As usual, another busy month for us. You know our flesh wants to just stay on the mountain top, basking in the Lord’s goodness, enjoying His presence, and loving on our family. But it isn’t about what we want, it is about HIM. He wants us to take what He gives us and share it with those who are hurting and in bondage. The Word of God has commandments, promises, and truth, sometimes some of these appear as suggestions but I believe they are promises even if it doesn’t specifically say it is a promise. It is just kind of a given, a law, if received in faith, faith being belief. Like the natural law of gravity, you believe (have faith) that if you let go of something physical that it will drop. You don’t have to think about it or wonder or even pray about it, you just know it will happen. Same goes with God’s word, we should just absolutely know it is true. This is what the Lord was showing me recently. Everything we experience in the Spirit must be provable by His Word. Recently He gave me a prophetic word for a wife with an unsaved hubby. I told her that if she would just focus on loving Jesus, with all of her mind, soul, strength, and heart, and fulfill the calling of being a Godly wife that her hubby would submit to Jesus, and then I promised her that was true! The words came out of my mouth faster than I could hold them back, good thing because I probably would have checked myself and not said the promise part. Then I prayed OH LORD cover me on this one. But the Lord showed me not to doubt because it was true. Then He showed me a scripture I have seen a hundred times, but I guess I had not realized the power of it. 1 Corinthians 7:14 says this, "for the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband" and then it even goes on to say that the children are holy because of it!!! So how can this be? Well it all goes back to the same old, "examine yourself and see if you are in the faith, test yourselves" from 2 Corinthians 13:5. Does that mean that you need to get saved all over again every day? Well kind of, salvation as described in the New Testament is an ongoing thing, a growing thing, a continual submitting to Jesus, a daily coming to His cross, probably better described as getting more saved every day. Growing in Him. So I believe that scripture is saying, check your life, is it reflecting Jesus? And you can’t do it yourself, but you can submit your flesh to His Spirit, and He will give you strength. And as we represent Jesus to those around us sooner or later they will come in. It is a given, like the law of gravity. I have a friend who was a new believer when her boys were teenagers, and oh did they watch her closely. And you know how they knew her Jesus was real? Not because she lived a perfect sinless life, although she strived for that, but because they saw her heart break when she wasn’t sinless. They saw her repent. They saw her care so much about what pleased her Lord. They saw her grow as a child who truly loved her Father. They saw her unconditionally love them when they weren’t nice. They learned to say "I love you" instead of cussing at her. She is a tremendous example of a Godly woman. Yes we should pray for our loved ones but first of all we should fall madly in love with Jesus, and submit our lives to Him, daily. So that we begin to look like Him, act like Him, even smell like Him. Those around us won’t be able to ignore the fact that they are loved by the Lord, and nobody can stand that for long without running into His arms. His love holds no record of wrong, and covers a multitudes of sins. Be Jesus to those around you, they will come in, I promise you!

Jim will be preaching at First Assembly of God , Lawrenceburg, Sunday night May 2, at 6pm.

April and I (Penny) will be ministering at the Lawrenceburg Women’s Aglow the first Monday in May (May 3rd) at the city Administration building, let me know if you would like more details.

At our local First Assembly of God for the last few months April has been leading worship at the Wed night youth service along with Beau and about 5 other gifted musicians, we have been really blessed by these services!! Pure young hearts touch the Lord and inspire us to worship with abandonment.

We are still working on April’s newest CD, "DEEPER THAN THIS" hope to have it in your hands soon!