Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat…there is a song that goes like that. I love Christmas! My mom, who has long been deceased, loved Christmas. It is such a special time of year. When I was a child it was magical. My mother made it so. Truly magical. When my son was young, we worked to make it magical for him as well. These traditions, passed on from generation to generation, make this time of year special. 

I wonder what would happen if we as individuals joined together as ONE to let God make this time of year special? I wonder what would happen if we as people that long for that spirit that seems so far away during the rest of the year, I wonder what would happen if we would allow Him, our King, to not only be thought of but be really present this coming season? 
You see, since I have laid down my life for The One, The Reason for this season coming…since I have done that, I have learned a few things. When we follow man’s tradition, we become blinded from God’s revelation. What do I mean? Well let’s start with The Truth. My mother, God rest her soul, taught me to believe in Santa Claus. I, loving my mother, loving to get gifts as a child in that magical under the tree fashion, being a mother now myself, loving to give to my one and only son, continued gladly in this tradition. Never questioned it even though as we grow, we realize Santa Claus is a lie.  We realize this lie at some point in our childhood. We all know Santa Claus is a lie, don’t we?

So, let’s break that down in The Way that God has broken it down for me now, that I have given up EVERYTHING to follow HIM.  Santa Claus is a lie. A more palatable way to say this is a fictional character. Seems innocent right? We sing songs with words like, “I saw mama kissing Santa Claus underneath the Christmas tree last night….” So now we have this fictional character taking the place of my dad…. confusing to say the least! When we are caught by our kids being Santa Claus we LIE to cover it up! To keep the “magic” going.  
If Santa Claus is a lie (and it is) and we now lie to protect the liar to feed our children this lie during the most Christian unified time of year, what do you think that does to our relationship with God? What do we think that does to a child’s relationship with God when they get older? What do we think that does to The Holy Spirit which IS the Reason for The Season?

The Lord Jesus Christ whom we celebrate IS TRUTH and LOVE. By biblical definition this is HE, and you and I and all the “good” parents around the world feed this LIE to our babies! To God’s babies whom we are supposed to protect. By biblical definition satan is the father of lies. The Lord will not dwell where evil is. So we put God in a very awkward position. We want Him to draw near, we want Love to be magnified and celebrated and remembered at the same time we feed the devil by believing and promoting this tradition born of man’s sin. 
Not convinced? Look at what Christmas has become in the world. I mean REALLY look. Has it not become a love of money festival? Revelation: the LOVE of money is the root of all evil (1st Timothy 6:10), over time making Christmas less and less about God and more and more about the devil-a lover of money and a liar. Now-a-days as long as we have a credit card we as a parent or a grandparent or as any family member can make satan the hero of Christmas with just a swipe of a card. Debt binds us. Owe no man nothing says The Lord in Romans 13:8 through the writer Paul. Stolen the innocence of Christmas by making us tell our children that santa claus provided the gifts under the tree. That santa claus loves us. That santa claus is coming to town. You better watch out you better not pout you better not lie I am telling you why, who is coming to town? Newsflash! God is already here! Always! Satan does not even have to steal it anymore, we freely give the Power of The Lord a way by furthering this lie packaged as family tradition.

Before we go on to the solution, do this quick for me- write down santa just real quick anywhere… now write it again but this time move the n to the end of the word. Aaaahhhh!
Now you see? That devil has groomed us to make Jesus a lie. 

So, what do we do about it? Here is the beauty, whenever God reveals a sin, HE always provides A Way out of it. (This is one Way we can tell it is God’s voice- the devil is never going to provide a way of escape from anything that binds us.) Solution is Simple: tell The Truth. From this point on tell The Truth. (John 8:32 And you shall know the Truth, and The Truth shall make you free) Tell your kids, the neighbor’s kids, tell everyone that we were wrong. Apologize.  It is NOT that fictional character santa claus that provides presents under the tree it IS GOD! It is not satan claus that knows when we are bad or good it is God! God knows everything because (even better news) HE is not just here for a season HE is here always! When we are sleeping or awake, bad or good it IS GOD that KNOWs and wants us to be good so we can reside with HIM for eternity.  Tell your kids this year our presents under the tree came from JESUS our provider! Tell the kids The Truth that our provision was not quite enough to get…. or this year momma still had to swipe the card because I am weak and God is working on me…TELL THE TRUTH about all of it.

