Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Tuesday 01/31/2012)

Testing, Testing One, Two, Three…

1 Peter 4:12-19 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹²Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality, as though something strange (unusual and alien to you and your position) were befalling you. ¹³But insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, rejoice, so that when His glory [full of radiance and splendor] is revealed, you may also rejoice with triumph [exultantly]. ¹⁴If you are censured and suffer abuse [because you bear] the name of Christ, blessed [are you--happy, fortunate,^[a]to be envied, ^[b]with life-joy, and satisfaction in God's favor and salvation, regardless of your outward condition], because the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God, is resting upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.

            Have you ever been in a season, where it seemed as if you were in a pressure cooker, and relief was nowhere in sight?  Have you woken up in the morning only to pray, God please don’t let anything else go wrong today, because I don’t know if I can handle one more thing?  I can safely say, I have been there and lived through levels of this more than once in my life.  I have cried going to sleep and waking up, I have cried in my sleep.  I have put out a fire only to turn around and find that there is another blaze turning into an inferno as I was turning.  Right before our eyes, often one little test can turn into, a major trial or tribulation.  It can seem insignificant and turn real significant really fast.  Or you can find yourself in a place where just when you thought you were healing or getting your strength back, something else comes along and knocks the wind out of you or knocks you off of your feet and keeps rolling right over you.

            My husband helped me with this one, and so did our Bishop, it’s not what you are doing wrong; it is what you are doing right.  It is not because you are being punished, it is because you are being trusted to handle it and to endure in a fashion that will be pleasing to God and that will cause us to grow in stature and in grace that will qualify us for our next season in God or the next level in us being pulled out of us. Our seasons of rapid trials, usually means rapid growth.  It usually means that God is prepping you to move, and it also means that you are a threat. Satan will never bother someone that is not a threat to him.  Those of us who aren’t under fire or being stretched might want to check, whose camp you really belong to. Tests come to prove us, polish us and prepare us.  It also comes to identify us and to isolate us and to improve us.  In the midst of a test, what is within us, will manifest itself, what is down in us will come up and out of us.  In the midst of a test or trial we will show God what we are made of; will we continue to believe and keep pressing in spite of or will we be as Jobs wife advised and want to curse God an die?

            Life is not easy, but life in Christ, especially when we are seeking to do His will and walk after the Spirit of God and not after the flesh, there are battles that lead to wars.  It will put us in a place where we have inadvertently declared war on our enemy and on our flesh, and sometimes on people too.  Tests put us in a place where we will have to prove our love, that we will have to be purified and identified; are we for God and do we love Him enough to trust Him or not.  Many of us are struggling through season of test after test.  See them for what they are, they are modes of transportation that are taking us somewhere in God. They are purging out every impurity so that God can see His reflection and know that we can be trust, to handle what comes next, because there is more of Him in us than anything else. Tests bring us into the presence of the Lord and can bring us into the blessings that come with being loyal and promoted in God.  Don’t lose heart, for the tests that come are NOT to kill us or to destroy us, but to make us and to grow us.  For God to be Glorified and get the Glory out of us, test will come, so it can produce a testimony to His faithfulness!  As my husband has said to me, in the midst of your test don’t lose faith when you need it the most, remain understanding that this is to bring you into a place of elevation, responsibility and blessing!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Monday 01/30/2012)

How Close Will You Let Me Get

Psalm 139:23-25 Amplified Bible (AMP)

²³Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! ²⁴And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

            How close will we allow ourselves to get with God? Better yet how close will we allow God to get to us?  We want God close when we are in trouble, or when we are in need of something but what about when we wake up and all is right in our world and functioning as we feel it should?  How about then? In Atlantic Starrs song “Let’s Get Closer,” there are some lyrics that really ministered to me in a different way then they ever had when I read through them recently, “Closer than close, well…Closer than most...I just see so much in you…And I want a better view…I want to look deeper into you, yeah…Totally involved, well…You make my whole world revolve, yeah…Well, it feels so right…And I know I’m hooked for life…Infinite, endless, yeah…If you wanna know how long our love will last…The universe will pass, baby, yes it will…Oh, that’s how long, that’s how strong…I’ll be lovin you baby.”  The wrestler John Cena says, “you can’t see me.”  When we aren’t close to God and He is not close to us, it is the same way, we can’t see Him and He can’t see us.

