Hi Friends,

I hope everyone has had an exciting and creative week!  I love to make cards and do scrapbooks, but I am in the middle of slowly rearranging and cleaning my art room.  And, honestly, there isn't a surface to work right now.  I do have a question for those of you who are fellow stampers.  I am wondering how you store your wood stamps?  Can you put them in baskets by theme?  Or do they all need to be facing the same way...like  I have been storing them in rows in boxes.  All facing the same direction.  I'm considering just "gently tossing" each theme in one basket...but I don't know if it will damage them.  Anyone have an idea?  How do you store yours?  PLEASE let me know either by leaving a comment or email.  I need to find a few ideas, space is at a minimum, if you know what I mean.  (If you are a Crafter--you'll know what I mean!  lol )

My post was late this week, because my computer picked up a virus, and I needed to wait for my husband, Dave to fix to make sure I couldn't pass it on to anyone.  We are sure I did not, and it is fixed.  No need to worry. Otherwise, I have been healing and taking things slowly, since I am so tired. Things are looking up however.

I am posting a survey on the right side of this post.  I would simply like to know, what day you prefer to receive a post from the He IS Able Blog.  So, please choose one of the days in the poll area.  I want to make things as convenient for you as possible.

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I love this book I have shared from previously.  It is called "Quiet Moments in the Presence of God."  The book is published by Bethany House.  There is a short section I would like to share with you.  It is called, "Be Quiet."  I hope you enjoy it.  Here it is:

"They were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven."

(Psalm 107:30)

 

"The less busyness around you, the more you can feel the presence of God.  The less you are aware of the noise of the world, the more you will understand the love of God.  The less you listen to the unimportant and the non-essential, the more you will sense intimations and indications of God's presence."

"Fill up the space between you and God with a silence that waits for God, acknowledges His great love for you, and anticipates that He is with you.  If anything can go without saying, let it go.  An absence of spoken words brings the quiet that makes possible the awed awareness of God."

"Create in your environment and within your heart a chapel-hush that makes of your soul a sanctuary for the presence of God."

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How do you spend quality time with God?  Do you go to church on Sunday and call it done? Do you make time to be with Him?  Quiet time?  TV off?  Kids busy, on their own? Time where you can praise Him, and share your deepest concerns? What about telling Him about your sins, and asking Him for His amazing gift of forgiveness? Can you tell Him about how you are doing, where you are struggling, but also the needs of your friends and family members?  Most of all, do you have quiet time, to listen for Him to answer?  For guidance? 

 

I don't think a relationship with people or with God works if we are the only ones talking.  For a successful relationship, we need to also listen.  Sometimes for a while, before we hear what it is we are needing to hear.

 

"Paul stood on the stairs and motioned to the people to be quiet.  Soon a deep silence enveloped the crowd, and He addressed them in their own language." (Acts 21:40)

 

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The Winner of the He IS Able Blog's Card of the Week is...

jcb!

  Congratulations, again!  You were the only comment this week, and you can win as many times as you can! Thank you for your comment. Normally, I would need you to email your mailing address to me, but I have it from last week.  Your beautiful card is on the way!  Enjoy!

Here is jcb's comment:

jcb  March 21, 2014

I enjoy reading the posts. It gives me new perspectives and some things to ponder.

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I hope you will make some quiet time this week.  Listen.  He may have something important to share with you, through your thoughts and dreams, through other people...be open to hearing from Him.  Remember, He loves you and is faithful to you.  He wants your path to be the path He wants you on...for He wants much more for each of us, than we can even imagine.  God Bless!

He IS Able!

Traci Starkweather

p.s.  Please let me know how you store your wood stamps in the comment section or via email.  If it is by email, please put "He IS Able" in the subject section.  I really look forward to hearing your ideas.  Thank you being here today.

Sharing Jesus with Others, Part II

Hi Friends-

Thank you for your patience.  My back is still not back to how it was feeling a month ago, but I feel I am on the road to recovery.  Thank you for the your many prayers and thoughts.  You are appreciated much more than you know.  Please remember that I am here to lift up your prayer needs should you choose to let me know.

You may recall, I was sharing from the book titled, The Case for Christ authored by Lee Strobel.  If you didn't see this post...it is right after the one that it called, Not This Week. It would be beneficial to take a look at it first.  It's really a great book. 

In the book Lee Strobel, "retraced his own spiritual journey from atheism to faith, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, cross-examined a dozen experts with doctorates from schools like Cambridge, Princeton and Brandeis who are recognized authorities in their own fields."

On November 8, 1981, Mr. Strobel "talked with God in a heartfelt and unedited prayer, admitting and turning from wrongdoing, and receiving the gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus.  He told him that with his help he wanted to follow Him and His ways from here on out."

