill you and everybody in your house.”

You know why?  Because God had said in Genesis 12; “I will bless him that blesses you and curse him that curses you.”  God put a blessing on Abraham and even though he wasn’t holy and he didn’t always deserve it, once the blessing is given it cannot be reversed!  God doesn’t give the blessing based on your goodness or worthiness.

Religion has basically taken the power out of the blessing because we say we’ve got to be worthy of it.  No you aren’t worthy of it, it’s not because you are worthy, it’s because God is Holy and God said this and once God has spoken a blessing over you, you are blessed regardless of how good or how bad you are, it’s just a matter of will you believe it.  The only thing that can stop a blessing of God is your unbelief.  Not your sin, not your unworthiness…  Man that is one powerful truth!”

I want to end this message with the following scripture; Galatians 3:10-14 (NIV):  “¹⁰ For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ ¹¹ Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’ ¹² The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them.’ ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’ ¹⁴ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”

What does that mean to us?  We can never live a sin free life, and if we try to we will be cursed, because we will break the law, but fortunately Jesus took the curse upon Him, He took all our sins upon Him, and those have been forgiven, once and for all.  Jesus redeemed us, so that we might receive the blessing of Abraham!  We get what Jesus deserves, fortunately not what we deserve!

Hallelujah!  Thank you Jesus!

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I am pregnant!

God is so good, faithful and absolutely almighty!  I am so thankful to Him for this amazing blessing!  I want to say miracle, but I recently learnt that blessings are better than miracles, so I guess technically the correct term is blessing.  You have all followed me on this journey, you know I have believed this will happen and it did!  This has given me a lot more hope for full and complete healing for Shumi too!

Yes, it’s true!  I am pregnant and it happened all naturally!  The only medication DH and I took was folic acid and evening primrose oil capsules.  Nothing else!  No help from any doctor!  It happened entirely naturally!  It just proves that God is almighty and faithful!  We are absolutely ecstatic!

It’s almost a year ago that I got my first ever BFP with the help of our fertility clinic and IVF, but this time I got my BFP naturally.  So after 11 and a half years, 8 IUI’s, 3 fresh IVF’s and 1 FET and at the age of 40, I got pregnant naturally because I finally found out that infertility is not God’s will for us and that He actually blesses His children with fertility in the Bible!  God has healed me!

This cycle I had probably the best CM ever, (6 consecutive days) and I ensured that we BD’d (sorry TMI) for 6 days out of 7 over ovulation period.  I figured that is the environment that keeps the sperm alive for the longest so I might just as well take advantage of it.  I must say one thing that was different this month was that I knew I was pregnant, I didn’t believe it anymore, I knew it.  That is why I started testing at 10dpo (10 days past ovulation) already and I got my first very faint positive that day!  (I admit I was a little surprised to get that feint second line, but not as surprised as you might think!  I think I just mentally prepared myself that the first one might be negative, but I expected a positive eventually.)   I’ve never, ever tested as early as that before!  Lately I’ve been getting braver, and the last few months I started to test at 12dpo, but those tests were always negative. 

At 11dpo (Monday morning) I convinced DH that I must go for a blood test.  The tests were so feint that DH didn’t want to believe that I might actually be pregnant.  But I POAS again and the line was darker than the day before.  I had to wait more than a day for the results (awful and extremely stressful!) but eventually I got a beta of 50.  The sister at our clinic was a bit apprehensive about the number, I told her it was only 11 dpo, but she still insisted that I go for a second beta and that it must double. 

So 13dpo (today) I went for a second blood test and the beta came back 195.  Almost 4 times as much!  The sister sounded so surprised, but ecstatic for our part.  I’m not sure whether she believes I got pregnant naturally or not, she keeps asking me if it was the case.

So what did the trick?  It took quite a few months to get pregnant, since I heard the first life changing message.  I’ve learnt so much, but I think the most important lessons were:  That it’s not God’s will for us to be infertile or have miscarriages, I also learnt that God was waiting on me, and not that I was waiting on God.  God was waiting for me to get ready, to change and to be able to receive.  I had to learn to believe and to stop doubting, I never knew that you can do both at the same time (that’s a post I must still write!).  I learnt that I was limiting God, especially with fear, but also with my thoughts, and I had to learn to see myself pregnant (I’ve only been doing that for about 2 weeks!)  I learnt that the devil is a defeated foe and that the only power he has is to lie (deceive us) and once you believe his lies you give power to the devil.  If you know the truth then you won’t believe his lies, and then he has no, none, nada power over you!   And I don’t know if this was significant or not, but I realized I can be happy without children. 