            God want to be close to us, it is His desire to be all up in our business and in our situation, but most of us won’t let Him, because us getting close to God requires our time, obedience, humility and submission.  It requires us to draw close to Him and it means that we allow God to see all of our blemishes, short comings, habits, rituals and faults; it even means that He will know our whereabouts at all times. But not just can He see them, because whether we realize it or not He sees them now, but because He loves us He will want to heal them, correct them and to save us from some things, to include ourselves and many of our attitudes, behaviors and mindsets.  Getting close to God and allowing Him to get close to us means that we risk having to change, howbeit for the better, it means that something other than our lip service is required.  It would mean that we would really have to die to this flesh and that for many of us we would have to relinquish the spot light.  For most of us that is where we are challenged and find ourselves in the fight of our lives.  We don’t want to have to give up the fleshly things we do, because they feel so good, they give us what we think we need; like the attention and they allow us to have the excuses we need as well.

            I have been realizing more and more that I needed a closer walk with God and I need Him all up in my life, all up in my business, I need His business to be my business and my business to be His.  I need this not because of all that He is capable of doing for me, but because of who He is and because I need Him close and I need to be close so I know His will for my life and I can feel His very heart beat and understand what His heart’s desire is. We should desire closeness with anyone we love, especially God.  We should want to be stuck to Him like glue and Him to us the same way.  Being that close to God protects us, guides us, instructs us, is shows Him our loyalty and our love for Him. It aids in us living a more abundant life that does not just benefit us but benefits the Kingdom of God.  When we are close to God and He is close to us, when we call Him, He is right there and does not have far to come to answer us.  So many of us are wondering what is taking God so long to answer, well ask yourself how close do you stay to God and How close to you allow Him to be to you?  That may give you the answer right there!

Words Of Encouragement FOr Your Day (Friday 01/27/2012)

Is He Obsolete In Your Life

Luke 12:30-34 Amplified Bible (AMP)

³⁰For all the pagan world is [greedily] seeking these things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹Only aim at and strive for and seek His kingdom, and all these things shall be supplied to you also. ³²Do not be seized with alarm and struck with fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom! ³³Sell what you possess and give donations to the poor; provide yourselves with purses and handbags that do not grow old, an unfailing and inexhaustible treasure in the heavens, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.³⁴For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

We invest our time and effort into so many things.  We work hard to achieve, accomplish and to become successful by so many different standards and definitions, but do we apply the same efforts and time to our relationship with God? My husband said something today, as we talked about ministering to couples and our own experiences in relationships that struck a chord. He said “when you lack spending time or applying time to a relationship it will become obsolete.”  Many of us have watched people in our lives become obsolete because we stopped spending time with them or they stopped spending time with us.  The fact that time can produce closeness or the lack of time can produce a distance that eventually will lead us to a place that we exist without someone or something is a startling fact.  It made me think that when we are first starting a diet, we think we will never be able to give u certain things; then after dieting for a while, the longer we do without certain foods, the more we understand we can do without them, or we come to know we don’t need them.

God is that food for many of us.  We have lacked spending time with Him for so long that we do everything without Him. We make our decisions based upon our own thinking, feelings and motivations.  We base our living on the things that are tangible to us within this world.  We allow the natural us to take over in such a large way that we begin to subtly exclude God in most things and before long; we are barely acknowledging Him weekly.  We live our lives in such a way that God is no longer our source but we are the person that we rely upon most. For some of us, we have deceived ourselves into believing that as long as we throw up a Hail Mary prayer daily that God is cool with that and as long as we are saying with our mouth we are a Christian that we are still living for Him.  This could not be further from the truth.  I heard someone say, well God knows my heart, yes He does, He sees the very intent of your heart and what is the main focus of your heart and what is your first love, and you should too, because it is clear that what you are making time for and putting your effort into that is where your heart is.  It is where our heart is that our treasures, our efforts and our investment are.  It is where our heart, time and effort are that we are building up our investments; this is what has become most valuable to us, and the thing that we esteem highest to us.

