HOW'S YOUR HEART?

(picture is of me after work)

HOW’S YOUR HEART?

Most days when I come home from work, I have paint on me, my hair is messed up and I’m generally not that attractive. It only takes about 10 minutes into work and my appearance goes downhill from there. The great thing is that the people around me don’t even seem to care.

The Lord isn’t that concerned about how we look either. First Samuel 16:7 says, “The Lord seeth [is seeing] not as a man seeth [is seeing]; for man looketh [is looking] on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh [is looking] on the heart.”

But what condition is our heart in? With all we look at in a day, our hearts may tend to get hard or we may close them off sometimes, to protect ourselves. It gets easier and easier to get hard-hearted toward others and toward God as well. The way to stay tender-hearted and make sure the Lord is still seeing a good heart in us, is to go to His Word consistently just to see how much He really does love us. Love is the best heart healer and GOD IS LOVE (1 John 1:8).

Also we need to continue to go to Him in prayer, talk to Him and ask Him to heal our hearts if we still have pain, anger, jealousy, unforgiveness or other heart illnesses. Even if we aren’t really feeling it, we can pray for it because it’s not God’s will for us to have these things in our hearts. In fact, they are sins. If we pray for the Lord to take away the sins from our hearts, He’ll do it.

I love what David says in Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

Psalm 4:4 tells us: “Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.” This is telling us we need to respect God and quit sinning. I don’t believe we are to be afraid of God, but I do think we need to have a healthy respect and awe for Him and His commandments. If we don’t, there are going to be consequences and not good ones.

The second part of that verse tells us something important too. We need to commune with our own heart, find out where it’s really at and tell it to get back to being tender and responsive to God and to the Lord Jesus.

We need to tell our hearts they’re going to be okay if we give them to God and let Him put love and kindness and child-like sweetness back into them. People tend to lose some of that over the course of rough times. We won’t get hurt if we only trust Him and walk quietly and respectfully under His guidance.

The first part of 1 John 1:8 says, “He that loveth not knoweth not God.” If we’ve been loving people less and being more offended and put off by others instead, and we expect to know God, we need to change our ways.

We pray to God that our love life starts growing again, because we want to know Him better. We read God’s Word and we pray for Him to make our hearts pleasing to Him. We jump in as He guides us and only the Lord can make the risk worthwhile.

I’ve always loved this verse, ever since I was a little girl: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).

Pray with me this week for the Lord to purify our hearts.

Love, Carolyn

You CAN . . . See + READ . . . some CHAPTERS == IN my NEW book * *** * WINGS: Journey with Jesus.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=aps&keywords=WINGS%20Carolyn%20molica&linkCode=ur2&tag=jmbcsds-20&linkId=XQMVLVZYNBLYAGEM

CONFINING TOWERS OF BABEL, HINDERING THEIR INFLUENCE

CONFINING TOWERS OF BABEL, HINDERING THEIR INFLUENCE

Living so close to the Las Vegas Strip, we’ve noticed that when certain conventions or events come to town, they can have a bad influence on the spiritual atmosphere and it starts to affect us. When lots of people come together to participate in something that’s contrary to God’s Word, their demons get stirred up and they like to extend their influence into the community at large. This isn’t unique to Las Vegas. I’m sure if you think about it, you’ve seen it in your own cities, towns and villages as well.

But the Lord has given us some revelation on how to contain and confine the devil spirits and prevent them from affecting us.

Sometimes we take things too personally. Often when we feel bad, it’s not even us; it’s demons in the atmosphere pushing at us. I don’t know what was here this weekend, but yesterday was so agitated outside, it was dangerous and this morning was particularly heavy, really oppressive. I didn’t feel like doing my hair, didn’t feel like writing and my brain was foggy. It just wasn’t like me. But I’ve felt this so often before on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I finally realized it isn’t me. It’s a group of demons come to town.

The Lord gave me revelation on this by reminding me of Nimrod. In Genesis 10:9 we learn that King Nimrod was “the mighty hunter before the Lord.” When it says “before the Lord,” it means he was in His face, against the true God. Nimrod got the people together and “they said, ‘Let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name [for ourselves]’” (Gen. 11:4).

