I have been seeing these CUTE Hot Chocolate ornaments on Pinterest and decided to make one! I LOVE hot chocolate and peppermint! Putting these two items together along with whipped cream is just delish! I went to Michaels and got the ornaments on sale since they were having a huge Christmas sale. I totally advise anyone to go to Michaels or Hobby  Lobby when there are sales near any holiday or festival. Yes, you will spend money. BUT IT'S SO WORTH IT!

I decided to make my first How To post on creating this beautiful ornament because I was curious on how it would turn out as well as try my hand at something new! Without further ado, I will get along with the program.

Please let me explain one detail to you before moving forward: My pictures did not come out as stunning as I wanted them to. My camera auto focus is not functioning currently so I could not take pictures of me actually performing the work since I had to manually focus my camera. I am sorry. I hope you can forgive me. 

What you will need:

Hot Chocolate with marshmallows
Oval shaped ornaments (You can use any shape you want, I chose oval shape)
Sprinkles
Candy Canes

If you want to do this project right, you will need ONE more ingredient: Marshmellows. You can find a whole container of marshmallows for hot cocoa mix at any grocery store and the brand that sales these are Jet-Puffed. If you are visual like me, here's a picture.

Because I did not have these lovely extra marshmallows on hand, I shall show you the ghetto way of getting your marshmellows from the hot cocoa mix.

Some utensils you'll need:
Measuring cups
Bowl 
Blender 
Egg/Yolk separator
Funnel

First off, you'll need to scope 1/3 cup or 1/4 cup of hot cocoa mix from your container.

I did 1/3 cup of hot cocoa mix at first, but later went down to 1/4 cup. It depends on what you want and how big of a ornament you have. So play around until you get that perfect measure! 

Here is what I do to separate the marshmallows from the cocoa mix and it's completely ghetto but it works!

I dump a little bit of the cocoa mix into the yolk separator and shake it a little to get the cocoa into the bowl and all the while leaving the marshmallows in the yolk separator! I would then place the marshmallows in a bowl or separate container until I needed them. 

Don't have a yolk separator? Then use a strainer or a sifter! Either one will work.

Continue this process until the 1/3 cup or 1/4 cup of cocoa mix is completely separated. If you need more marshmallows, then scope another 1/4 cup and separate the same way. The extra cocoa can be used if you're making another ornament or you could make some hot cocoa for yourself right then and there. You could also just put it back in the bigger container.  Your choice.

Now that the cocoa and marshmallows are separated, take the ornament head off the glass part and put the funnel on the opening so you can pour your cocoa mix into the oranment. Do this carefully as the first time I did it, I made a mess and my dog decided to mop the floor. Ugh.

Now it's time to bring out the sprinkles!

You have your cocoa in your ornament, so take your funnel, adjust it on the ornament opening and pour your sprinkles! I did not measure as I was eying it to see how much I wanted in the ornament. I do not think there is a right or wrong way of doing this. It's all what you want, but you want to be able to see the different layers or goodies in your ornament.

Depending on how many ornaments you want to make, place 4-5 candy canes in your blender. I suggest if you want to make only one ornament, place only two candy canes into your blender.I broke mine into several pieces to make the chopping easier.

Blend it for a few short seconds until the candy canes are broken into tiny pieces. You want a mixture of dust like particles and some bigger pieces for beautification purposes.

I poured my chopped candy canes into a small cup that measures out to be 1/4 cup.

NOTE: I had to put this back in the blender because some pieces were too large to fit through my funnel.  Make sure your chopped candy cane is small enough for your funnel.

Next, I poured my crushed candy cane into the ornament. I only poured maybe 1/4 of the mixture from the above measuring cup into it. I tried to make sure I had an even amount of both sprinkles and candy cane inside. This is tough to do, but like I said, there's no right or wrong way of doing this.

Next, I took my saved marshmallows and placed them in the ornament by hand. I tried by funnel, but the marshmallows kept getting stuck and it got annoying quickly.

Put the ornament top back on and woola! You're done!

NOTE: I wanted to pour more marshmallows into the ornament, but I ran out of hot cocoa mix as I made several ornaments at one time.

