Welcome to Les's Blog

God's beauty in Lake Junaluska, NC last June. Good morning! How are you this wonderful new day that the Lord has given us? All is well here. The little bit of snow that we might have had this week didn't come. As much as I love it we have had enough.  It is time for the spring, when God renews our land with beauty of the flowers and rains and greenery. Only He could have created these things for us to enjoy. But do we? Do we take the time to just smell the roses? Or do we keep our heads to the grindstone of life and not pay attention to the wonder and beauty around us?  The heavens declare the glory of God;   the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1 I try to look around and notice God's paintings. His paintings are ever changing and beautiful to say the least. This world we live in has so much beauty in it and I think that God, Who never changes, is showing His love to us through that beauty. And it is breat...

  God's amazing sunrise taken on one of my trips! And yes I was driving! Good morning! I will cause my people and their homes around  my holy hill to be a blessing. And I will send showers,  showers of blessings, which will  come just when they are needed. Ezekiel 34:26 God is so awesome and His blessings are amazing like He is. I know that I repeat myself more than I should or maybe I should repeat myself. God is so good and great and I can never stop saying that. I can never say it too much. Maybe I should use different words. Instead of awesome and good and great, maybe I need to use other words such as majestic, mighty, holy... Perfect. Righteous. Loving. Kind. Friendly. Helpful. Protective. Caring. Sharing. Powerful. Compassionate. Forgiving. Empowering. Discerning. Overwhelming. Consuming. Cleansing. Healing. Delivering. Restoring. Moving. Creating. Destroying. Smiting. Fulfilling. Distinc...

Good morning! Hope you learned something about praise and worship the last several days. I sure did. I love how people can put things like that together for us to study and learn. I could have tried to do that myself but it wouldn't have turned out as good. Today is one of those extremely busy days. I must depend on God to get everything done but also to keep me from panicking. I spend a lot of time on the road every other Wednesday. Today is the every other. I have the privilege of being involved in two Bible studies, one in the morning and then again in the evening. They are both great. I need to keep my focus on Jesus and the studies and not on the driving. Don't we all have days like that, where we are doing great things for the Lord but the stress of it all sometimes gets to be more than we can handle. I mentioned two studies for today but that is not all that I get to do. So, much more between it all. That is what makes it stressful. But I know ...

Good morning on this fine day!  I said that I would finish this series on Praise and Worship yesterday but I missed posting on Sunday so I am a day behind. I actually wrote the post but didn't click publish. But that is okay. Does it really matter? I think not. But I do apologize! Worship But praise is not an end unto itself.  Praise frequently leads us into worship. The Scripture: John 4:23-24 "True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." 24.  What kind of worshipers is the Father seeking?      25.  Why?      To truly worship God, we must worship him in our spirits.  Worship is our spirit touching God's spirit.  There are times when we are so overwhelmed with love for the Lord that we pass beyond praise and enter into worship. Sometime...

  This post was from yesterday and I never posted it. I finished it and didn't click publish. Where is my mind? I hope my mind was on Jesus. Good morning on this blessed Sabbath Day! A wonderful, beautiful day which the Lord has made. Enjoy it here in our community. Because this week it is supposed to get cold again. Oh, spring can't get here soon enough. Praise the Lord! Varieties of Praise The next question becomes: how then do we praise the Lord?  Scripture shows us many ways to praise and worship Him. The Scripture:  Psalm 47:6 "Sing praises to God; sing praises to our King, sing praises." 17.  How are we to praise God?  The Scripture: Isaiah 12:6 "Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you." 18.  What else are we to do?  The Scripture: Psalm 47:1 "Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy." 19.  What does the psalmist tell us to do? ...

    Good morning! Forgive me for not posting until now. Busy day. On the road again. But I am home now. Blessed to spend some time with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons. Yeah!! Where Do We Praise God? Is church the only place where we praise God?  Not according to Scripture. The Scripture: 1 Chronicles 16:24 "Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples." 10.  Where is our praise to be given?      The Scripture: Psalm 22:22 "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you." 11.  Where does this verse tell us to praise God?   The Scripture:  Psalm 149:5 "Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds." 12.  Where else?   It is proper to praise the Lord in all places. When Do We Praise the Lord? Is there an appropriate time to praise the Lord? The Scripture: Psalm 59:16 "In the morning ...