JESUS really IS THE Reason for the season, and I promise you, better yet God promises us all that if we will UNIFY, If you and I will do this and share this with the world, if we will worship Him in Spirit and in TRUTH, GOD will show Himself in MIRACULOUS WAYs. It will not be magic seduced by satan, it will BE GOD. The Word which is God will come to life this Christmas season and beyond! Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

GIVEN- He was given to us as a gift! Eternal LIFE is a free GIFT. The ultimate present is Eternal Life. The giver of this ultimate gift is always present (omnipresent). Do you have a heart for God? If you have a heart for God, help me! The Spirit of The Lord is MAGNIFIED when those that have a heart for Him UNIFY! Unity! If you are bold, then be vocal! Evil grows because we have gone silent. The voice of evil is so loud these days. What we speak about GROWs! Speak about God. Overcome your fear and put away the old man tradition. Help me show God we want more of Him by not promoting that lie anymore. Tell The Truth, “I was wrong. I am sorry I lied. I just got caught up in the tradition. Didn’t realize I was willingly putting the cuffs on God’s power. It is not santa claus that provides. It is Jesus we do all this for. HE is the one…” 

Lisa Ellen says, forget about what you can not do. Focus on what you can do and do it more.
God bless us all!

​GOD is LOVE is TRUTH these three are ONE! 
John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
1 John 4:8 “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

My life is not my own, to You I belong. I give myself. I give myself, to You. Giving ourselves to God is a choice. Loving God no matter what He does is a choice. Letting Him love us through everything is also a...you got it, a choice. When God puts a wrench in our plans, no wrench in our plans is too light...when something devastating happens like Ed loosing Rita, me loosing my mom at her young age 56 and my son loosing his dad age at even his younger age 40, it can be very difficult to let God in. In fact the most natural reaction is to shut Him out. It is natural to shut out those that help us most when we are hurting. Why? Perhaps because they know us best and know what we should do. What we should do and what we want to do is often very far from each other. 
When my mom passed, I turned more to alcohol. I had been delivered from cocaine addiction before she passed. Thank God I never liked Marijuana. It made me lazy and want to eat all day. Ed shared he was introduced to Marijuana in the 60's and it made him hungry as well. Neither of us needed addition hunger starters. Marijuana is addictive. Pretty soon you can not function with out it. Just like every other unnatural vice we put in our bodies soon enough you need it every day. So many people becoming daily smokers of Marijuana because we can, it being legal.
Blows my mind the blindness that surrounds this movement. Who makes money from legalizing this DRUG. Might I remind you, it IS a drug and it is addictive. Coke A Cola had cocaine in it. I thought that was myth but my new friend who was there confirms it to be true. Why don't we ever get a documentary on that? You know why. MONEY. Bible says we can not serve two masters. Hollywood's master is money. Who are you serving?  The makers of the drink had to take it out because it was addictive. Tobacco because it is inhaled destroys your lungs and it is addictive. Marijuana has both of these properties. How do we skip over that and call it Medical Marijuana? 
The argument of Medical Marijuana, for the good of the Cancer patients and War Veterans propelled this movement forward. I tell you now, my mother when she lay dying in the hospital bed over 20 years ago received medical Marijuana in the form of a pill. It has NEVER been an issue for them nor our beloved Veterans. (Our beloved Veterans do not get treated well period.) In my mother's case, she had not eaten for to long to count. The chemo was brutal and left her with no appetite. That Medical Marijuana PILL sparked her appetite. I was amazed as I watched her take bite after bite of a fish sandwich. My mother stated as she munched away, "This is the best fish sandwich I have ever had."
There is a Bible verse that says: All liars go onto the lake which burns with fire. Revelations 21:8 Without repentance everyone who knows about this and pushed it forward will be in the lake of fire for eternity. Hell. Lets remember, Hell is not a swear word, it is a place. We were encouraged to not say that word when I was young. We were cautioned and corrected if we did say it so it would not be part of our lives.  Remember what we speak about, what we think about is what we get.
There is a multitude of people walking around saying this word like it is nothing. Saying all swear words like they are nothing.  Everything is something. Everything we do counts. Start talking about what you want in your life and for your families life. Do you want them to go to Hell? Of course not! Then do not let them speak about it. Think about it.
Lets stop giving that bugger of a devil so much attention. What we give attention to grows. If your child gets a bump on the head and you focus on symptoms of a head injury those symptoms will grow. If I think I look ugly those thoughts of ugliness will grow. If I think people are avoiding me everything will line up to support that thought. If I think people are talking about me...you get it! Lets stop it. Hey here is something you may not know, one is Marijuana side effects is paranoia!  We must stop it. Our thoughts become things. Soon enough these things will be true but not for the original cause. For a cause I manifested in my mind which can be pure torture!
There was a saying my mom and people of her generation in the world said it went like this: "The whole world is going to pot!" And now look it IS! The saying was a "harm;less" observation one said when things were going wrong. And now with fulfilling prophecy evil will become good, good will become evil- this saying has not only manifested but it is viewed as GOOD.  So many things that were evil now viewed as good. How many of these switches can you count today? Go ahead as your day moves take a little mental tally of what used to be viewed as evil and is now good. I dare you to do it. All that you see pray and tell others, "That used to be evil. Did you know that used to be evil?" People we must rise up and do it, because in God's eyes it still IS. 