All you need to do now is add some ribbon or twine to make it pretty! I had both on me and this is what I did to make it look beautiful:

Here's a perfect gift for yourself, a friend, or a White Elephant gift! You can make many variations of hot cocoa with this as it doesn't have to be candy canes and sprinkles. It can be anything you want! Get creative and have fun this Christmas season with your own hot chocolate ornament!

I don’t know about you, but I have been dealing with a lot of fear this Christmas season. Fear from the unknown, fear from the struggles I am facing, and fear of the future. I have been quite overwhelmed with fear and I know where this fear is coming from. I know Satan wants to bind me in fear to hold me back. But sometimes, the fear washes over me in overwhelming ways.

I felt God calling me to read Psalm 91 and I want to share half the chapter with you because in so many ways, I felt refreshed and reminded that God is constantly watching over me.

¹He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. ² I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.”

³ Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler And from the perilous pestilence. ⁴ He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. ⁵ You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, Nor of the arrow that flies by day, ⁶ Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.

⁷ A thousand may fall at your side, And ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you. ⁸ Only with your eyes shall you look, And see the reward of the wicked.

⁹ Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place, ¹⁰ No evil shall befall you, Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; ¹¹ For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.

After reading this chapter, I began praying and asking God to help remind me that He delivers me from the fowler’s snare, from the terror by night and the pestilence that walks in the darkness. I have to remind myself that when I make my God my resting place, no evil can befall me. He will protect me from any plague and His angels are keeping charge over me at all times.

A mighty God is watching and protecting me and you. A God who created the universe, the mountains, the annoying squirrels and mosquitoes is watching, defending, and loving us in every step in life.

I know you’re probably thinking, “Monica, I don’t feel like God’s protecting me from the pestilence in the darkness or the plague!”

I know how you feel. I told God that; I told Him, “I don’t feel like You’re protecting me, I don’t feel like You’re keeping evil away from me!”

I felt God telling me to call my mentor and ask for prayer. I did and talked to her for a little while. She helped me realize on where I was putting my focus on: the unknown, the future. I was basing the mysterious future off of my past experience – which is where Satan wanted me. Remember, his evil plans begin by reinforcing your past experiences into future ones, which haven’t happened yet!

My mentor reminded me to focus on today and today only. I cannot be fearful of the future because the future is in God’s hands; which He is protecting me still in the future as much as He is doing so in the present.

She also reminded me to focus on the good. Which, in a state of fear, it’s nearly impossible to focus on. But she made me speak some good things that were happening and helped me put them into perspective. 

Psalm 91 doesn’t promise a fearless life – it promises us a God who is watching us and is our refuge when those times come. It’s a promise that God is there when the darkness begins to shallow us whole. It’s also a promise of His love for us – love that is willing to take the arrow by night and to place Himself between us and the terror that follows us.

Evil is around us constantly and sometimes evil is spawn in our own households. But knowing that there is a God who promises protection from the evil and making a safe house for us is a promise He has kept since the day you became His child. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it, but I fully believe that if you’re in the presence of God, when evil comes your way, you can walk through it with peace in your heart knowing that you’re in the shadow of our God.

The last three verses of Psalm 91 ends like this:

¹⁴ “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. ¹⁵ He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. ¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.”

Now that’s a PROMISE. I know my fear is still there, but I have to remember that God is near to me and He has shown me His salvation over and over again. Salvation may come in the form of having a friend remind me that I need to look at the present and be grateful of the small gifts God gives me.

So this Christmas season, when fear hits you again, remember Psalm 91, God’s promises, look for the good things in your life, be thankful for the small, little blessings God is giving you, and praise Him for those things. I know I’m still learning this lesson, so let’s learn together! Let this Christmas season be one of gratefulness for small blessings and positive moments so the glory can go to our Father!

In Part 1, I talked about who Satan was, what characteristics he has, and how he has declared war on you. I also talked about where Satan goes to spread his lies: your thought life.  Before I left you, I had asked you several questions to help you identify where Satan has a demonic stronghold on you. I asked if you would pray and seek God about the lies Satan has used for you to accept as truth.