Although I’m pregnant now I know God healed me progressively, which is not God’s best by the way, but I guess my faith was not such that I could believe in immediate healing.  I have mentioned in previous posts that things got better over time.  That pain disappeared eventually, that my CM got better over time, that my cycles go a bit longer again and that my spotting got better at the end of each cycle, etc.  God heals according to at what level our faith is.  It took me quite some time, but someone else might get healed immediately and be pregnant a month, or two weeks later, or it might take someone a few months or years.

I guess what I’m saying is this can also happen to you, because believe me, there is nothing special about me, and it doesn’t need to take the time it took me, it all depends on where your faith is at.  Please know that nothing is impossible with God.  I have heard stories of miracles happen where a man grew back a foot after his was amputated, and of someone who had to grow new lenses in their eyes and being healed from blindness, so even if you have no more tubes for instance, God can heal you and get you pregnant naturally!  No matter what is wrong with you, nothing is impossible for God, but you must believe it is possible!

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Counting blessings:

Yesterday DH and I went for a walk around the estate that we live. Shumi and Nandi came along, but KT was not at home. We found this boy wandering around, but we did not know who he was. He definitely does not live here. First he tried to touch Shumi, but he seemed a bit afraid. Then he wanted to touch Nandi, and she was happy to let him touch her, before she ran off. A few minutes later this boy came to us to ask if we knew where the “little brown boxer girl” is. He said he had been looking for her all day (I’m sure this was an exaggeration, because it’s not that difficult to find KT!) He continued to tell us that he was here previously once and that day he spent the whole day playing with her.

I smiled then because I think I know who this boy is. One of our neighbours is a beautician and works from home. She once had a client visit her at 8h00 and it was this boy’s mom. This boy didn’t want to sit inside, so he went outside and found KT. When his mom was finished he enjoying playing with KT so much that our neighbour said his mom could leave the boy here, she would keep an eye on him (I guess he is about 10 years old) and the mom could come to fetch him later. That boy really spent almost all day here playing with KT and occasionally taking a break for something to eat or drink.

Fortunately I know where to look for KT and we soon found her and she was so happy to see this boy. He knelt down and she licked his ears and they were so happy to see each other. They both ran off immediately, the boy found a ball and they went crazy! Unfortunately about 5 minutes later the boy’s mom was finished and they had to go home. But the boy was happy and KT was happy. It really touched my heart that they enjoyed playing with each other so much. I’m so glad my dear KT could give a little boy so much joy. She is such a sweet dog!

She actually has a routine every day. It starts at about 5h00 every day. She visits almost everyone that lives here, and she spends time with them. Each of these people thinks she visits only them, but she goes from house to house. Everybody thinks she treats them as if they are special, but she treats everyone like that. She is really a blessing to many people and she is a blessing to us too. But just like KT, Shumi and Nandi are blessings to us too. They give us joy in so many different ways.

***

Then the other blessing that I’m grateful for today is my DH. Today 18 years ago (I can’t believe it) we met. Let me tell you the story:

I was almost 22 and DH was already 22.  A friend of mine from school met one of DH’s friends at gym and made a date with him. DH was part of a big group of friends from school and none of them had girlfriends (well, except for the one that made a date with my friend – long story, but I only found out months later he had a girlfriend), and this guy asked her to bring a friend with for his friends. Now, we all went to the same school, but DH and his friends were 1 year ahead of us. My friend and I knew who this group of guys were, their names and what they looked like, because my friend had a crush on one of them in school, but we never spoke to them.

When I first saw DH my heart literally skipped a beat. I could not keep my eyes off him. I thought he was so sexy. He didn’t speak to me at first because his one friend had a problem with his car and he was trying to fix it for him. I thought he was not interested. Later though when we went out, he did speak to me and from that moment on we were together for the rest of the night. He even took me home and asked for my phone number. But he didn’t have a pen and he had to memorize it. Only much later DH said he saw my long legs and that he fell for me immediately (I had a mini on – I’m 1.77 cm or 5 ft 10”).

