Moments in God's Hand: Essential Truths to Grow by in Times of Spiritual Warfare

By Valerie Van Moorsel

There are many opportunities to learn more about God and what it means to be a Christian. This journey has been blessed by many moments in the hand of God, learning, being chastised lifted up and to bridge the gap between learning and actually taking the wisdom and living each day for Him. We need to learn how to shine as a beacon of Gods ever burning light that is filtered through our lives into our neighbourhoods, churches, workplaces, and homes, spreading the truth of God everywhere we are. We need to confess that it is the truth of God that will release the freedom to go out into the entire world and proclaim His wonderful works, giving Him the praise and honour worthy of His Name.
This book is a compilation of daily devotions that is comprised of lessons that I has taken away from those devotions. There has been many opportunities to take away a blessing from each meditation of Gods word. During this time I was praying for God to show me my purpose, the reason why I was here. God told me to write a book, using the devotions that I written out. So here is the final product of that endeavour. My hopes are that if you dont know my Saviour, you will and if you are discouraged that you be lifted up and blessed and refreshed, if you havent taken your faith to the limits my hopes are that you will. You will not be sorry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 29, 2009
• ISBN: 9781477176818

Valerie Van Moorsel

I had an interest in writing in my teens but laid down my pen for a few years. I became a believer in August of 1993, and a few months later in January of 1994, picked up my pen once again and started writing, this time it was about Christian Living. While on that journey I started writing Moment’s in God’s hand, using the lessons I had learned in my Christian walk. In 2000 I married my sweetheart Mike, and feel so blessed to have such a man in her life to walk beside on this journey with God. We now reside in a small rural community, and are settled in a local church body.

Book preview

Moments

In

God’s Hand

4578.jpg

Essential Truths to grow by

in Times of Spiritual Warfare

4589.jpg

Valerie Van Moorsel

Copyright © 2009 by Valerie Van Moorsel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture noted in bracket NKJV was taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION of the Bible, The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All other Scripture was taken from the Nelson King James Version of the Bible, copyright 1972 by Thomas Nelson, Inc Printed in England by Eyre and Spottiswoode (Publishers) Limited

Her Majesty’s Printer, London

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

61401

Contents

Acknowledgements

A Confession

My Conversion

The Blood

God As My Saviour

Take The Time

Safely Kept

My Prayer Today

I Cannot Pardon

My Name

Storms In My Life

Search Deeply

As I Come To Worship

Wondering Why

Is God Enough?

Believe

Search Me O’lord

Refreshed

Prayer Of Discouragement

I Raise My Voice

Blessed Be The Lord

Refreshment

My Love For Thee

Down On My Knees

Strength In My Weakness

Remembrance Feast

Where Is The Love?

Excuses

I Am A Sinner

Why Do You Bother?

I Don’t Deserve

It’s Up To Me

Don’t Lose Heart

This House Of Mine

A Young Girls Prayer

My Bridge

My Heart’s Song

Words Of Encouragement

I dedicate this book to God,

He gave me the gift to write and I give this work back to Him.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank God for His patience, for His chastisement, His hand of correction and His never ending love. Without Him I am nothing, and I thank Him solely for showing me how to share my lessons and my thoughts about those hard earned lessons.

I thank Mike my best friend in the world, for standing by me and being patient with me through these years of writing and rewriting, thank you for loving me no matter what. For helping me keep my focus true to God. We have experienced a lot together and it has made our relationship stronger in a Godly way, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I need to acknowledge my brother Mark, for his insight and help in choosing a title and subtitle for this book. You have provided the black and white photos found within these pages. You encouraged me to go ahead with the book. www.momentsbymark.com

Also I am thankful for the blessing of a great family; for both knowing who I am and loving me anyways. For being a part of a uniquely designed network called family and for being brought up learning about God through His word since a young child.

I have been blessed with a very godly Gramma, who has been my mentor since I was young. She has been an incredible spiritual help to me over the years and has become another of my best friends. I love her very much and I thank the Lord for lending her to me.

