Welcome as always! I’m thrilled to be able to celebrate with you our 2^nd anniversary of aclearpathtogod.com.

It’s a joy to be able to continue to offer you this online form of actionable Christian spiritual guidance. It’s a privilege I certainly don’t take lightly.

To mark the occasion, I’m delighted to offer you selected ‘soundbites’ from some of my most helpful articles from the last 2 years. Enjoy!

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How This Website Empowers You to Experience the Lord Firsthand for Yourself 

A Clear Path to God’s ‘Gift Card’ to You!

 

What’s aclearpathtogod’s gift to you?

A Clear Path to God empowers you to discover for yourself a simple way of uniting yourself to God, to His unconditional love, and to His all-embracing peace —and doing so in a way that lasts.

This is the overarching goal of this online magazine for Christian women from any and all Christian denominations.

Jesus prayed that you would be able to connect to God directly, so that you could actually EXPERIENCE the Lord’s presence, love, and rest (peace) FIRSTHAND FOR YOURSELF.

 

Full article here

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Don’t Know Where You Are

On Your Christian Journey?

Part 1

Understanding your Christian journey can be helpful, especially in times of personal crisis or confusion when things seem to have hit a roadblock.

At these times on the journey, you might become concerned that what worked for you before in your relationship with God no longer works.

It seems that you’re making no spiritual headway.

In fact, it can even seem that you’re going backwards, that you’re regressing.

This is when a bit of perspective can really help.

Full article here

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Want to Improve the Quality of Your Life?

One Woman’s Journey

Full article here

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The Scriptures:
The Foundation of Your Relationship with God and of Heart Prayer

The scriptures are the foundation of your relationship with God.

Why?

Because as the Apostle Paul explains:

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Romans 10:17

New King James Version

So … to come to faith in Jesus, to know God, you must become familiar with the scriptures.

Knowledge of the scriptures alone, however, no matter how erudite or profound, is never a substitute for your relationship with God.

The scriptures are not God himself.

Their role is to point you to God —Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.

The Scriptures are Also Your Own Story 

The scriptures are also your story, just as much as they are the story of all the well-known characters in the Bible.

By this I mean that the scriptures tell the full story of all that the Lord has undertaken for you over these last two thousand years.

They are the story of all that He continues to undertake for you —even at the very moment that you are reading this —and will continue to undertake for you!

In the fifteen months leading up to my second conversion, the Lord had shown me that there are two things that are utterly necessary for us to understand about the scriptures if we are to benefit from them in the way the Lord intends.

 

1. First, as I’ve already pointed out, you must become familiar with at least the basics of God’s settled, eternal, unchanging, written Word of scripture (His logos).

2. Second, it is critical to understand that, when necessary, the Lord —using His Holy Spirit —allows a specific part of His logos written word to become for you His spoken living word, a rhema word, a word addressed specifically to YOU in your current, particular situation.

Here’s how I helped the scriptures come alive for Nel, a Retired Librarian

Jan’s approach truly enlarges our understanding both of
the scriptures and of prayer. With her guidance and
accompaniment, I arrive at a much richer understanding of
both the scriptures and of the God at their centre.

 

Full article here

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Jesus’ Teaching on How to Pray

The Matthew 6:6 Text in 2 Modern Versions

1. Here is the text in the J.B. PHILLIPS translation:

And then, when you pray, don’t be like the play-actors. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at street-corners so that people may see them at it. Believe me, they have had all the reward they are going to get.

But when you pray, go into your own room, shut your door and pray to your Father privately. Your Father who sees all private things will reward you. And when you pray don’t rattle off long prayers like the pagans who think they will be heard because they use so many words. Don’t be like them. After all, God, who is your Father, knows your needs before you ask him.

 J.B. PHILLIPS NEW TESTAMENT (PHILLIPS)

1. Here is same text in The Message translation:

⁵ “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for fifteen minutes of fame! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

⁶ “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

The Message Translation

 

Full article here

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How to Anchor Your Inner Peace before You Go to Bed

My understanding is that in the time of Jesus the Jewish day began at sunset.

This means that since Jesus was a Jew, his day began at sunset. 

This knowledge has helped me in my own prayer life.

Accordingly, I have found that the few minutes just before bedtime is an excellent time to ‘anchor’ the day that’s ending and ‘pray ahead’ the coming day.

For the last 40 years, I have done a simple, brief prayerful ‘review’ of the day that the sixteenth century St. Ignatius described in his Spiritual Exercises.

In our own day, people of many Christian denominations rely on this daily review to help them ‘anchor’ their day spiritually.

Before I turn off my light, I prayerfully review, very briefly, the day’s events (I shall teach you how in a minute). And then I ask the Lord to guide me in the new day I shall awaken to.

Then I commit my body, mind, emotions, imagination, soul and spirit to God.