I hope God showed you the lies and the strongholds that Satan has in your heart. I also hope that God showed you how you can get those strongholds out of your life. But sometimes that is very hard to do.

Satan likes to tell us his lies by explaining to us how our past experience makes his statment truth. You may have had these thoughts:

“He said he’ll change, but he never does!”

“Until she starts doing her part, I can’t move forward.”

“God’s Word says He’ll protect me, but I don’t see any protection!”

Yes, he will even use God’s Word to throw doubt into our heart. These are the thought patterns that he throws at us. It’s usually begins with someone we’re mad at or hurt at, and there’ll always be a “but” or a negative impact afterward. This is Satan. I know it may seem like truth, but it’s not truth! 

Satan uses our past experience to reinforce his lie. And the lie will destroy us. The lie will devour us. Do you want to be devoured by Satan himself? Remember, he’s playing for keeps! If he can make your life on earth a living hell with no hope, then God cannot work in your life. If God cannot work, then who are you glorifying?!

Do you really want Satan to be glorified in your life?

Let’s take a few minutes on this. Satan’s goal is to make us DOUBT God. He wants us to believe that God is not TRUSTWORTHY. 

On page 70, Passion Pursuit says, “Living out of either the truth or a lie depends upon more than what you believe, but upon whom you believe. Your adversary is not just interested in getting you to believe lies for the sake of lies. His ultimate goal is for you to doubt Truth – not the concept, the person. The Lord Jesus does not like truth. He doesn’t just speak truth. He is truth (John 14:6)! Everything about Him is true. Many people try to kick out the lies from their mind and they fail. Only Truth can save you from a lie. And the truth is Jesus Christ.”

You will need to go back to Truth to kick Satan’s lies out! 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

That means every time a thought comes into our minds, we make it subject to Christ: we take it through a scriptural evaluation. For us to do that, we’ll need to be in the Word and know God’s truth.

Satan is a scary, scary being. He wants to devour you and make you suffer for just following after God. But we have not only a God who has given us His power through Jesus, He also cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your cares on Him for He cares for you.”

Remember that Jesus battled Satan too when He was on earth. Probably more than you and I will ever realized. Satan tried to make Jesus mess up so He could no longer be truth. But Jesus gave His concerns to His Father in heaven for He knew God cared for Him.

“Okay Monica,” you may be thinking, “you have showed me who Satan is and how to take every thought captive. You have even talked about how God cares for me and wants to carry my burdens. But Satan is still going to attack! How do I stop him?!”

Let’s go back to the basics: We need to know what God has given us. In Ephesians 6:10-18, it says: 

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
 

We see here that Jesus has given us every single piece of armor we need to stop the devil! He has equipped us with His power! To put on the armor into daily life, Passion Pursuit has some biblical answers for you found on page 73! And yes, I’ll share them with you.

Step 1: SPEAK the lie

Step 2: HOLD UP the shield of faith in your left hand – “I trust my Lord Jesus Christ. He is Truth!” 

Step 3: PROCLAIM the truth with the Sword of the Spirit in your right hand. 

Speaking the lie will make it shine in the light. Darkness cannot hide in light. As long as the lie stays in your heart, silent, and in hiding, Satan will continue to have a stronghold in your heart. But if you recognize it and speak the lie, it can no longer hide! Then proclaiming God’s Word in truth and faith, the lie can no longer stick around! 

I am going to tell you this: That lie that you kicked out with God’s truth is going to try to make its way back in. Oh, it’ll be a different lie, a different twist here and there, but Satan is going to try to get you back to where you were: under his influence. You’ll have to be careful, watchful, always in prayer, and continue to fight.

A friend once told me that if Satan is attacking you, then you must be doing something right. So if Satan is attacking, then continue pressing on. If you need encouragement while you’re being attacked, read my blog about Facing Adversity here.

God has given you power to defeat Satan, but it’s a choice of whether or not you’ll pick up your sword and shield. It’s also a matter of if you will even know it’s a lie from Satan. Know the Truth. Know our God. Put on the armor daily and fight.

I’ll be beside you fighting and God is before us. If God is for us, then who can be against us (Romans 8:31)!

