Words Of Encouragement To STart The Day ( Monday 11/24/08)

I Will...

Psalm 34:1-3 (Amplified Bible)
1) I WILL bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2) My life makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble and afflicted hear and be glad.
3) O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.

One of the hardest and the easiest things to say is I will. When we commit to being someplace we often say "I will" be there. When we commit ourselves and our lives to another individual we are asked will we and we response, "I do or I will." It is those two little words that can bring cohesiveness to our lives to another or break us apart, or make us falter. I remember a time when someone had promised to do something for me and promised that they would never do something they had done, previously that had hurt and about destroyed me, when they made that promise they sealed it with "I will, I promise." That meant to me in that moment that they had every intent of standing by their word and standing by their commitment, not just then but always.

How many times do we say "I will," with our mouth, but our heart is not in it. Or maybe it is when adversity hits and we forget, it may be in those moments that "I will turns to I won'ts, or I can'ts. I remember when I came back to the Lord, I promised Him that I would serve Him and never turn away from His service again. But as I have grown, in grace and the knowledge of Christ my I will did not just pertain to serving Him, it began to pertain to my praise, my worship, my lifestyle, my chooses, my giving, my faith, and so many other things. So many times we limit our I will's to things we feel will not cost us anything, but our choice should be that no matter what we have "Willed" to do, if it a part of God's plan we should invoke His power and His plan in our lives to bring about obedience. When the "will of God" is birthed in through our spirit instead of the will that is normally birthed in the flesh we can stand through, good, bad, ups, downs, controversy, and extraordinary situations. Training ourselves that our word is our bond and that our will should come from the depth of who we are in Christ and it should prove the quality of who we have become through Christ.

What have you not willed yourself to do, but thought you should. What things have you willed to do and then turned around and said I can't or I won't. It is time to purpose in our hearts and minds to do what we know we need to do even in the times when it is not easy. Let it be that your yes is really yes and your no is no. Will yourself to make decisions of obedience, strength, honesty, love and giving ( of one's self). Not some of the time, but ALL of the time!