I thank God for all the wonderful people that He has placed in my life and have enjoyed the friendship and fellowship of each one. The women in the women’s Bible Study have played a part in helping me to make God’s word practical by sharing and giving real life examples. I appreciate getting together with them every week.

The cover photo was supplied by Mark McBean.

"Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase." Proverbs 3:9

"Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever." 1Timothy 1:17

This is a compilation of devotionals and poetry that I have written on my personal readings and thoughts. I had written them and collected them on many little pieces of papers and many little notebooks. I would take a piece of paper and write down a subject that was on my heart but didn’t have the time to expound on. Then later when I had some free time I would take out my note book and start from the front and work my way to the back and finish my thoughts that were first written down. I decided to create this devotional type of book that I may look back and relive the lessons and relearn them if necessary.

Writing my thoughts down was a way to remember my thoughts and meditations that I so often seemed to forget. So they may be there when I needed a look back.

God gave me a passion for writing at a young age, back then my imagination was awakened and has grown since. But the ability to organize my thoughts and write them out has been a long process of discipline and training. My mental capacity has had to release itself on paper and relieve the stress of remembering everything. Spiritually I have really grown and devoted my heart to knowing God more and more. He has showed Himself to me, and allowed me to catch a glimpse of Who He is, what He stands for and taking Him seriously. It is one thing to be a believer in God and claiming His salvation as our own, but it is another thing altogether to live a life for Him and leaving oneself open to learning and chastisement along the road we trod. It has been through such times as those that I have learned to be the person I am, that I have become who I am. God has formed me, nurtured me, and shaped me into the woman that I am. Because I allowed Him to take my life and make it be what His will desires. I have left myself open to be led in His will towards His purposes for my life. I had been led, corrected, misunderstood, chastised; I have been picked up when I have fallen. But most of all I have been loved, loved by the Greatest Source of love in the whole world and beyond. There is no love that compares itself to God’s. What an Awesome God we have and how wonderful are His works. And no matter how many trials I have to tread through, or how many sorrows my heart will have to endure, God has promised to be there with me through to the end. He has a reason for that trial at that particular moment; I may never know the reason until farther down the road when I realize He had prepared me for what lay ahead. It matters within my heart whether I think negatively about it and become bitter and torn, wanting pity, or whether I praise God for the work that He is bringing to my life for the betterment of my testimony for Him, adding to my life substance and character needed to get through to the end of the race. It isn’t easy for one to become satisfied with the turmoil that must come into ones life, and some things that I had to just get used to, but being objective about it, and thinking about the good it is doing our hearts and souls is a better way to put it; learning our lessons without loosing ourselves in its deluge.

These are my thoughts, the lessons of learning from within. God has given me many things to write about and each thought encourages my heart to continue and not be a quitter of the race, and to go forward and finish the race well. It is not when you finish, nor what kind of person you were to the end; it is the content of your life that matters. It matters how well you are in the spirit when you finish. Finish happy, content. Don’t finish bitter and cold in heart. Nor finish far away from the fold of God’s people. Finish happy in Him.

Read God’s word and learn from it and grow. Don’t put yourself in a dark place without spiritual food and water and expect to survive, because you won’t. Like a tender plant or tree, it must be fed, watered and succumb to the sun for growth, or it will wither away. Our souls are not so different. Take heart and live each day for Him and open your heart to learning of Him and grow.

Valerie Van Moorsel

A Confession

I give to Thee each thought,

Every sin this heart has wrought,

I give to Thee my pride,

And the deeds in which I hide,

Take my will, my all,

Take it Lord, lest I fall,

Fill my heart with gladness,

That I may have peace in all this madness,

Take the selfishness within my heart,

Fill it with Thee, every part,

That all I do is for Thee, not me,

Filling my heart with only Thee,

I give to Thee my life,

All the sadness, sorrows and strife,

I give Thee my disappointments, my thoughts,

And each sin this heart wrought.

My heart, my life, my soul, belongs to thee

And nothing more I do for me.

My Conversion

Through this dark dreary world I walked

Blind and deeper in sin each day,

Death may have been near, it heeded no thought,

Yet, in hell I feared would be my stay.