“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built. And the Lord said, ‘Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech’” (Gen. 11:5-7). When the people were together, they were united in the words they spoke. It’s like when you agree with someone and you say, “You’re speaking my language.”

The awesome thing here is that when the Lord God confounded their literal language, they couldn’t communicate with each other. When people can’t communicate, especially when it comes to getting a project done, they can’t agree and that brings envy and strife. James 3:6 says, “Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.”

So the Lord showed me that we could pray for this to happen with whatever demons had come to town. I prayed that God’s strong angels would surround them and that the agitation, the envy, the strife and the confusion would happen within the confines of the convention or event and that it would not penetrate the angelic walls put up by the Lord to surround them keep them in one place. It’s like putting those devil spirits in detention, so they couldn’t get to us anymore.

Within minutes of praying this, my mind was totally clear and I had plenty of energy to get going on the day. The difference is astonishing and it works every time. It will work for you too.

Another Biblical example of this is found in Second Chronicles 20. It’s the story of Jehoshaphat and his people. Three different nations came together for a type of convention or event in the wilderness of Tekoa: It was called war! They all got together to take what Jehoshaphat had. But Jehoshaphat and his people prayed and “when they began to sing and to praise [for the victory they anticipated], the Lord set ambushments.”

“For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another” (2 Chron. 20:22-23).

When Jehoshaphat and the people came to see what was going on, “behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped” (v. 24).

That’s the thing about some demons, they are so stupid, they start to fight and kill each other!

So if you sometimes feel the pressure or heaviness of the spiritual atmosphere, or you sense a strong agitation, don’t automatically think it’s something wrong with you. Ask the Lord what’s going on. It could very well be that there is some kind of gathering near you that you can spiritually confine and keep at bay.

Though we would love to deliver everyone from the demons that manipulate them, it’s not always possible. But it is possible to detain the demons, confine them to a certain areas and prevent them from affecting us. Through Jesus Christ we have the authority and ability.

Love, Carolyn

You CAN . . . See + READ . . . some CHAPTERS == IN my NEW book * *** * WINGS: Journey with Jesus.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=aps&keywords=WINGS%20Carolyn%20molica&linkCode=ur2&tag=jmbcsds-20&linkId=XQMVLVZYNBLYAGEM

REMEMBER THE GOOD

REMEMBER THE GOOD

I had a really awesome time this past Sunday, just sitting and reflecting on some of the great times I had at my grandma and grandpa’s house. It was such a delight and did good for my heart. Those wonderful times we all remember, were a blessing from the Lord, and recalling them brings a sweetness to our souls.

Psalm 11:4 says, “He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.” God’s love and compassion is shown to us by a variety of His works: through wonderful loving people, through animals, through sunrises and sunsets, through many aspects of the natural world He created.

When we open our eyes and our hearts to Him, there’s many amazing and wonderful works He’s already done for us, things that we can get pleasure from if we will remember.

Psalm 77:11 says, “I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.”

So I was sitting quietly on Sunday and began to reflect and write this memory: “Some of my best memories are of gramma and grandpa’s house in Bakersfield, California. Many summer nights were spent sitting restfully under the grapefruit tree, while the blue neon-winged Junebugs buzzed as they hit and clung to the screen door on the porch. That grapefruit tree was huge and widespread, giving shade to all of us, (sometimes seven, sometimes 16), seated comfortably on bouncing green metal chairs. It was delightful, about 70 degrees I imagine, just perfect.

The fence around the property was thin twisted metal wire, somewhat protective, decorative and a nice complement to the freshly cut green grass. I loved that house. Everything was intriguing to me at eight years old, including the cool cellar below ground and the small round trailer parked under the wooden shelter. My sister and I would make mud pies and entertain ourselves at the tiny kitchen table in the trailer. There was a drinking fountain outside the trailer that shot way over the basin and onto the brick patio. Half the fun was trying to control the water and retrieve it to use for our mud pies.