Don’t be fooled, just because many of us sit in church each Sunday that does not mean that we are spending time with God, for some of us it is just a box we check off.  When we spend time with God, it is not just on Sunday morning from 8:00am to 10:00am or from 10:00am to 12:00 noon.  When our heart is where God is we seek after Him, He is a part of our daily lives, and we value Him in a way where He knows that He is not obsolete or that we can make it without Him.  He understands that our life is not about our glory and pleasure but about His.  When God is not obsolete in our live we know that every good thing comes from Him.  When God is our treasure we understand that all that we are and all that we have belong to Him and we only steward it.  Ask yourself, honestly how much time am I spending with God? Is He my treasure or have I allowed Him to become obsolete?

Words of Encouragement For Your Day (Thursday 01/26/2012)

The More I Know The More I Realize How Much I Need

Psalm 27:7-9 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁷Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; have mercy and be gracious to me and answer me!⁸You have said, Seek My face [inquire for and require My presence as your vital need]. My heart says to You, Your face (Your presence), Lord, will I seek, inquire for, and require [of necessity and on the authority of Your Word]. ⁹Hide not Your face from me; turn not Your servant away in anger, You Who have been my help! Cast me not off, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation!

            Life’s events have a funny way of making you think.  But I have found that the more I understand, and the more educated I become the more I understand how little I know and how much I need the Lord.  Most people think the more knowledge that they gain; the more they can handle it on their own.  I have found the exact opposite. People say that the older they get the wiser they become, I believe that is true to some degree, but it has also taught me that if I am wiser it is only from the insight given to me from God and that my abilities come only as a result of the gifts and talents that God has blessed me with and for no other reason.  It is often difficult for a person who is logical and feels that they are wise or intelligent in their own right to come to God, because salvation and the operation of faith doesn’t really make sense to the natural mind. Remember Isaiah 55: says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord.”

            I woke up this morning with a stark realization as I have times before in this journey with the Lord that I need Him. I need God not just a little bit, but I need Him like we need air to breathe and water to survive.  It is not a material issue or an issue of needing Him to give me things, which I pretty sure in blatant reality we all understand we have needs in our lives that need to be met, but my need for God is more than that and I would be remiss to reduce it down to just what I need in the natural.  I need Him to show me, teach me, guide me, protect me, love me and more importantly save me from myself.  Save me from the bad decisions that if I let my flesh have its say I will undoubtedly make.  Save me from the unwise and unsound thoughts that seek to take up residence because they stem from the place where I was shaped and born.  Save me from getting in my own way and causing myself issues that would not be if I was in the will of God and holding fast to God in a way that would not allow for me to be the visible portion, but instead the Christ that lives within me.

            My Grandmother used to say things to us and we would give her this look, like sure you are right; but she would reply just keep on living.  I have found truth in that statement.  As I have kept on living and seeking; as I have experienced more, from good to bad, pleasure to pain, I understand without God, I could not have made it or survived.  I need God to right the wrongs in me.  I know that as I seek and run after Him, I need for Him to be present for me, to be the light that guides my path and keeps me out of the dark places.  I understand that me, myself and I standing alone, is a disaster waiting to happen, is a train wreck in progress, but with Him, that He will and does make everything beautiful in His own time.  The Bibles tells us in Proverbs 9:10, “The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning (the chief and choice part) of Wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight and understanding.” The smarter we get the more we will know we need God and that we need to be in submission and reverence Him in our lives.  The smarter we get the more we will understand that everything we need is tied up in Him alone!

Words of Encouragement For Your Day ( Wednesday 01/25/2012)

Why Are We Turning Our Heads

Galatians 6:1 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹BRETHREN, IF any person is overtaken in misconduct or sin of any sort, you who are spiritual [who are responsive to and controlled by the Spirit] should set him right and restore and reinstate him, without any sense of superiority and with all gentleness, keeping an attentive eye on yourself, lest you should be tempted also.