Here is the verse God has me focusing as of late:
What ever things are true, what ever things are honest, what ever things are just, what ever things are pure, what ever things are lovely, what ever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.  Philippians 4:8
I encourage you all to focus on this verse as well. What a Wonderful world it could be! Will be!
                                                                  God IS Love IS Truth 
                                                                 These three are ONE. 

Last night I had a small group of youth over to talk about getting God in our relationships. We discussed the fruit of the Spirit as defined in Galatians 5:22- 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such there is no law.
Most Bible quizzers can recite these. God has revealed in my Cup Of Time with Him that it is one thing to recite and yet another to do them. To exhibit them. To LIVE them. When we are FILLED with His Holy Spirit we will grow in the FRUIT OF HIS SPIRIT. We will naturally and continually show more love. We will naturally and continually have more temperance which is self control.
If I am full of jealously and create strife, and all other such flesh characteristics am I FULL of His Spirit? Line those characteristics up with what the Bibles says and we will see the answer is no.
So how do I help my brothers and sisters go further? How do I help them get off that perpetual not so merry-go-round of hatred and uncleanness? We help through a conversation.
Talk to them. Truly people can not know what they do not know. How do you know what you don't know? We can't! Someone has to help us. We can help one another through revelation.  Share what we have learned. What we have been through.
That verse the one that says about seeing the speck in your brothers eye when we have a beam in our own. You know which I speak of? Yes, most of us do. Well we have been duked into receiving that verse as one that if put into practice we are sinning. We are judging. But let's look at that a bit closer!
Luke 6:42 Either how can you say to your brother, brother let me pull out the mote that is in your eye, when you, your self behold not the beam that is in your own? You hypocrite cast out first the beam out of your own eye, and then shall you see clearly to pull out the mote that is in your brothers eye.

We are the Body of Christ. How can I help my brother through his iniquity if I hang on to mine? How can I help them through strife if I am full of strife? I am instructed by God to get rid of it FIRST and then HELP my brother get rid of his! How glorious is that!!!!? We get to HELP each other through to the next level of God. It is not judgement here to do so. It is a God given instruction on HOW to go further in Christ ourselves and then HELP our friends and family to do the same.  
Smiles and God Bless!
​Lisa Ellen D.

Cup Of Time With Jesus Oct 26th 2017

So great is our Lord.
Psalms 103 Bless the Lord, O’ my soul, and all that is within me, his Holy name. 2)Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not his benefits: 3) Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases; 4) who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies 5) Who satisfies your mouth with good; your mouth is renewed like the eagle’s.
How many times do we forget that His Holy Name is within us? His Holy name! And what is that Holy Name? The only name by which we must be saved? (Acts 4) You know it- Jesus! And if you not before you read this, you know it now. :) Read Acts chapter 4 for further understanding and confirmation. Pray that God Himself fill you with revelation as your personal relationship with HIm grows which is Our Kings True delight! Knowing you is!
So His Holy name is within you and me and the postman and the baker and the neighbor and the taxi taxi driver...you get the point right? He is in everyone us. It is a God shaped hole that space, that void which each one us knows has to be filled.
Challenge is we attempt to fill it with things other than God. We fill it with people, food, careers...you name it we fill it with that! When none of those work we try to fill that void with more potent things like alcohol, more food, more TV, drugs, other lusts of the flesh...nothing works because it was made for God.
With ALL of the things of the world not being able to fill the space that was purposefully made by God for God we forget HIS benefits. We forget that He made us in His image. We forget that HE wants us to have the fruits of HIs Spirit as depicted in Galatians 5:22; But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
We forget that He is the equiper of all things. The forgiver of all our iniquities as was mentioned in verse 3 of Psalm 103 above. Inquities are sins/perversity/evil/mischief from the Hebrew word aw-vone (H5771) We forget HE heals all our diseases and rely on mankind even though we have testimony of miracles in His Word as well in real life today. HIS Word says: For the wisdom of the world is the foolishness with God. (1st Cor 3:19)
He our Lord and Christ will heal us from everything when we STAND on HIM. And the saddest piece of all is we forget HE redeems your/our life from destruction! (verse4) and crowns us with loving kindness.
We all search for love, stand on love. The world has adopted this knowledge that love conquers all. Love all people. Challenge is we forget God IS LOVE (1John 4-8) and HE says we are to correct those that wrong. We are to correct those we love and HE corrects whom HE loves! We forget ALL of these things when we do not read HIS Word and take TIME to build our relationship with Jesus HImself. Relationships take TIME. Cup Of Time with Jesus for me today brought glorious revelation of Psalms 103. Spend more time with HIm and have your mouth be satisfied with good (Psalms 103:5) let your mouth be renewed like the eagle’s.
So GREAT is our God. Best TIME we will ever spend!
Smiles and God bless!
Lisa Ellen  
 