The grapevine trellis: No one ate the grapes as far as I remember, but it provided a wonderfully cool resting spot for Midnight, the cat, when he wanted to watch me and grandma hanging laundry out on the line. Midnight and I had a special connection of a love, unspoken. I also loved the apricot, fig and orange trees. My grandma had an orange juice squeezer made of porcelain, just big enough to put half an orange on and twist until the small gutter was full of fresh orange juice. I don’t know if I’ve tasted juice that good in over 50 years, but I’d know it’s distinctive bite if I did, for sure.

The fern on the front porch was spectacular: delicate and dangerous! Who could fathom such a conundrum? A soft feathery fern, with very sharp thorns on the long stems. But it was grandma and grandpa’s house after all: mysteries at every corner. I loved it, always an adventure. We’d take trips to the desert to dig up shark’s teeth from long ago, and my grandma would pick up interesting rocks and sticks that looked like birds or animals or other familiar things she thought they looked like.

We had all kinds of adventures but one of my favorite’s was Sunday school. I loved the stories of Jesus and I especially like the crafts we did to re-emphasize the story and make them stick in my eight-year-old mind. My grandma was the teacher and I remember the small wooden chairs with metal arms as we sat around a big rectangular maple-colored table, me being enthralled by the Bible stories. Then when I got to sit next to my grandma at the adult church, I sang very quietly so I could listen to her. She had the most beautiful voice. I thought she must sound like an angel.”

Those of you who have children or grandkids, I urge you to make your experience and influence on them as memorable as mine was. These wonderful acts don’t go unnoticed, believe me. They are such a wonderful secret gift, never even forgotten by God Himself!

Love, Carolyn

You CAN . . . See + READ . . . some CHAPTERS == IN my NEW book * *** * WINGS: Journey with Jesus.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=aps&keywords=WINGS%20Carolyn%20molica&linkCode=ur2&tag=jmbcsds-20&linkId=XQMVLVZYNBLYAGEM

LIGHT IN THE GARAGE

LIGHT IN THE GARAGE

The fluorescent lights in my garage started flickering a while ago. I was afraid it would be a complicated fix so I put off getting an electrician. Finally, we did it. Jane made the call. The electrician came, took one look at the lights and told us it was just that the ballasts were old. He checked with our house insurance and they paid for all the new parts. It only cost $55.00.

We are afraid of the things we don’t understand, in the physical as well as the spiritual. But so often the fix is not nearly as difficult as we anticipate.

There was a good side and a bad side to getting the lights repaired. The good side was that we could see everything. The bad side was that we could see everything! WOW, so much dust and disarray had collected in my garage when the lights were flickering and low! It’s the same with us spiritually.

I have been working so hard at getting volume two of WINGS out, that my time in just reading the Bible was like the garage lights—flickering. Then yesterday I took several hours away from home to just sit and study the Word of God. I did a word study on the word “sleep.” In the process, I ended up reading many exciting chapters of the Bible and got all kinds of new light on some current world situations as well as things in my own life. It was thrilling.

Even in the very first verses of the Bible, God talks about light: “And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:4).

The thing about light is that it exposes any darkness. So when I had new bright lights in my garage, I could see that I had work to do. I can now see the mess! Time to clean up.

Psalm 18:28 says, “For thou wilt light my candle: The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.” If we want the dark places of our lives to be lightened, we need to get that light of God turned on. First Corinthians 4:5 tells us: “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.”

The supposition here is that every man will have praise from God because he or she has sought light from the Lord; the light has revealed the darkness and the person has received the exchange of light for the former darkness. Then God is super happy because light and clarity and peace is prevailing. Confusion, filth and fear has been removed. Isn’t that what we all want?

We get lazy sometimes and make excuses for ourselves. I know I was lazy about getting someone to fix my garage lights. Then because I couldn’t see out there very well, I didn’t bother sweeping the floor. I didn’t see that some of my supplies had tipped over and that I needed an all over general clean up. I asked myself, “What happened? It used to be clean and organized out here!” But without proper light, something awful happened. Yikes!

God is light and His “word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Ps. 18:28).

