Praying the Bible to Renew Your Hope

Published by Leslie Newman Prayer, Praying Scriptures 20 comments

Free Prayer Kit! Pray 6 Bible verses to renew your hope. Study key words in each verse. Learn to write your own powerful prayers using the verses you are studying as a framework.

Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work. ~Oswald Chambers

Friends, prayer matters. Oswald Chambers says it so well in this quote.

“We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all.” -Oswald Chambers

When life is hard, we tend to turn to prayer – or turn away from it. It can go either way, can’t it? It’s easy to lose hope. The Bible tells us we will experience trials and tribulations in this world (John 16:33, Romans 5:3-4, 1 Peter 5:10) and we surely know it from walking these paths, don’t we? So what’s a girl to do when she feels as if she’s loosing hope?

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Now is the Right Season for Teaching Your Children to Pray!

Published by Leslie Newman Prayer 6 comments

Now is the season to teach your children to pray! Join us as we talk about creative ideas for instilling the habit of prayer.

Have you ever heard the prayers of a young child? Sometimes they are sweet, sometimes they are funny, but one thing is for sure – a young child knows how to believe. It comes naturally to them. This is why now, while they are young, is the best season for helping them learn Biblical truths and develop good habits in their prayer lives.

Join me today at Lisa Yvonne’s blog, www.gracefulabandon.com, as we discuss teaching children to pray!

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7 Verses for When You Need Hope

Published by Leslie Newman Hope 22 comments

When life is difficult, hold on to these seven verses full of hope for you!

Times are hard, and life can be beyond difficult. Sometimes it can leave us feeling overwhelmed, perhaps even feeling hopeless. But no matter what circumstances you woke up to this morning, there is a promise of hope. Click below to read more and find seven Bible verses you can hold on to when hope seems far away!

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The Story Behind Journey to Imperfect

Published by Leslie Newman Overcoming Perfectionism 4 comments

Perfectionism is real, friends, and it often remains hidden in our lives. Join me today and find out how I discovered my own problem with perfectionism. Then join me at Journey to Imperfect where you’ll discover God’s love and grace for help in overcoming it.

Hi Friends!

Today I’m honored to be sharing the story behind the creation of Journey to Imperfect through a guest post at my friend, Natalie Venegas’ blog, Milk & Honey Faith. Natalie’s writing and her generosity has been an inspiration and encouragement to me. She has a heart for inspiring others to grow in faith and to step out into their God given callings. You’ll see this through her writing just as I have seen it personally as we’ve had the opportunity to get to know each other.

Natalie also has a heart for helping women connect with each other. She does this through her a monthly post on her blog called the “Faithful Feature.” I’m honored to be a part of that today!

Are you curious about how Journey to Imperfect came to be? Join me and Natalie over at www.milkandhoneyfaith.com and find out more! When you get there, I encourage you to stay for a while and look around. You’ll be blessed, I can assure you!

Click READ MORE below to find links to Natalie’s Faithful Feature and learn more about the story behind Journey to Imperfect!

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Grace and Peace for Your New Year

Published by Leslie Newman Claiming Scriptures, Hope 14 comments

How could our new year be different if we understood the fullness of God’s grace and peace? His kind of grace changes everything! Find out more by clicking through!

Grace to you and peace be multiplied. This greeting from the apostle Peter just leaps out to me on this New Year’s Day. It’s such a good verse for new beginnings and hope for the new year, isn’t it? It’s full and rich just as it is, but if we look into the Greek root words we’ll find even more!

Did you know that the word grace in this verse comes from the Greek word xáris? This kind of grace refers how God is always leaning toward us freely giving Himself away to us because He wants to be with us.

The word peace comes from the Greek word eirḗnē, and it means “wholeness.” It refers to all the essential parts being joined together. Peace is God’s gift of wholeness.

The word multiplied comes from the Greek word plēthýnō, and it means made full to maximum potential.

How would our new year be different if…

Click below to read more! Find out what we’ll be doing this year at Journey to Imperfect!