​

Have you noticed that people get mad at you for doing something good? It used to be people became upset because we were behaving wrong. Now it seems more folks get angry when we are doing something good. Have you noticed that?

Talk to to your family about what is right and what is wrong. Establish family values and hold on to morals from days of old. Challenge with today is that good and bad have become so muddled. So grey. So confusing. One persons opinion is different from another and so on and so on and...
​
We do our family according to His Word for simplicities sake. It is simple to follow Gods rules because they are clear and they never change and HE our God is perfect.

What do you see?

Our world is ever changing. Our days are filled with moving parts. The more responsibilities we have the faster time goes. If you are like most of the world you have a lot of responsibilities. We are a busy society. This we all can agree on, yes?
Whether you live in the city or out in the country life is busy. One of my mentors once told me that busy stands for: Burdened Under Satan's Yoke. BUSY. It is one of those lessons that has always stuck with me. BUSY. BUSY. BUSY.
Wow, even just saying it now...makes me feel yucky, overwhelmed, pressured.

No one wants to be under a yoke.

Biblically it means to be under the control of another. Comes from the Hebrew word ole which is derived from the Hebrew word 'alal which means to abuse, defile, mock and a bunch of other painful things.
AND biblically it refers to a pair of animals coupled together. I don't know about you but I NEVER want to be coupled with satan.
As with everything I have learned to ask God what to do about it. God, how do I stop being so BUSY? In most cases we have to go back to the beginning to understand where we are. Retrace your steps to figure out where, what, and how life got so busy. From there you can submit, surrender and let God reorder your footsteps.
He did it for me! I know He will do it for you.
When I was a nurse I was so busy that I had no time to hear the voice of God. I have experienced this to be the MOST beautiful thing EVER. What we see leads to what we hear which leads to what we do which defines who we are.
​
So for this week's question, ask your COT mates what they see? What do they see in you that you might want to change? Ask them what they see in the world that is beautiful? What do you see that is unstoppable? What do you see that is possible?
If answers come up negatively don't stop talking until they end positively. No matter our situation there is still more good than bad. Because God is good and He is more powerful than ANY and EVERYTHING.
What do you see in yourself? What do you see in others? What do you see in the world? What do you see in our Lord? What do you see...?
Smiles and God bless
​Lisa Ellen

Have you ever heard of the TV program which starts out as a way to help one on other through thoughts of depression, bullying, poor self esteem,etc? Have you heard of it? Yes I have too. There are scads of them on the air waves these days. So many you can not keep track of them.
The one I bring attention to today in our question of the week does not end like the rest. This one in the end gives teens the message that suicide is the viable answer. The person that does the documentary actually commits suicide and is free in the end. Or so the story goes. But it is not a story. It is real life and our kids, your kids are being gripped to follow suit.
I had not heard about this program prior to Wednesday night church service. The youth pastor brought it to our attention recognizing the spirit from which it stems. He spoke about it to build awareness and I am compelled to give attention here. Ask your kids if they have ever heard of it. Warn them NOT to give it ear. Hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil. But first you must take TIME to TALK about it.
Question of the week: have you heard of a program that starts out wonderfully helpful, relatable even and progresses into glamorizing suicide?

What is the last thing you think of when you turn out the lights at night? Some of the deepest conversations come from the most common questions. Secrets of the heart are discovered through questions. Ask ask ask away! 🌸