If our time in reading the Bible has been flickering like my lights, it’s time to get back to it. Let’s not be apathetic in our Christian walk and think that it’s okay to expect the Lord to always just give us revelation, rather than us having to actually sit down with the Bible and read His Word.  

When I started my study on “sleep” yesterday, I went to BibleGateway.com and printed out the scripture references. Then when I began to look them up, certain stories caught my interest and I had such a great time reading the context. By doing this, the Lord was able to direct me and give me new insight on sections of scripture that directly related to current events in my life as well as in the world at large. It was awesome.

Jesus came in the flesh to help people. His mission was, and still is, “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18).

Let’s let the Word of God, and the revelation of Jesus Christ, open our eyes and let the light shine in.

Love, Carolyn

YOU Can . . . SEE + READ . . . some of the ^^^ CHAPTERS == IN my NEW book * *** * WINGS: Journey with Jesus.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=aps&keywords=WINGS%20Carolyn%20molica&linkCode=ur2&tag=jmbcsds-20&linkId=XQMVLVZYNBLYAGEM

JESUS DELIVERS MY FAVORITE CUPCAKES

JESUS DELIVERS MY FAVORITE CUPCAKES

I was asked to bring something to a barbecue this coming Friday. I volunteered to bring dessert. I had to bring enough for 20 people, so I thought about it and decided I wanted to bring my favorite triple chocolate cupcakes. My roommate Jane said that a package of four costs about four dollars, which is kind of expensive, and they usually don’t have too many of the packages available.

She looked in the usual place and didn’t even find one package of cupcakes. She stood there and the Lord said, “Go to the cooler in the bakery and take some pictures on your phone of some cupcakes for Carolyn.” When Jane got over to the cooler, in the very corner on the top shelf, there were nine boxes of the exact cupcakes we wanted and they were 75 percent off! Score!!

This is a great example of how the Lord had prepared to bless me before I even knew what I needed. He had someone put those cupcakes in a special place just for me. He is so awesome to care about even the smallest blessings that delight our souls.

Psalm 37:4 tells us that you can “delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” And Luke 12:32 says, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” In this case, the kingdom included a whole lot of my favorite cupcakes to take to the barbecue, and a couple extra for Jane and me.

Love, Carolyn

CHECK ***OUT ……my new BOOKLET - - - WINGS: A DEVIL ON EVERY DOOR KNOB: And the Faith to Know What to Do About It

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LAUGH AT THE DEVIL

LAUGH AT THE DEVIL

I opened the door to the hall closet and stepped down onto wet carpet. I checked to see if one of the plastic gallons of water leaked. Nope. Then I started to feel around on the carpeted floor and I had to move everything on the floor and pull back the carpet and liner to see what was going on. I followed the water through the closet and into the bedroom. Thank God the water was moving very very slowly. I had to laugh at the devil.

Since before the beginning of the year I’ve been working on publishing volume two of my WINGS series, which I did in June, and just last week I published a smaller booklet, A Devil on Every Door Knob: And the Faith to Know What to Do About It. I have another booklet coming out on demons also. Obviously Satan is upset with me because since the beginning of the year I’ve been attacked by worldly things. Finally, the devil pushed his luck too far and I’m not biting the bait. He’s a fool and I have the wisdom of God.

This time, by revelation, I was told to laugh at the devil and speak to the demon bringing this on. I said, “Do you think you are interrupting my plans for the day by causing this to happen? Nope! This IS the plan for the day! I trust in Jesus. I’m living in the moment and I am going to see the value of a good God and good Lord with me today. HA HA HA!”

In testing the various places that might have been leaking, I found out my second shower was working great. I had trouble with the draining a year ago and hadn’t needed to check it until now. I wouldn’t have known it was totally okay until having to check it in this situation. Ha! Ha! Also I’d been wanting to clean out the closet. Well now I have to and I’m not in a hurry so I’m at ease with it.

And the other great thing is that I think it may be a broken pipe in my sprinkler system and that is okay too, because I’ve been wanting to revamp the irrigation. It was put in in 1994 and has only had one minor repair in all these years. But it needs a little work, so now’s the time.

