Life's Healing Choices.

Today at church we had an amazing message, so much so that I want to capture it. :) So, I am blogging the message.
The Sharing choice: I choose to yield myself to God to be used to bring the good news to others, by both my example and by my words.
What can I share to help others?
1) How pain got my attention.
Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways. Prov 20:30
I am glad.....not because it hurt you but because it turned you to God. 2 Cor 7:9
We don't change when we "see the light" we change when we "feel the heat".
We don't help people by our strengths, no one wants to hear how good you are with money and how awful they are with it. We help people by our weaknesses. Who better to help you through a bankruptcy than someone who has gone through it? Insert your own area of weakness. What do you need help with? Find someone who has gone through it!
To help others I must be honest about....
• My feelings
• My faults
• My failures
• My frustrations
• My fears
2) What I learned in the process.
I learned to depend on God's love
I learned to follow God's word
I learned that I need other people
3) How can God bring good out of bad?
We know that God causes everything to work for the good of those who love Him. Rom 8:28
He brings good from the bad. Not Brings what we want!
Life is like making a cake. Eating the ingredients separately would be bitter and bad tasting. (Most of them not so much on the sugar and vanilla!) Imagine eating a teaspoon of baking soda? Or 2 and a half cups of flour? Sounds good right? ;) No! Now put all the ingredients together and you have a sweet tasting cake. :) That is what God does in our lives. We can not understand what or why a God is allowing this awful thing in our lives to happen. Think about Joesph. His brothers sold him into slavery, he was wrongfully accused of assaulting his employers wife, sat in prison for years and yet out of his first 40 years of life, he never doubted God's love for him. Due to those series of events Joesph then became the 2nd most powerful man in Egypt! He saved Egypt from famine and through that, his brothers found him again. They were so sorry for what they did. But Joesph was not angry, he was filled with joy to see them. God took bitter elements (ingredients) put them together and made a "cake" out of his life! It was not all sunshine and lollipops, but it did turn out for the best. God causes everything to work for the good of those who love him! Rom 8:28
They intent to harm me, but God intended it for good. Gen 50:20
4) How Jesus gives me hope.
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you ro give him a reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15a
We need to be a hope dispenser. God called us to be a witness. Not an attorney! ;) A witness tell what he sees, what he knows. An attorney questions and questions. We are just called to give our testament (our statement.)
God doesn't use perfect people, He uses broken people, that's all He has to work with. ;)
Who will you tell?

I did add a bit more to the message. It is not word for word. I took what Jeff preached and added a bit of my own to it. I really loved this message today. It was and is very deep for me. What is the one thing that you are so embarrassed about? Your worst deep dark secret? Use it to help someone in the same situation. I don't know about you, but for me that is hard. I do not want anyone to know those awful things I did. I want to keep them hidden and buried. But guess what no matter how hard we try to hide them God knows, and he wants us to help others.