Good morning! Here is the next phase of our praise and worship. I just thought it would remind us of what God longs from us. And actually expects from us. Although as much as He loves us, He knows that we won't do it perfectly. But he loves us anyway more than we can imagine. So, worship and praise Him the best you can.  God Wants Our Praise The Scripture: Psalm 50:23 (NKJV) "Whoso offereth praise glorifies Me." 4.  What does our praise do?  (Answers are at the bottom.) The Scripture:  Psalm 68:4 "Sing to God, sing praise to His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds--His name is the Lord--and rejoice before Him." 5.  When we sing and praise God, what are we doing?   When we extol someone, we magnify them. The Scripture: Psalm 22:3 (NKJV) "But You are holy, who inhabit the praises of Israel." 6.  What does God do?   Other versions of the Bible tell us that our praises "enthrone" God, in other words pl...

Good morning on this fine Thursday! Let's just praise the Lord. I am going to give you a little study from Aglow International on praise and worship and why do it, for a few days. It would be very difficult for me to write this myself so I didn't. And I couldn't do it near as well. "Day and night they never stop saying,  'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,  who was, and is, and is to come."  Rev. 4:8   "Each time this happens, twenty-four elders  sitting on thrones around God's throne fall down  before God and cry, "You are worthy, our Lord   God, to receive glory and honor and power."  Rev. 4:11 Are you praising the Lord? Are you telling Him these things? You don't have to be an angel, or a being in Revelation to praise the Lord in this way. Thousands of angels encircle the throne, singing,  "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive  power and wealth and wisdom and stre...

I am ready for this! Good morning to you! It rained and thundered a lot of the night as well as lightning, of course. And my husband looked at the rain gauge this morning and it has rained 2" last night. With the ground being soggy with two snow storms in the last few weeks, boy, it is more than soggy. It is a mess!  I just wish it would rain in California. I know that it is several years of severe drought. We have lots of family there and the fire hazard will be terrible this year. We're praying for some nice gentle rains. Well, I want to share a scripture today. Psalm 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.  Psalm 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.   Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and no...

Good morning! One of the Bible studies we are doing is talking about the first couple of chapters of Genesis and the Fall. It is so interesting that satan lied and Eve who was perfect and knew God intimately as one of the two only people created, could be deceived as she was by satan. We can only pray that as we get to know God intimately each day, that we would not be deceived as Eve was. But you know what, we do. We do things we shouldn't and don't do things we should every day even when we have that relationship with God through Jesus Christ that He wants us to have. Oh Lord forgive us! I pray that God would help me to give Him more time. I pray that He would help me be more obedient to Him. And He is doing these things a little each day but we will not completely have those answers until we get to our mansions in heaven. Because here on earth we will always have the distractions that we won't have in heaven. Jesus will be our all in all. Our King of kings a...

Good morning to you on this great Monday! I pray that you had a great weekend and that you have worshiped the Lord every day in Spirit and in truth, especially yesterday with your church family. We have a special friend who is a missionary and he was with us this weekend and spoke at our church yesterday morning and at our home church last night. Wow, it was powerful! Sometimes we think that God is not doing anything because we don't know about it or can't see it. But He is doing awesome things all over the world. We seem to be a little more immune in the United States to what is going on, to what God is doing. I think we take Him for granted a little bit. I mean, do we really thank Him and praise Him for every little thing that He does? I think not. We should and we try but life gets in the way.  Having been in another country on a mission trip before, I saw how hungry the people are for Jesus. How uninhibited the people are. When they worship, they really wor...

Good morning! Sunday morning. The Sabbath Day. The first day of the week. What a wonderful day to be the first day of the week. Sunday is the day we worship the Lord twice in one day. What a great way to start the week. Just like when we spend our devotion time with the Lord each day in the morning before we do anything else. Now I know not everyone takes the time in the morning to do this. It is a great time to worship the Lord before we begin our daily routine. So, Sunday is an awesome way to start our week worshiping the Lord as we start this new week.  When I talk about worshiping the Lord the first day of the week and spending time with Him first thing in the morning, I am kind of saying it according to this scripture. Now I know that I am taking it literally but I think that it works for some of us. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,  and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33 Everyone has their own schedule an...