I’m laughing at the devil because what he thought was a great coup is only going to give glory to God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was reminded of how Jesus must have been laughing at the devil when He said bye bye to Hell when the devil killed him and thought he had Him. God raised his son Jesus from the dead and from Hell itself, to have everlasting victory and give that victory to us. 1 John 3:8 tells us: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

I told Satan, “Nope, devil, you get no glory here! In fact, you didn’t even affect me. You actually helped execute God’s will! HA! HA! HA!”

I am so thankful to the Lord for my attitude change. At one time in my life, this kind of thing would really put me over the edge and I’d drive myself and everyone around me crazy with my frantic nervousness and obsessive compulsion to fix everything right away.

But I’m different now. I believe Romans 8:28, that says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” And I can say that even in the midst of problems, applying Philippians 4:6-7 is working for me. It says, “Be anxious for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Life brings challenges and problems. Our attitude brings resolve and solutions. The Bible really does have all the answers to life.

The water is turned off now and the next step will come this week. Keep us in your prayers as the solution gets sorted out.

Love, Carolyn

HAVE you SEEN . . . . MY  NEW BOOKLET??? . . . .  A DEVIL ON EVERY DOOR KNOB – And what to DO about IT.

https://www.amazon.com/WINGS-DEVIL-EVERY-Faith-About-ebook/dp/B01IJ95MME/ref=as_sl_pc_as_ss_li_til?tag=jmbcsds-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=cea5ec8ba746cc4a9a72789f59c8bf23&creativeASIN=B01IJ95MME#navbar

REFRESHING, NOT DISTRESSING

REFRESHING, NOT DISTRESSING

My friend Alex told me that yesterday after work he couldn’t stop thinking about the job and he was really stressed out. When he got home he took one look at his pool. Though the pool has been operational for a couple months now, this was the first time he decided he really wanted to get in and take a swim. He told me the water was shockingly cold at first, but then he started just floating on his back and looking up at his trees and his whole body and brain started to relax.

The phrase “chilling out,” meaning “relaxing,” is literally accurate. Cool water is good for slowing things down. When my shoulder gets tense, I put an ice pack on it. It stings at first, but if I just bear it for a couple seconds, I start to breathe slowly and deeply, the tension goes and it feels pretty darn good. 

Some of us always move pretty fast, if not always in body, then at least in our brains. I’m like that. It’s hard for me to just sit down and meditate quietly. When I start, the thoughts of things I need to do come popping into my head and I have to grab my pen and make a note. It takes some real determination for me to really slow down and “chill out.”

If you can relate to that, then we both need to learn how to breathe deep and be still. We need to give our brains a rest sometimes, even when we’re awake.

In Psalm 46:10 God tells us: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Isaiah 26:3 says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

Even as I was writing this article on my computer, my internet connection went out and I started to get frustrated. I took a deep breath and stayed as quiet as I could, while my roommate Jane took a look at it and fixed the connection. I thank God for Jane.

Lately it seems like I’ve been hit with so many things to get rattled about, but not to worry. Jesus is always there to get me right back on track. I believe Jesus had my friend Alex tell me that story about the pool because He, Jesus, had a special message for me. When Alex described the incident it was as if I was there myself. I could feel the chill of the water and then the refreshing and calm. Jesus was trying to get me to pay attention.

So when the computer incident happened, I was able to pull myself back from distress and calm myself with the scriptures. And now that the incident is over, I feel much more refreshed. Cool shower to finish off the day? Maybe I’ll try it.

Love, Carolyn

HAVE you SEEN . . . . MY  NEW BOOKLET??? . . . .  A DEVIL ON EVERY DOOR KNOB – And what to DO about IT.

https://www.amazon.com/WINGS-DEVIL-EVERY-Faith-About-ebook/dp/B01IJ95MME/ref=as_sl_pc_as_ss_li_til?tag=jmbcsds-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=cea5ec8ba746cc4a9a72789f59c8bf23&creativeASIN=B01IJ95MME#navbar