            Many times writing the devotional is not easy, because I hear God so clearly and the subject matter that He wants me to address is not always popular.  Especially when it comes to restoration or addressing matters that pertain to Christian living.  People want to kill the messenger.  They want to ask question like why are you judging, or don’t you remember when you did x y and z?  God gave us salvation through Christ Jesus, for a reason, have any of us ever thought why that is?  Most of us have gotten comfortable in the place where we think salvation is about us alone, about our level of comfort, our blessings, our growth and our making it into heaven. That is but one small part of what salvation is about.  I was listening to a pastor share last night and it really struck a chord, we are saved to bring salvation.  Our wrongs were righted to help someone else’s wrongs be righted, not to condone the sinful nature, words, deeds and behaviors of those around us, just because we once were there.

            But strangely enough many of us can’t help anyone else because we have not chosen to come all the way out of sin ourselves.  We are still playing with fire, compromising and dipping in and out of salvation, so how can we help, encourage or instruct anyone else?  We can’t.  So many of us, are raising our hands in worship on Sunday morning, and right after service are ready to cuss someone or we are.  Many of us live in the world Monday through Saturday, and every Sunday we want to have a come to Jesus moment. Yes repentance is great, and we need to be in a constant state of evaluation and repentance, but when are we to grow, so that we can stop turning our head from the hurts, ills, and sins of the world and we have enough in us to begin to give to someone else, to begin to show someone else the way, to be the example that God is pleased with and that someone can follow to Christ? Yes we are going to struggle sometimes, but all of the time, or we have been saved for ten years and we are still struggling with the same issues we were the day we came to Christ, that should not be.

            This is a season that God is calling for us to be accountable, not just for ourselves, but for the things that are nearest and dearest to His heart, the reconciliation and restoration of people to Him.  The Bible says in 2Peter 3:9, “The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people's conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.” God doesn’t want anyone to be lost, beginning with us, but then we should be doing something with what we have.  We should be extending our hand to someone else to help them up. The light of God in us should shine so bright that it causes people to gravitate to us and it illuminates the path that leads to Christ.  Stop turning away when you see sin, despair, and hurt around you.  Be the example, the one that can speak into someone else’s life, someone that can lead by example into the Kingdom of God.  Be the one who has a right to say come out of that, because what God did for me He can and will do for you too!

           

           

Words of Encouragement For Your Day ( Tuesday 01/24/2012)

No One Can Dethrone Him But Us!

Isaiah 46:8-9 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁸[Earnestly] remember this, be ashamed and own yourselves guilty; bring it again to mind and lay it to heart, O you rebels! ⁹[Earnestly] remember the former things, [which I did] of old; for I am God, and there is no one else; I am God, and there is none like Me,

            On Sunday morning we sang a song in praise and worship and one of the lines in the lyrics of the song was, “no one can dethrone Him, He reigns.” This morning as I prayed and meditated, I could hear we can dethrone God ; we have a choice whether He is the King that sits on the throne in our hearts and lives.  It is true that He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but the one who reigns over our lives and the one who sits on the throne of our hearts we have a choice in and we have to release the authority to them or Him.  We are the ones that have the majority vote or the authority and power to overthrow the government that we set up in our lives.

            How often have I myself seen my life become unfocused and my choices not God centered?  It was because I had taken God off of His throne, by the way that I was living, thinking and deciding things for myself. I had placed my wants, needs and misguided thoughts to allow God to become my subject and I thought I should be the Queen.  I was living in a posture where I didn’t think God should have the say, be able to set order in my life or to set the rules, boundaries and guidelines by which I had lived by, treated people by or even allowed my process of thought to operate in.  Unfortunately, this is something that can happen subtly and we do not even realize many times that is happening.  It is when we put down reading God’s word daily; stop talking to Him in prayer and walking closely with Him.  It is when we stop worshipping Him and starts worshipping things, jobs, accomplishments and people that He gets dethroned.  You see we can begin to walk closer with people than we do with God, we can respect the voice of people more than the one who gave us life. We can hear the voice that is our own mind louder than God’s voice, or we can get into a habit of not allow God place to speak to us, especially when it will challenge our way of doing things.

