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We are a ministry of Grove City Alliance Church in Grove City, PA & we are delighted that you are here. We will have a new blog post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday by one of our team of bloggers (check the list on the side column)! Sometimes we will have guest bloggers as well. We hope that you are encouraged & challenged as you read our posts. We encourage you to leave a comment...we would love to hear from you!
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 7:26AM 
The Fun Idea for today is totally free! All you need to do is go to this link and print these adorable bookmarks onto cardstock!
Love grows as you share it with others! Reach out and share the love. Make some of these to to share with your friends or pass them on to someone who needs a special touch today. A little gesture can go a long way!
Heart to Heart - from your heart to theirs.
Pass it on!
Linda
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 7:14AM We just couldn't wait until February to start giving stuff away, so we are starting now! Here is today's winner... Peg W who posted a blog comment on January 18th! She will be receiving a copy of Sarah Young's book Jesus Calling.
A new list will now start for our next giveaway! Be sure to post comments on any of our blogs or if you haven't already signed up to automatically receive our blog via email, or receive Heart to Heart Ministry updates or 'Like' us on Facebook. Do it now by looking at the links on the side column. Each time you do your name will be put on the list!
Winners will be announced each Monday in February. And who knows if there will be another surprise before then ;)
Be sure to check back tomorrow for another Fun Friday Idea!
I am thankful for each one of you! Leave a comment today - what are you thankful for?
Linda
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 6:48AM When I think of the word surrender, I think of some type of battle being fought. There are two sides, perhaps a good side and a bad side, both struggling to be the winner. But perhaps neither is good nor bad, but simply two different wills, two different agendas, two different views of how something should be done. In many ways, our Christian walk is a process of daily surrender. Our wills, our desires and plans for each day, along with God’s will for us can sometimes, oftentimes, bring us to a place where we need to surrender. Romans 12:1 says: Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer, or surrender, your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your act of worship. I especially like the version found in The Message: so here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.
In other words, when I look to God at the beginning of each day, when I surrender my busy schedule to His Plan for my day….it then becomes a beautiful thing. I find that there is enough time in each day to get all accomplished that needs to be done according to His schedule for my day. He sets the pace, if I allow Him to. Now I can live and move and walk in His peace, knowing that the day, the week or the circumstance may not look at all how I would have planned it. Now it looks the way it should because I allowed God to transform my thoughts and my actions into what He would have them to be. His plan for my day then becomes my plan and it is good and pleasing in His sight.
What might this look like in my life, this surrender on a daily basis? This could look like me taking the time, one of my most precious things to give, out of an already full weekend, to visit an elderly friend or relative, so that God’s spirit can love them through me. This might look like me changing my plans at the last minute and submitting to my husband’s plans without a complaining spirit, so that I can be obedient to God’s Word when it says in Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as it fitting in the Lord. Or, this might look like me going everyday into the workplace and not being conformed to the environment all around me, but through the power of the Spirit being transformed so that a lost and dying world all around me can see Jesus through me.
There is one more part to this daily surrender that we need to consider. That is the word- DELIGHTFUL. Psalm 40:8 says: I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea Thy law is within my heart. As I meditate, study and memorize His Word, it becomes a part of me, so much so, that I delight in daily surrender to His will. Why can I do this? Because Psalm 40:1-3 says: …as I waited patiently for the Lord, He heard my cry. He did not leave me crying, but He brought me up out of the horrible pit, set my feet upon a rock and established my ways. So when I cry out to Him, He hears me, puts me in a good place and shows me the way to go. Finally verse 3 says: He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. I can have a spirit of delightful surrender each day because as I yield to Him, He puts a song in my heart and a song in my mouth. Through my song many shall trust in the Lord.
Lord, through my daily, delightful surrender to You, may many come to a closer walk with You.
Lisa
Monday, January 23, 2012 at 4:32AM Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13
“You never give till it hurts.” These words, woven into the lyrics of a Matthew West song, stand out and ask a question I sometimes ask myself. What does it really mean to give until it hurts? The truth is that it can be rather enjoyable to give to others when it fits into our schedules, when we’re well-rested, when things are smooth and the sun is shining. We walk away feeling good about ourselves and feeling accomplished.
But God calls us to an extravagant kind of giving. It’s so extravagant that it hurts. It’s the kind of giving that happens after most of the world has gone to bed for the night. The kind that will never offer a thank you. The kind that is dirty and risky and looks more like walking through a November rain than a sunny June morning. Am I willing to give like that? To give when it hurts?
What kind of giving did I say no to this week because it would hurt just a little too much? What support can I give this week that will make a difference, even if it pushes me harder than I feel comfortable?
Our example in this kind of selflessness is none other than Jesus Christ. He gave until it hurt as he poured his life out to others in his earthly ministry. His neighbors rejected him when he went to serve them in his hometown. He continued to serve anyway. His closest friends betrayed him when things got hard. He pressed forward anyway. The people he came to serve stripped him, flogged him, and nailed him to a cross. He stepped forward anyway. He knew he would pay our ransom by bearing the full weight of the Father’s wrath. He came anyway.
Mother Teresa once said, “Intense love doesn’t measure; it just gives.” Jesus didn’t measure the length or breadth of his suffering; he simply came. He endured it without patting himself on the back or adding another tally to the chart of things done well. And so our attitude should be the same. As we learn to walk in the Way of this truth, we find that all of life becomes ministry. It is all poured out for others, poured out for the Father. Making dinner is as sacred and as worshipful as working in the city soup kitchen. We do them both, and we do them without measuring. It hurts sometimes because we face rejection, persecution, financial sacrifice, fatigue, ungratefulness, and a daily death to self. But we do it anyway. We do it because “intense love doesn’t measure; it just gives.”
Stacey
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 7:37AM 
Have you started a journal time and time again, each time thinking you needed a new journal to start fresh? This could be an answer for you - begin a perpetual journal! You can make these inexpensively with just a recipe box and...(click here to read more)