Who Satan Is

I’ve been wanting to talk about who Satan is for a while now on my blog. I am just now getting around to it (how bad is that? Maybe that was Satan?) 

I am going through the book Passion Pursuit: What kind of love are you making? By Linda Dillow and Julie Slattery which talks about God and His purpose for your sexual life. It’s TOTALLY not what you think and is probably the opposite of what you are thinking. But they go through the Bible and talking about what does God say about sex and how should you, as a godly wife, use God’s Word as tool for your sex life. I participated in this Bible study last year and learned a lot. I am doing it again, but this time, I’m leading it with a friend of mine. I feel like I’m learning a lot more this year.

One of the chapters talks about Satan and who he is. It was so insightful that I wanted to share with you what I learned about Satan. I hope you stick around for both parts because in order to know how to fight our enemy, we must know our enemy. If we choose not to know our enemy, he will win every single time.

Do you know YOUR enemy? Do you understand him? How do you envision him? To get a clear idea of who Satan really is, we have to go back to scripture and see what it says.

John 8:44: You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

We learn that Satan is a murderer and has been so since the beginning. He does not hold onto ANY truth because there is no truth in him. He is the father of all lies. No matter what he says, it is a lie.

So what does Satan plan to do with his lying tongue? Lets find out.

Matthew 4:1-3: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

Revelation 12:9-10: The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God,
    and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
    who accuses them before our God day and night,
    has been hurled down.

1 Peter 5:8:  Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Take a minute and think about what you have just read. Who is Satan?

When I look at these verses, I see Satan as a tempter, an accuser, and a prowling lion, wanting to devour someone!

He’s a powerful, lying, wicked, evil being that is out in our world prowling, tempting, accusing, and causing distress and evil. And he has DECLARED war on you, your marriage, your relationships, your finances, your blessings from God, and everything about you! 

Someone has declared war on you! How are you going to defend yourself against such an enemy?!

Before I answer the question, and it might seem obvious on how to defeat Satan, I want to point something out to you that I found from Passion Pursuit on page 67: “Satan lies can sound friendly and even more comfortable than the truth… Lies from the enemy settles down and take root in our own thoughts… The devious schemes of the devil have become so familiar that they sound friendly and not foreign… Each of us, based on personality and experience, are vulnerable to unique lies of the enemy. He knows where you are weak.”

One way the women who wrote this book puts it is that Satan takes truth and creates half truths. He makes it look fluffy and if you’re not careful, you will take the bait and allow him to influence you and your thought pattern.

How immensely scary is this?!

Satan knows the truth and will twist it just enough for you to believe it as truth. Francis Frangipane said, “It is difficult to discern the areas of oppression in our lives. After all, these are our thoughts, our attitudes, our perceptions – we justify and defend our thoughts with the same intensity with which we justify and defend ourselves.”

Satan has INFILTRATED your thinking and has put perceptions, thoughts, and attitudes in you so that God’s word will always stay on the page and will never make it into your heart.

This is where it all begins my friends. If Satan can infiltrate who you are as a person and believe his lie from the get-go, you have just given him permission to reside in your heart. And he even uses people – other Christians – to put his lies into your head. 

Our battle with Satan begins and ends with our thoughts! Because whatever we think, it will make it to our heart, and once it made its way down to our heart, then our actions will start displaying that. 

2 Corinthians 10:3-4 says, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

What are strongholds? Passion Pursuit defines this on page 68 as “a demonic stronghold is any type of thinking that exalts itself above the knowledge of God, thereby giving the devil a secure place of influence in an individual’s thought-life.”

Simple: A demonic stronghold is when we rather believe a lie than the truth from God’s word.

Let this sink in for a minute. As I end this part, look out for Part 2 as we'll learn how to defeat Satan and win. 

But between now and then, ask yourself these questions:

What demonic stronghold do I have in my life?

What lie am I believing?

What areas am I vulnerable to Satan’s attack?

Be in prayer and ask God to show you what power you have given Satan to. Ask God to forgive you and to change the way you think about something. Go back to His Word and memorize a verse that will help you strengthen your sword to fight against Satan. 

Remember, God is by your side and when you have Him by your side, what do you have to be afraid of?