Check It Out!

“What is the best safe-guard against false teaching? Beyond all doubt the regular study of the word of God, with prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The Bible was given to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. (Psalm. 119:105.) The man who reads it aright will never be allowed greatly to err.” ~ J.C. Ryle



I love listening to the speakers who tell you to check out what they say against the Bible. Too easily we take what we are fed and don’t look into the ingredients to make sure it is what it claims to be. The scary part about this age old advice of checking it out against the Bible is the fact that false teachings are coming out in Bible’s that are being tweaked to read what people want to hear.



Beyond all doubt the regular study, STUDY which means to “learn” from the word of God is the best safe-guard against false teachings. In other words merely reading the Bible isn’t good enough, we need to study it diligently. We need to look into it with all intensity in order to draw from it what we need to learn.



Just like it’s not good enough to know the Revolutionary War in the United States took place between 1775-1783, it’s not good enough to know God is love. We need to go deeper and get the full story, the full meaning behind what it means to have a God that loves. A God who loves us so much He sent His only Son to die for us. One who loves us enough to discipline and punish us as well for our disobedience when needed.



Instead of settling for half truths we need to go for the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That can only be done by studying God’s written word which originally came from Him alone. Not the “updated” version that satisfies itching ears.



Like it or not we are responsible for getting the truth. God is not going to listen to our excuses about how we thought that was the way it was. We will be held accountable therefore we need to turn to the best safe-guard we have and that is the studying, the learning, and the applying of God’s Holy Word in our lives. Truly the lamp we need to light the path God has set before us in order for us to make the best journey possible on our way to eternal life with Him.



If we’re willing to trust our GPS system on our phone, we need to be willing to trust God and the directions He has given us. A confidence in God’s whole truth and nothing but the truth He has given us as His personal directions to the foot of the cross. Once we see where we can and should be heading we need to follow up by picking out of the seeds we want to grow. Next is the preparation of the ground of the garden we will need to maintain. And last but not least the harvest our crop as the lamp unto our feet and the light into our path goes to work. Check it out!





Our host for the day is Twinkle Mom at her blog SunflowerFaith. It’s a must that you run over there and join with us in sharing on today’s quote. Don’t forget to be with us for the remainder of the month as we cover the subjects of planting seeds, maintaining a garden, and harvest as our introduction to the best safe-guard against false teaching continues.

Classroom in Session

His word is a book of instructions, guidelines, and boundaries. If we study the Word, learn His ways, and submit to His Word, we are protected. –Lara Velez, Psalm 91 – He Who Dwells…




Praise the Lord that God’s Word is a textbook for the classroom of life. It is full of instructions, guidelines, and boundaries. Boundaries? Yes, boundaries. The God who set the boundaries for the ocean telling it where it can stop and go has boundaries for us. Unfortunately this is where the secular world likes to make Christianity look unappealing. They claim we have no freedom with all the rules and regulations God has placed before us. They think we are so old-schooled that we haven’t had a modern thought in centuries.


Much to the world’s surprise we are way ahead of them. We not only have the layout for the future but for all eternity as well. Studying God’s word, learning His ways, and submitting to His Word is what will get us where we need to be in our journey forward. It protects us spiritually.


Some would think, ‘a lot of good that does me right now, I need protection from bad people, disease, mother nature, and other things first.’ No, if you ponder the idea when it comes to protection we have our priorities. We protect those things that are the most valuable, what we love the most, what means the most to us.


We need to start to realize that our spiritual lives should be the most important thing we set out to persevere and protect. It’s the one thing we will take with us into eternity. In some ways the condition of it going into eternity is what it always will be. Thankfully it will be minus all the worldly traits we don’t have to fight anymore but we still are responsible to get it in shape here and now.


Getting it into shape is what takes us back to the classroom of life and the lessons and growth that needs to take place there. Psalm 91 that is being studied begins with, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” In other words, we are under God’s protection but we have our part to play. We have to attend the class of life with the attitude that we want to learn and grow from what we have been taught.