On waking the next day, I have often discovered that during my time of sleep I’ve been given a new, important insight on a situation, person, or problem —or even a new sense of peace and joy.

The Spirit had been working in me as I slept.

I have learned to regard my night’s sleep as an important time of prayer.

Isaiah 26:9 describes my own experience:

My soul longs for you throughout the night, and my spirit within me seeks your presence.

Isaiah 26:9 New Catholic Bible

So Guess What: Even as You Sleep You Pray!

You see, even as you sleep, you pray.

Full article here

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Are You Trying to Walk Your Journey with God on One Foot?

Trying to walk the path with God without knowing how to EXPERIENCE His love firsthand for yourself whenever you want or need to, is like trying to walk on one foot.

It will sap your prayer and spiritual energy.

Yes, when your life is going well, you might be able to cover a certain distance (with huge effort).

But when a genuine life crisis arrives, you’ll run out of energy.

It will only be a matter of time before you start to stumble.

God certainly doesn’t want that for you. And neither do I.

Want to REALLY EXPERIENCE God’s Love FIRSTHAND for Yourself —Whenever You Want or Need It?

As women, we all know the heartache we feel when a child we know (or a child we don’t really know) gets terminally ill, or gets drawn into a dangerous lifestyle, or goes missing, or —the unthinkable —has her or his life taken.

Our heart literally aches.

I want you to think back to a time when you heard about a child in these situations.

Take a few minutes to recall how you felt, what emotions stirred in you.

Now multiply that feeling a trillion times and you start to get some tiny idea of the Lord’s great love for YOU —not for somebody else, for YOU (please insert your own name here).

You see, God’s heart is VAST.

It’s incomparably wider and deeper than yours and mine!

His heart is therefore far more vulnerable than yours and mine.

By that I mean that God experiences your and my pain at a far more profound level than we ourselves do!

As a result, the Lord’s heart aches for that child in harm’s way far, far more than do yours and mine.

This is exactly how the Lord feels when His child i. e. YOU, aren’t able to actually experience His love firsthand for yourself, directly, one-on-one.

 

Full article here 

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How Your Spiritual Make-Up Gets in the Way of Your Prayer

Sometimes Christian women feel that they have to leave behind some particular, ‘unattractive’ aspects of who they are, of what they are experiencing/have experienced in life, when they enter into prayer with their Lord.

They feel that they have to first make themselves ‘attractive’ to the Lord.

So …they put on their ‘spiritual make-up’ before they come to God in prayer.

Nothing could make the Lord grieve more.

Nothing could harm your beautiful spirit more.

Nothing could stunt your friendship and relationship with your Lord more.

Please don’t do that!

I want you to know that the Lord loves you JUST AS YOU ARE, with all your sins, clutter, baggage, weaknesses and limitations.

He honours your raw humanity.

Your human weaknesses never present a barrier to the Lord’s love for you.

And it’s very important to always remember that the Lord sees not just your drawbacks but also your great GIFTS!

Never forget this!

 Full article here

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Understanding the Basics of Evil:
How Not to Fear Evil, and Why This Matters Greatly to Your Inner Peace

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Part 1:

When Your Paradise Becomes a Mini-Hell

Educating yourself on the basic facts of evil is a holy, generous, loving, and noble thing to do —both for yourself and for your loved ones.

Why?

Because you

• won’t be able to resist Satan’s temptations and assaults if you can’t recognize and identify the person behind them 

• won’t be able to neutralize and defeat evil if you’re not familiar with Satan’s tactics

• will suffer needless personal pain unless you know how to neutralize and overcome evil

There are 4 main points to understand about evil: 

• God became man precisely in order to destroy Satan’s works:

But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.

1 John 3:8 New Living Translation ((My emphasis)

• The good news is that God has given you ALL YOU NEED to defeat and be victorious over ALL evil 

• The good news is that the Lord does NOT want you to fear evil!

• The Lord DOES, however, want you to recognize the REALITY of evil

I’ve written this 10-Part series to help you

1. understand evil
2. know what to do when you have to deal with evil in any form in your own life or in the lives of those dearest to you

This series

1. Explains the importance of maintaining your inner peace and joy when faced with evil.
2. Presents a simple yet guaranteed way of praying to do that —not just once or twice or 3 times but whenever you wish or need to.

These Articles Explore…

This article series explores:

• the prime reasons for educating yourself on evil
• what Jesus said about evil
• how Jesus dealt with evil
• examples of how evil actually works, how it carries out its damage in the real, everyday lives of all people —Christians, non-Christians, and people of no faith
• your very first step to truly understanding exactly why evil is so horrific
• why you must steer clear of evil at all costs
• what happens if you don’t

Let’s Play ‘Pretend’

Let’s play ‘pretend’ for a few minutes.