I feared His coming with terror,

For I knew in my heart I’d stay,

Behind alone, there would be no error,

Far too late to go, the other way

I had a vision of the door,

Alone I stood without its frame,

Only forever in Hell was in store,

I was doomed, held speechless, myself to blame.

The ransom paid, I did not take,

The sinful, shameful cross He bore,

It all seemed so real, there was no mistake,

Because I did not enter the door

Finding no sleep, I read God’s Book,

A verse came to my mind that night,

A verse that made me to Calvary look

And seen there a beautiful sight,

For God so loved the world He gave,

His only well beloved Son,

Whoever believeth shall then be saved,

Giving life in Heaven with the One

The One who bore ALL of my sin,

Took the death that was mine to bear,

He shed His blood that I may enter in,

To rest now in His tenderest care.

Death and Hell, He conquered all,

Rose from the dead, In Heaven now,

His hand guiding tenderly, lest I fall,

My knee in tender praise and worship bow

Suddenly the last trump I’ll hear,

I, His own; see heaven so bright,

To meet Him in the are, His face appear,

Grand and glorious, oh what a sight

Heaven is my surety divine,

For I believe His word is true,

I am the branches; He is my strong vine,

Through Him my heart has been cleansed anew.

To gaze upon His blessed face, as in forever it shall be.

Prayer:

—   Seal my hands that I may know my work—Job 37:7

—   Pray for man’s reproach to be turned again upon their own heads

—   For strength to continue living for God and what all that entails

—   Lead me towards a need that I may be able to fulfill it through God

Meditation:

Job 37:24—Men do fear Him; he respecteth not any that are wise of heart.

Pause and Think:

God has been leading me towards Himself. Through reading the Old Testament, He has shown me a pattern of living, a pattern of triumphs and failures. Through it all, God brought His people out. In looking at my own life, the triumphs seem few, the failures are many, the balance comes in the learning and growing in the failures and appreciating and enjoying the triumphs, giving God the glory. Being thankful for the failures and trials, through praise and worship in the triumphs. If I can be grateful for whatever I am currently going through, good or bad, and not straying from God’s side, and remain faithful to Him, His will and ways, I will be blessed. Blessed in the learning, in the planting and cultivating the words and will of God for my life. Accepting the bad and the good as the purpose filled will of God.

I was thinking about Job’s life while reading the self titled book in the Bible; how he must have felt going through all the turmoil and having to sit and listen to the many that came by to talk some sense into him. How he lost everything, but gained much in the end. I was thinking about verse 24, that God does not respect any that are wise. It brings to mind a couple of verses that are in the New Testament Acts 10:34 "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said; of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons." And the other one is in James 2:9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. I was thinking how money, prestige, a nice house and fancy clothes sometimes puts you into a certain clique.

People respect those who are higher in society and carry clout. They give more respect to those who give the most money to causes and in the offering boxes Sunday morning. It shouldn’t be so, but it is very prevalent in today society. Just have a look around, it exists in our places of worship and employment. Job lost everything, God brought Him down so low, yet Job gained much in the end. He had faith in God. It made me think that because God has no respect of persons, it doesn’t have to be a down trodden soul that will get crushed, and lose everything. It could be me. I have to live my life and accept that fact that it could be me; I could be the next one to lose everything. But where will that take me? Where would I go from there? When you have fallen as low as you can fall, there is only one way out of the situation, and that is up. I hope and pray that if it comes into my life, I am prepared to handle it carefully and obtain my strength from the Lord, who is the giver and taker of life. Living a life of personal gain, and materialism is on the road to failure. I need to choose Christ, and live for Him; making Him my God, not these things that are all around me. My possessions are just that, temporary and come to naught. My home in which I live, is just that a home, a roof over my head and a blessing from God Himself. May we take lessons from the life of Job and continue on our journey towards God refreshed.

The Blood

In the blood that fell to the ground

Forgiveness and love was found

God gave His Son to save me

The humility has brought me down upon my knees

A life was given in my place

Shame has hidden my face

Because of the sin in my life

Stabs my heart like a knife,

I came to God and believed,

Through redemption, my sins are