I didn’t hear from DH the next day, or the day after which was Valentine’s Day. I thought he either forgot my number or wasn’t interested. But the day after Valentine’s Day he did phone and we went on our first official date. It turned out he felt awkward about Valentine’s day and didn’t know how to handle it, so that was why he only contacted me the day after. We have been inseparable ever since. Soul mates.

Quite a few people have commented on how close we are – how they can see we belong together, and that they wished they were in such a close relationship. Even just after we met one friend of DH told me that he could see that we were meant to get married (at that stage marriage wasn’t even brought up, or even thought about yet).

Today 18 years later I’m incredibly thankful that I met DH that day, and it rates as one of the best days of my life ever. Today I’m still as much in love with my DH as I was 18 years ago! I love you so much my darling husband!

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The things we say, but shouldn’t:

Lately I have been listening a lot to what people say in general about infertility.  I’m not just talking about the “fertiles” that have opinions on infertility here, but also actual Christians that are infertile.  It even reminded me of things I have said myself, out loud to others, or even in prayers to God.  And I realised that we are being extremely unfair to God.  He is blamed for a lot of things that is not His fault.  Mostly it is because I have learnt so much lately and my eyes have been opened to a lot of lies that we believe.  I want to try to explain to you with examples, so that you will hopefully also get some understanding and revelation about these things.

1.  “I know/believe God can make me pregnant, I just don’t know if it’s His will.”  I was really guilty of this one.  I have said it myself, I might even have blogged it, and I’ve said it many, many times in my prayers.  “God, I believe in miracles, I believe you can do amazing wonderful things beyond my imagination, but I don’t know if it’s your will for me to get pregnant or have children…”  When I did the Divine Healing Technician course Curry Blake explained it very nicely, and was I convicted!  If you have a child (Sorry, not an ideal example for this blog!) and that child wanted something from you, let’s say a toy, or a bike – how would you feel if that child said to you:  “Mom, I know it is in your ability to give it to me (you can afford it), but I don’t know if you want to…”  Parents want to give their children everything they want, because they love them.  If it’s at all possible you would do everything to your ability to help them, it is never a question of whether you want to or not and it is actually very insulting if your child should imply that you don’t want to…  It’s the same with God – we are insulting Him when we say:  “God I know you can give me a baby, but I don’t think/know if you want to…”  We say things like this because we don’t know God, and we don’t know what His will is.

2.  “It was God’s will that I had to be infertile, to teach me something.”  Here is the same mistake again – we don’t know what God’s will is, otherwise we would not say things like this.  Also God does not teach us by letting us “suffer”, or by letting bad things happen to us.  I want to quote Dr Fr.ed Chi.lds from his book:  Are you ready for your healing, pg 194:  “It is inaccurate for anyone who has suffered a debilitating accident, serious disease, or tragedy to say, “God did this to teach me something.”  God never uses sickness, disease, or bodily deformity to teach or guide His people.  God has given His Spirit (Holy Ghost) and His Word to instruct, correct, rebuke and guide His people.  Since all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and who are called according to His purpose, He can certainly use tragedy as an opportunity for His Spirit and Word to teach us.  However, that is much different than God doing bad things to teach us.  God does no evil.  John 16:13 (NIV) is one witness that God uses his Spirit to teach us.  “¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”  2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV) is a witness that God uses His word to teach us.  “¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

3.  “God had to break me/my will, so that I could conform to His will.”  This is once again a statement from someone who does not know God.  God will not break you.  God will not hurt you.  It’s the devil that hurts, and breaks and destroys…  God will not stoop to the same level as the devil to accomplish anything in your life. Here are some scriptures that describes who God is:  1 John 4:8-10, 16 (NIV):  “⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”  1 John 1:5 (NIV):  “⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”  Psalm 92:15 (NIV):  “¹⁵ proclaiming, The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”  From these scriptures we can see that God loves us, so incredibly much that He sacrificed His Son for us, and that he has no wickedness or evil in Him so he cannot hurt us.