            God is the King and He should be on the throne of each one of our hearts and lives, but the choice is ours as to who is running the show in our lives.   We don’t always understand that if we move out of the way and learn our place we will stay out of harm’s way and live a more abundant life; we will reduce our stresses and increase our joys. If we can humble ourselves and allow God to be the preeminent factor in our lives we will see our lives not just come into line with God’s will, but we will see change in how we see our lives, how we view those in our lives and how we see the service that should be given to the Kingdom and others and even about what money is to us, what it is there for and how it should be used.  By allowing God to be the King the pressure for making the decisions, providing and making things right in our lives comes off of us and is the responsibility of the one who is running the show. God’s leading is never wrong, His rulership is never unfair, nor would He ever ask us to do anything that will harm us.  When God is in control it is for the betterment of our lives, it is to increase and grow us.  Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, “¹¹For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.¹²Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you. ¹³Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”  Don’t forget the King should know best, He is however the one who created us and all that we may have need of.

Words of Encouragement For Your Day ( Monday 01/23/2012)

I am All In Are You?

Isaiah 29:12-14 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹²And when the book is given to him who is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray you, he says, I cannot read. ¹³And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips but remove their hearts and minds far from Me, and their fear and reverence for Me are a commandment of men that is learned by repetition [without any thought as to the meaning], ¹⁴Therefore, behold! I will again do marvelous things with this people, marvelous and astonishing things; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their discerning men will vanish or be hidden.

            Last week, we were watching an Unsung about the singing group Atlantic Starr and it reminded me of many of the songs that I loved as a teenager, and it was fun to take that look back because I grew up with siblings of the people in this band and was exposed to them, before they were.  As I heard the song “If Your Heart Isn’t In It,” God spoke to me that is how He is often times feeling with us; that our heart isn’t in it, whereas it concerns Him and our relationship with Him.  The last verse and the chorus said, “You treat me like a stranger…As if I wasn't there…Oh baby, I waited for a miracle…To make you show that you care…If your heart isn't in it…Why can't you tell me so? If my heart wasn't in it…I'd have gone long ago…If your heart isn't in it…Why keep me hangin' on? Just tell me and I'll be gone…From your life.”  As I heard the words and thought about many times in my life, where it was easy for me to ignore God calling me to come and worship or bow down before Him my maker, my heart hurt and I felt sick. 

            God’s heart is always in it with us. He loved us while we were yet in sin and sent Christ to die for us so that we could have relationship with Him and gain eternal life. Something we had lost, because “our heart” wasn’t it in.  When our heart is in something we apply maximum effort and we go into it with guns blazing and we do by any means necessary, but why is it as it stands with God we want to give him what is left, and sometimes nothing at all. We want to ignore the call on our lives, we don’t want to give all of ourselves to Him because then He will be able to have a say in our lives, or He will ask us to do many things that our flesh would not agree with.  We would have to give up control and manipulation of situations, other people and even with Him.  We would have someone actually expecting something from us.  But isn’t it funny that we can and do expect from God every chance we get, with every waking moment and with every need that we face, but when that need is met we find it easy to ignore Him, bypass Him, and tune Him out when He is calling, asking, speaking and sometimes even begging.  When we want to be promoted, accepted or we want elevation, we give our all, and that is to a man, but if God ask for all of us, what would our response be?

            To get all that God has for us we have to be willing to give all we have and are to Him.  The saying goes “it is all or nothing.”  You are either all in or all out.  The Bible tells us, “I know your [record of] works and what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth! ¹⁷For you say, I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, and I am in need of nothing; and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. (Revelations 3:15-17).  God doesn’t want to be ignored or a God of our convenience.  We need to give as much to Him as we know that we desire back from Him.  Put our whole self in the mix, our whole heart into our service and obedience to His will. Because if our heart isn’t in it, how fair is it for us to expect that God’s heart be in our situation?