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When Grace Appeared

Published by Leslie Newman Powerful Bible Verses 6 comments

God’s grace works well, his kindness is endless, His fullness is poured out upon us from the outstretched hands of a tiny baby.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. – John 1:14

Grace. The Word born to life and living among us, a tiny baby born in an insignificant village, living His life in humble surroundings. He was God’s finest gift, treasured like you and me, held in His Father’s arms and close to His heart.

But one night, God leaned low. He bent down to earth and set that baby in a manger, in a small and insignificant village, in lowly and humble surroundings. It was a moment of grace lived out from the heart of our Father God who loved us enough to give us His only Son.

Can you feel God leaning down, holding that baby in His arms, all the while knowing that He would die for you and me? And yet still …

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From the Manger to the Cross: Finding True Identity

Published by Leslie Newman Identity 8 comments

There is a deep love for you and me and a God who sent His Son to earth as a tiny baby so we could understand it. In seeking His face from the manger to the cross, we can understand our true identity.

{Guest Post at www.LoriSchumaker.com}

I looked into those precious baby blue eyes. They seemed to peer right into my soul. We had just come home from the hospital, and I was having my first few moments alone with my sweet baby girl. I just couldn’t quit looking into her face, and as her eyes were searching mine, they seemed to be looking straight into my soul. I felt something I had never felt before, a love deeper than I had ever known, something that cannot be put into words. As I rocked her back and forth, I remember wondering at a love like that. It came to me at that moment, just a little whisp of a thought that flickered through my mind, “This must be how God loves me. I understand it better now.”

That was over 20 years ago. In most of those 20 years as I raced through the responsibilities of being a mother and wife in those child-raising years, the joy and wonder of the kind of love that God wanted me to understand became dulled until I could barely see it.

But one day I heard the Lord calling me back…..

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5 Days to a Thankful Heart

Published by Leslie Newman Word Study 6 comments

Spend 5 days in this easy study of Bible verses about thanksgiving. Come away with deep insights and a thankful heart!

Words. We hear them, we speak them, we read them. From the time we are tiny babies just starting to talk, words are part of who we are. From a very young age, we seek to know and understand the world around us through our developing language. Knowing the meanings of the words we speak and read is necessary in order to understand the world around us and interact with it.

It’s no different with the Bible. Word meanings are very important!

The Bible was first written in Hebrew and Greek. Translations are not perfect because languages are so different. The meanings of words can vary and change over time. The English words that we read in our modern translations can represent two or more different words in the original languages, so sometimes the meaning of one English word doesn’t quite do justice to the complexity of the concept implied in the original languages. This is why it’s a great idea to do a Biblical word study!

Word study can seem very intimidating, but fortunately, we have so many resources for solid Biblical research and understanding right at our fingertips. There are places online that you can go to find concordances and lexicons in order to do a deeper study of God’s word. You do not have to be an expert at languages to gain some deep insight into what God is speaking through His word!

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Empower Your Life with Praise and Thanksgiving! (Part 2)

Published by Leslie Newman Prayer 10 comments

Join me for part two of our discussion about the difference between thanksgiving and praise. Find practical resources for adding praise to your prayer life!

Last week we talked about how praise and thanksgiving empowers our life. It’s so exciting to know that such simple things can make such significant differences! It’s also true that misunderstanding certain things can keep us from experiencing all that God intends for us.

This week we’ll continue this discussion and look at some practical resources for adding praise to your prayer life. {{FREE PRINTABLES in our Resource Library!}}

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Empower Your Life with Praise and Thanksgiving!

Published by Leslie Newman Prayer 17 comments

Did you know there’s a difference between thanksgiving and praise? Both are essential and can empower your life in many ways you may not realize! Click through to read more!

It’s November, the month we celebrate Thanksgiving, and that always brings to mind themes of thankful hearts and all that God has done. We know we should be sincerely grateful to God for our many blessings, and we are! But sometimes we miss another life changing aspect, and that is the element of praise.

Praise and thanksgiving are closely related and can significantly empower our lives. At the same time, there is a difference between the two, and this important fact was something I missed for a long time. I had always thought that giving thanks was what it meant to praise God. It was not until I realized the difference between thanksgiving and praise that I come to a new place in finding peace in difficult situations and began to experience powerful changes within all areas of my life.

So what’s the difference anyway?

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