He went on to say, "There were no lightning bolts, no audible replies, no tingly sensations.  I know that some people feel a rush of emotion at such a moment; as for me, however, there was something else that was equally exhilarating; there was the rush of reason."

 He believed, 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come."  Mr. Strobel went on to say that, "over time as he endeavored to follow Jesus' teachings and open himself to his transforming power, his priorities, his values, and his character were (and continue to be) gradually changed.  Increasingly, he wants Jesus' motives and perspective to be his own.  To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., "he may not yet be the man I should be or the man, with Christ's help, I someday will be--but thank God I'm not the man I used to be!"

He stated,  "Looking back nearly two decades, I can see with clarity that the day I personally made a decision in the case for Christ was nothing less than the pivotal event of my entire life. "If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins." (John 8:24)  Those are sober words, offered out of authentic and loving concern.  I cite them to underline the magnitude of this matter and in the hope that they will spur you to actively and thoroughly examine the case for Christ.

He sounds determined, "I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God."  That is one of thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic...or else he would be the Devil of hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to."

 

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 What was your spiritual journey like?  Were you born into a Christian family and never came to question your beliefs?  Fortunate I say.  Did you have friends invite you to church where you heard something that made your heart leap and give you hope?  Maybe you read a Bible hoping to prove it wrong...like I tried. lol  Only to be shocked that it all made sense...more sense than I ever imagined!

 

2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." Was very clear to me. My former friends did not want anything to do with the new "goody-goody" version of me. Some family did not want to believe that my conversion to living for Christ would last. Eventually my family came around. And, looking back, I am so much better off without certain "friends" in my life, because they often tried to pull my from my new life, with a daily relationship with Jesus the Christ, in exchange for a time of supposed fun, which was sinful and caused distance in my relationship with Jesus. Some of you may be in this part of your walk with Christ Jesus, and you have some decisions to make.  Who is your better friend, the one who takes you to places in your past and tries to keep you there--sinning?  Or is Jesus your better friend?  Always there, always forgiving, always loving...with a gift of eternal life in Heaven. Easy choice, if you ask me. I made the decision for Christ when I was 29, I'm 48 now. I am so glad I did. 

 

Have you made that decision? How about sharing in the comment section?  If you are still making that decision, perhaps you have questions that we can answer together.

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Winners of the He IS Able Blog's Cards of the Week are...

 

 Caterina and Becky!

 

Since I was unable to share a post last week, I promised to send a card to a person from the Sharing Jesus with Others, Part I, and another comment from the post called, Not This Week...  That's why we have 2 winners this week! Congratulations Caterina and Becky!  Thank you for sharing your comments. Please send me your current address via email, or an address to someone who lives in the US, and I will send it to them on your behalf.  Or, I can send them to a charity where I send cards.  Your choice, please, just email me before Tuesday. All of my former addresses are under a room full of scrapbook and card materials since I am trying to slowly empty my art room, so I can rearrange it...and, I don't know if you have moved, so an update would be fabulous.  And, sadly, if I don't receive your email by Tuesday, I will need to put your card back in the He IS Able Blog's stash, to be used again.

Caterina's comment was randomly chosen from the post titled, Sharing Jesus with Others, Part I.  Here is her comment:

Anonymous March 6, 2014

Thank you for such a beautiful uplifting post. Have heard of Lee Strobel's book yet have not read it. Sounds like a good one.

May God continue to bless you and enlarge your territory within your ministry.

Love, Caterina

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And, here is Becky's comment from the Not This Week...post: 

Becky  March 14, 2014

So sorry to hear about your back. I do pray you get well soon. hugs.

 

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So, did any of you take the challenge and share about Jesus with strangers?  I called it

 S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G the muscles that it takes to share with strangers.  As with any muscle, it is best to keep using it to keep things going well, like a greased wheel.  If you work out and stop for 6 months, it is like starting over when you get exercising again.  So, it is best to start sharing about Jesus and keep sharing...and never stop!  If you tried sharing recently...how did it go? Even if the person didn't accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior this time...don't give up on them.  You have helped to plant a seed...put the thought in their mind.  You may get to help water this seed by sharing again, or perhaps someone else will take over from there!  We never know when that person will accept Jesus...we just need to do our part.  It's exciting!

 

He IS Able!

Traci Starkweather

Not This Week...

Dear Friends,

I hope everyone is having a blessed week!  I apologize.  I will not be able to share the blog for this week.  I will have Sharing Jesus with Others, Part II next week.  As some of you may know, I have had an injured back for many years.  I have re-injured myself and it hurts too much to sit up and type, I am so sorry. 