So what is God’s will about having children?  One of the first commands God gave Adam and Eve after they sinned in the Garden of Eden was:  Genesis 1:28 (NIV):  “…Be fruitful and increase in number…”
Exodus 23:25-26 (NIV):  “²⁵ Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, ²⁶ and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.” 
Deuteronomy 7:13-14 (NIV):  “¹³ He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land— your grain, new wine and oil— the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you.    ¹⁴ You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young.”
Deuteronomy 28:1-4 (NIV):  “¹ If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.    ² All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God: ³You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.    ⁴ The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock— the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.”
Psalm 113:9 (NIV):  “⁹ He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children.   Praise the LORD”

Psalm 127:3-5 (NIV):  “³Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.    ⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth.    ⁵ Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate”

Psalm 128:3 (NIV):  “³ Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots round your table.”
1 Timothy 2:15 (NIV):  “¹⁵ But women will be saved through childbearing— if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

So do you see that it is God’s Will for us to have children?  Most of these scriptures are also found in the Old Testament so that means it is Old Covenant scriptures – if it was God’s will under the Old Covenant is definitely His will under the New Covenant!

4.  “God works in mysterious ways.”  God does not work in mysterious ways.  We have a Bible to teach us how God works.  We need to read it and learn from it and then nothing will be hidden or mysterious to us anymore.  It says in Matthew 13:11-12 (NIV):  “¹¹ He replied, The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.  ¹² Whoever has will be given more, and he will have abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him”

5.  “God’s timing is perfect.  We need to wait on God.”  Please read the following on God’s timing and on Waiting on God.  There is not much more I can say about it except that I think it’s more a matter of God waiting on us than us waiting on Him.  He is waiting for us to claim our inheritance, to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and to stop being victims…

6.  “God gives and takes away.”  If you read Mistake #1 from Common misconceptions from the book of Job: you will see how that statement is completely wrong.  It’s a verse that is often misquoted from the book of Job.  Let me quote from that post:  “God adds and multiplies, Satan subtracts and divides.  God is not a taker, but a giver.”  Let me prove it with some more scriptures:  James 1:17 (NIV):  “¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  Psalm 84:11 (NIV):  “¹¹ For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favour and honour; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”

7.  “I/you am/are being punished for something I’ve/you’ve done wrong.”  What could you have done that is so terrible that you have to be punished with infertility?  And why are other people like drug addicts or prostitutes not punished like that?  Because it is not a punishment.  Look at the blind man Jesus healed in John 9:1-3(NIV):  “¹ As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.    ² His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?    ³ Neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.“  Another example:  Luke 1:5-7 (NIV):  ⁵ In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.    ⁶ Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly.    ⁷ But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well on in years.”  I love this last example – It is so apt – even though they were “upright in the sight of God,” Zechariah and Elizabeth were barren, so it was not due to punishment… 

8.  “They say children are a blessing from God.  Then why am I not being blessed?”  I believe it’s not a matter of not being blessed, but rather a matter of your blessings being stolen from you.  In John 10:10 (NIV) it says:  “¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  I’m sure if you looked at the scriptures above about God’s will for us regarding children you will see that children are definitely a blessing from God, unfortunately we don’t always receive those blessings, but we cannot blame that on God!

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God’s gifts:

Very often we forget about the gifts we receive from God, and I’m sure we are not thankful enough!  There are so many and we are so blessed when we are His children, and I want to just remind you of some of it:

Ephesians 1: 3-14 (NIV):  “Spiritual Blessings in Christ:  ³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  ⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵ he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace ⁸ that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.  ⁹ And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment— to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.  ¹¹ In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ¹² in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.  ¹³ And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,  ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession— to the praise of his glory.”
 

• “He chose us in Him, before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight”
• We are adopted into His family, because He loves us so much.
• He chose us to be His children, through Jesus Christ.
• He gave His beloved Son Jesus Christ as a sacrifice, so that we may be saved.
• We have redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ, and forgiveness of our sins, due to His grace.
• He has shown us the mystery of His will.
• Everything in heaven and on earth is united under One – Jesus Christ
• We have received the Holy Spirit because we believe.

Psalm 91:14-16 (NIV):  “¹⁴ Because he loves me, says the LORD, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  ¹⁵ He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him.  ¹⁶ With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation”

• He will rescue you and protect you.
• He will answer your prayers, be with you in trouble and He will deliver you and honour you.
• He will bless you with a long life and He will show you His salvation.

Rom 8:28 (NIV):  “More than Conquerors:  ²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

• He wants just what is good for us.

 Psalm 5:12-13 (NIV):  “¹² For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favour as with a shield.”

• God blesses those that have right standing with Him
• He gives us favour, and it surrounds us like a shield.

Praise our Almighty God!  For we are His children, and we are truly blessed!  Thank you Lord!

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