It should never be good enough to simply pass but to advance with a maturity goal that can be seen in our actions, attitude, and availability to God. Indeed the formula we have to use to accomplish this is the three in one, 1) study, 2) learn, and 3) submit. Once properly applied we get to dwell in the shadow of the Almighty, under His protection, engulfed in His love, surrounded by His wisdom.


I’d hate to burst any bubbles out there but school is never over. There will always be a classroom that demands our attention and gives us a lesson or a test we have to pass. It would do us well to pay attention to our Teacher, Jesus Christ. Doing so with the determination needed to study hard, learn well, and submit frequently all we have learned.

Our spiritual classroom is in session, where is your seat? Are you out in the hall waiting out your punishment? In the principals offices waiting for mom to come and get you after you’ve been expelled? Or are you sitting in classroom day dreaming of “after school? Or are you paying attention to the Teacher and taking serious the things needed to learn to move forward and achieve improvement.


Truth be known, I’ve probably been the student that has been in each of those positions at one point or another. A time or two or three or four or…… I’ve found myself up by the chalkboard writing 100 times the thing I did that I was told not to do.


No matter what area in our spiritual classroom we are currently in we need to continue to move forward and not to drop out and quit. We need the determination to better ourselves and to learn from our mistakes, to seek God’s protection. The Teacher has put a lot into the lessons we need to learn, it would do us well to do our best to learn them, to actually be teachable. It’s protection for our souls, its peace for our minds.




Our host today is Twinklemom at her blog, SunflowerFaith, you really need to get over there and see the wonders she has in store for us in this mini series of quotes from a study of Psalm 91.

Now not Later

I want people to fill their minds with passages of Scripture while they are well and strong, that they may have sure help in the day of need. I want them to be diligent in studying their Bibles, and becoming familiar with their contents, in order that the grand old Book may stand by them and talk with them when all earthly friends fail. From the bottom of my heart, I pity that person who never reads their Bible. I wonder how they expect to draw their consolation in their time of need. ~ J.C. Ryle





Just the other day at work the subject in the break room went from puppies to people. Judging from how the conversation went from there we should have stayed on the subject of puppies. We got to talking about how strange, stubborn, and stupid people can be. We talked about how people wait till they have lung cancer before they quit smoking, or have a heart attack before they decide to lose weight, or wait till the divorce papers are filed before they decide they needed to do something about their marriage.


We treat the scriptures the same way. We wait for some tragedy to come along in our lives before we dust off our Bible and dig into it for the strength, comfort, and the guidance we are seeking. We like to put things off till “later” instead of dealing with it “now.”


Just recently I told my granddaughter the whole idea of growing up is to learn self-discipline so when you are on your own you can take over where your mom left off. If she can get that concept in her head she’ll be way ahead of a lot of adults. We need to learn the art of self-disciplining ourselves to read our Bible more frequently than we do. To treat it more as an owner’s manual, guide book, daily companion, or a love letter from someone we hold dear to us. Instead of a history book we look at only when we are trying to pass a test.


It would do us all well to learn how to force feed ourselves the spiritual nutrition we get from reading and studying our Bibles. We have no problem most of the time feeding ourselves physically. Boy when we are hungry nothing stands in the way of our desire to find something to eat. Trust me, go to a donut stand and see how well you survive people cutting in line to make sure someone else doesn’t get that one donut they have their eye on up on the shelf third row to the right! That’s where I taught all my grandkids the art of self-defense; just teasing, sort of. It was more the lesson on good manners.


We need that kind of hunger or enthusiasm when it comes to God’s word. Daily we should crave it. Frequently we should feed upon it. Indefinitely we should store it in our hearts. The Bible is our armory full of swords to win the spiritual war everyone on earth faces. It’s the place where we go to get dressed for Heaven.