Let’s imagine that you’re enjoying your mid-morning cup of coffee.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the cooling breezes are blowing. And, in a few minutes, you’re going to go outside to do what you love —a bit of gardening.

Full article here

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How to Maintain Your Inner Peace When You Receive Bad News

My heart pounds in my chest.
The terror of death assaults me.

Psalm 55:4 NLT

Your son is turning 15 tomorrow. You’re having fun deciding which of his favourite cakes you’re going to bake for his birthday tomorrow.

Then the phone rings.

It’s bad news.

A very dear and cherished friend, only in her early thirties, has been involved in a fatal accident.

Your peace-filled morning is shattered.

Suddenly, you feel numb —helpless.

Where did your inner peace suddenly vanish?

For the next hours and days, even weeks, it seems that your life is on permanent ‘hold’.

Receiving and having to deal with bad news is part of being human.

No one can claim immunity from bad news.

At some points in their lives, even the very best of people have to deal with news that jolts them to their core.

Bad news can come to people who don’t ‘deserve’ it.

Bad news can come as a direct result of our own actions.

Bad news comes in many forms.

It can be the loss of someone dear.

It can come in the form of a rejection by those whom we’ve loved or cared about.

It can be a serious medical diagnosis for us or a loved one.

It can be a sudden, irreversible physical injury to a loved one.

What to Do?

The question is: what to do?

 

Full article here

 

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Why Praying with Your Heart is Something Anyone Can Do

ALL forms of prayer are a consent to God’s presence.

Praying with your heart brings you into a much fuller awareness of the Lord’s presence.

This has unparalleled benefits for your life in general and for your friendship with the Lord in particular.

And praying with your heart is something anyone can do.

If Your Former Ways of Prayer Are Not Working for You as Well as They Once Did …

There can come a point in your journey with the Lord when your prayer doesn’t seem to work for you in the same way it once did.

This can be a sign that you have outgrown your old spiritual foundations.

It can be a sign that you need to connect or re-connect to the Lord in a brand-new way.

You see, growth in the Lord is a continuing process.

It progresses until you take your last breath.

And you can’t grow fully in the Christian spiritual journey until you know how to experience FIRSTHAND the Lord’s love directly —ANY TIME YOU WANT OR NEED TO.

You do this most simply and most effectively when you learn how to enter into the Lord’s fuller presence and spend time there for a few minutes each day.

This is known as praying with your heart.

Praying with your heart is well within your grasp.

It doesn’t matter in the least what age you are.

It doesn’t matter in the least what stage you are in your Christian journey.

All that matters is

• that you have a desire and/or a need to connect to the Lord
• that you take 5 -10 minutes each day to do so

Note

To discover the 2 simple steps to praying with your heart, get my FREE, paint-by-numbers, 2-STEP GUIDE at the very end of this article. It’s titled:

How to Regain, and Maintain,

Lasting Inner Peace and Joy:

A Guaranteed Way to Experience God’s Presence, Love and Rest One-On-One

 

Full article here 

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How Using Your Imagination Will Bring Alive the Scriptures for You

God has given you the amazing gift of human imagination.

Of course, like any other God-given gift, this gift can be mis-used and abused.

Imagination can be used both in the service of good and in the service of evil.

One of the most holy, noble, and spiritually rewarding uses of human imagination is to apply it to the stories in the scriptures.

When you use your imagination in this way, it brings alive —in a way few other things can —the scripture story that you are meditating on or that has captured your attention.

It allows you to imagine the characters in the story, Jesus himself included, ‘speaking’ to you.

It allows you to imagine yourself being able to ask these people questions, and to imagine their answers.

It allows you to be simply a bystander observing all that’s happening.

It allows you to become any of the characters in the story.

 

Full article here

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Is it Time to Change Your Understanding of 'Repentance’?

When you think of ‘repentance’ what do you think of?

I wonder: Do we really, REALLY understand what it means?

Keep reading. You might just change the way you think about repentance. And it will be good news for you.

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For not a few Christians, ‘repentance’ denotes some form of threat.

The ‘God-as-a-nasty-policeman’ image comes up immediately no matter how hard they try to erase it. It’s a scary image, certainly not one that you’d ever associate with the gospel of good news.

If you view repentance from the lens of God-the-nasty-policeman, it’s time to ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you in a fresh way.

Full article here

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Scroll down to the end of the page to get my FREE, paint-by-numbers, 2-STEP GUIDE:

How to Regain, and Maintain,

Lasting Inner Peace and Joy:

A Guaranteed Way to Experience God’s Presence, Love and Rest One-On-One

To understand the benefits this Guide offers you:

WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO

To encourage you even more:

Grab my popular accompaniment to the Guide:

RELAX YOUR BODY 

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17 Tips

For Healing Inner Pain