A person who left a comment was randomly chosen and I will announce that name as well as a winner for this week's He IS Able Blog's Card of the Week next Wednesday.  So please leave a comment about how you like to share about Jesus with others: through cards, inviting them to church, through a ministry or some other way.  There are no right or wrong answers, actually you can leave any comment and you may be randomly chosen to receive a beautiful card made by one of our readers, and you don't have to accept it if you don't want it...I can send it to anyone in the U.S. from you or anonymously.  Or, I can donate it to one of the charities that I send cards...so share prayer requests, comments, questions, favorite Scriptures...anything!

Please reach out to others in Jesus' name this week. 
 S-T-R-E-T-C-H those muscles of talking about Him in public, and let us know how it goes.

He IS Able!
Traci Starkweather




 

Sharing Jesus With Others, Part I

Hi Friends,

I have been enjoying the book The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. One of my husband's co-workers thought I would enjoy it, and she was right! The author an atheist, went and visited several of the world's most educated, or the best trained theologist, or best historians around the world, and asked for PROOF that Jesus existed.  Not just as a person who taught others, but PROOF that He was the Son of God, The Messiah, the Lord of Lords.  PROOF that Jesus is our Savior and Lord.  PROOF about what is really true about Jesus in the Bible.

I remember him looking at John 1:12: "Yet to all who received Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God."  He turned it into a mathematical equation of verbs from the Scripture.  This is what he came up with:

God' s family: believe + receive = become

Mr. Strobel read in the Bible that sin separated him from God, who is holy and morally pure.  He made a moral inventory and realized he lived a life of many different sins.  He states in his book, "Certainly God, whose existence I had denied for years, seemed extremely distant, and it became obvious to me that I needed the cross of Jesus to bridge that gulf.  All of this I now believed.  The evidence of history and of my own personal experience was too strong to ignore."

As far as "receiving" this is what Mr. Strobel had to say:

"Every other faith system I studied during my investigation was based on the "do" plan.  In other words, it was necessary for people to do something---for example, use a Tibetan prayer wheel, pay alms, go on pilgrimages, undergo reincarnations, work off karma from past misdeeds, reform their character--to try to somehow earn their way back to God.  Despite their best efforts, lots of sincere people just wouldn't make it."

"Christianity is unique.  It's based on the "done" plan-- Jesus has done for us on the cross what we can not do for ourselves;  He has paid the death penalty that we deserve for our rebellion and wrongdoing, so we can become reconciled with God."
 
"I didn't have to struggle and strive to try to do the impossible of making myself worthy.  It's called grace--amazing  grace, unmerited favor.  It's available to anyone who receives it in a sincere prayer of repentance.  Even someone like me."

"So on November 8, 1981, I talked with God in a heartfelt and unedited prayer, admitting and turning from my wrongdoing, and receiving the gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus.  I told Him that with His help I wanted to follow Him and His ways from here on out."

 So, this is how Mr. Strobel came to believe and receive (from his verbal equation listed above.)  Just wait until you learn how he came to become the man he is today...a Child of God!  That will be the focus of the next post.

The book The Case for Christ is a wonderful book for anyone who is struggling to make the decision for Christ. It's great for the people who think this decision can be made in "their head."  It is a treasure hunt of facts that lead to the very best gift any of us can receive! I strongly recommend it if you have a non-Believer in your life.  It is also a great tool to read and share if you often find yourself in "strong conversations" trying to persuade others to live for Him, and they don't want to read the Bible.  I believe that prayer and being as good of a Christian example as you can be is the most persuasive way to share Him.

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The Winner of The He IS Able Blog's Card of the Week is jcb!

Congratulations, jcb! 

 

  jcb please email me your current mailing address by Tuesday, and I will send you a wonderful card made by one of our readers. If I don't get that email with your current address, I will put the card back in the stash of cards.  And trust me, you will want this card!

 

 I haven't learned how to download photos to this laptop yet, so I will describe it: It is absolutely amazing.  It has a floral background, with Psalm 47:2 on it, "How awesome is the Lord most high, The great king over all the earth!"  The Scripture is hanging off of a railing, and there is a butterfly on the card.  It is really perfect to share with a friend.

 

 Here is her comment that was randomly chosen:

 

jcb     February 27, 2014

Thanks for the reminder of Abigail's life. I enjoy reading my Bible!



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I'm so glad that you visited this week!  I would love to read different ways you share Jesus to people in the comment section.  Also, please feel free to share any prayer needs you may have.  If you want to keep it confidential, please feel free to email me.  If you do this, please put "He IS Able" in the subject area.  I will pray for you...happily. Have a blessed week!

Remember...He IS Able!
Traci Starkweather