Instead of burying our Bibles on the bookshelf to the point we can’t find it, let us bury it in our hearts where it was meant to be stored. We should never wait for the next tragedy or big event to come along before we decide to do something about it spiritually and frantically scramble through God’s word.

What good is a bullet proof vest for a police officer who decides to put it on after he goes in on his big drug bust? Now not later is the time to dive into God’s word and prepare ourselves for the next moment in our life. This, in all honesty, by now is already here as our future is just one second away so get into God’s word and get dressed and ready for it.

I said, “now” not “later!” Hum……I sound like my mom. God bless you mom! I love Jesus!

© 2012 Karen Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes

Spell-It-Out

“The Gospel alone is sufficient to rule the lives of Christians everywhere. . . any additional rules made to govern men’s conduct added nothing to the perfection already found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence
~ John Wycliffe


As a young child growing up in a family of seven my evening moments alone in my bedroom were quietly spent searching scriptures. At night I would go to bed and look up in my Bible topics weighing heavy on my heart. Some of the issues of interest were anger, love, forgiveness, happiness, prayer, power of God, God’s will, and many more. The gospel alone at that time was sufficient.

Some where along the line of growing up I started to turn to other people’s self-help books to give me more answers. After several years of traveling on the self-advice tour of words I returned to the word of God. It didn’t take me long to discover something I already knew, the fact that His word was sufficient. It was all I ever needed and truly all my heart ever wanted.

The sad thing about getting our guidance straight from the word of God is the fact we like to change what is black and white into something more gray and colorful. Soon it appears we need some kind of color chart to make sense of it all.

We quickly turn what is sufficient and make it insufficient in our hearts. I was told once by someone that a lady in the church was justified getting a divorce because no where in the Bible does it say she was in the wrong because she wasn’t the one who started it. There was no doubt about it her reason for the divorce was a mighty one but trying to twist and justify what was going on by saying “the Bible doesn’t say this so it must be okay,” or the “Bible doesn’t word it exactly that way so we’re off the hook.

As much as we would like the Bible to “spell it out” for us it’s not going to each and every time and we have no business trying to do that ourselves. The Bible is a tremendous stepping stone to greater blessings that makes a big difference between positive living and negative living.

The key to this blessing is sticking to what it says not to what we want to read in or out of it. Thou shall not steal means just that, thou shall not steal. That is sufficient. Frequently because it doesn’t say exactly what is wrong to steal we think we can add our own color of indifference and say, “Well it’s only the big stuff that counts under this. He doesn’t mean those petty little things no one notices. Things such as the candy bar in the store, the grape off the bunch in the produce section, the hour in the evening that could have been used better, the office supplies that seem to find their way home. Before we know it what was adequate becomes inadequate because we made it that way.

Surprisingly enough we don’t require additional rules or regulations to live by. Although we may need help interpreting some of the things God says like when he was talking about, “the first will be last, and the last will be first.” Or what does it mean to take up your cross daily. What cross is He talking about? Those kinds of questions come and go but trying to read into what He says about stealing, adultery, coveting, love, anger and such to the point its of no use to our spiritual well-being is not for us to do.

We come with an owner’s manual, the Bible, and we don’t need to re-write it but live by it using His words and directions to guide us in our Christian walk. Soon the outcome shows up in our road to perfection in Christ as we spell-it-out in our actions and spill-it-out in our hearts.

God and His word is adequate, it’s when we make it inadequate or insufficient that the road to perfection in Him becomes blocked. The choice is ours and we need to make it a good one.

Our host today is Esthermay on her blog, The Heart of A Pastor’s Wife. Get on over there and join in and read what others have to say about today’s fantastic quote.


© 2010 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Getting to Know Jesus and Me

We need to get to know Jesus well enough to walk as He walked and talk as He talked. As we get to know Him we soon learn alot about ourselves as we allow God to mold us into the people He wants us to be.

Chapter One---TO BE POSTED