Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Friday 08/31/2012)

You First

1 John 4:18-20 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁸ There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love’s complete perfection]. ¹⁹ We love Him, because He first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, I love God, and hates (detests, abominates) his brother [in Christ], he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, Whom he has not seen.

            Normally we would like to go first, be considered first and given things first, if it not something that will cause us to have to work, be placed in an uncomfortable situation or require of us.  Especially if we get before we give, or before we have to put forth much effort.  The other night my husband and I were speaking with some friends of ours that are more like family;  we got into a conversation about the spirit of entitlement, and how there are so many that are living and operating under that spirit, especially our young people, but not limited to that particular demographic.  They think that it is their right to be first, come first, and be thought of first and to get first even when they have done nothing to earn it or proven that they deserve it.  We have learned that first is a right not a privilege or an earned positioning.

            Not so strangely enough we have learned to carry over this same attitude with God. We want Him to prove himself, fix our situation without any effort on our part.  We forget that God was first, He already put forth all of the effort that He needed to, He first loved us, and that is the only reason why we love Him, and He gave us life and then when we messed the perfection that God gave us up, He developed a plan to give us back our relationship with Him and our life in abundance if we would only just come to Him, and be obedient to Him.  But for some of us that is not enough, we are still treating God’s love as if that was not enough for us to step up our game and love Him, and do something for Him, or even prove to Him that we are worthy of being blessed.  Most of us just want God to keep on going first as it concerns the effort and us to getting first as far as the provision and the blessings.  When do we go first as it concerns doing something for God and pushing into His presence, living a life that is acceptable to Him?  We want all His love and all that comes with that but we don’t want to love our brothers and sisters, we don’t want to respect our parents and we don’t want to pay our tithes or sow into the things God leads us to.  We have turned this attitude of getting first into a way of life and a way of serving God.  We want His love to keep covering us as we live our lives our way, instead of us being grateful for what He has already done and taking the initiative to live a life holy and acceptable which is after all our reasonable service. 

How about we stop waiting for God to show us He loves us, He already did that and continues to each day that we are allowed to awaken to see another day we have never seen before.  How about we love those around us first before we are looking for God to give us others to love; why can’t we go first and give to God what we know He desires instead of Him having to break us down to get it.  Can’t we first honor God with our lives expecting nothing, before we are in His face asking Him once again to bail us out of the mess we made?  Why can’t we be first good stewards over what God has given us, before we are asking for more?  We need to go first, because God is always going first, shouldn’t it be that we give Him back the treatment that He has so gracious given us?  Shouldn’t we love on Him first things in the morning, without having something remind us to do so? Shouldn’t we want to be the first to praise Him, instead of Him first having to do more for us to receive praise?  It is time for many of us to stop waiting for God to always go first in our lives and decide that He has gone first enough and that He is worthy of the love, obedience, honor and glory FIRST, before He does another thing!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Thursday 08/30/2012)

Hiding Place

Psalm 119:113-116 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹¹³ I hate the thoughts of undecided [in religion], double-minded people, but Your law do I love. ¹¹⁴ You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in Your word.  ¹¹⁵ Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them]. ¹¹⁶ Uphold me according to Your promise, that I may live; and let me not be put to shame in my hope!

            I grew up in New York, and when I was five years old we moved from an apartment to a house, and one of the best things about being in our new home was the fact that we had a yard and a room that the previous owner used as a toy shop. There was also a little shed or doll house that sat all of the way in the rear right side of our yard. It was the perfect spot for a five and six year old to hide in.  I used to love to go back into that little wooden house and even into the extra room and just sit and play with my dolls, and even at that young age even though I didn’t know what prayer was in a formal sense I had seen it and I liked to talk to God. For some reason at that age I enjoyed moments of silence and to be in a place where I was undisturbed. It is something that as an adult I have had to learn to rediscover and make time for in my life.

            Have you ever found yourself in a space where life was so messed up, overwhelming and taxing that you felt as if you could use a hiding place; a space to just be protected, covered and safe?  For most of us, we don’t realize that we have such a place; a safe place, a hiding place that we don’t have to search out or acquire, as long as we are submitted to God and in fellowship with Him through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, He is our hiding place.  He is the place that we can go to and be at peace when all hell seems to be breaking loose around us. God is the calm in the storm and He is person who can hide us from our circumstances, our enemies and even “us” when it is needed.  When we make an effort to just turn to Him, and connect with Him, He will connect with us and provide a place that provides of the innocence and tranquility of a child who seeks to find a place that they can call their own.  Our hiding place in God is a secret to most but clearly to us a home that we have inherited because of our relationship with God through Christ. 

I know in my own walk with the Lord I have needed Him to hide me, to take me in and shield me from things, people and even my own thoughts that were destructive, and counterproductive to His will in my life.  Just as when I was a child, I needed a place to call my own, and to be able to escape what I knew my world was, it is the same today, I need a hiding place, I need a place that I know I can be myself when no one else understands me; a place that keeps me from prying eyes and harmful motives.  A hiding place that draws me closer to my Savior, closer to His will for me, and closer to His power and protection.  I am glad that God provided us all with a place that we can go, that hides us, and revives us. It is nice to have a place that connects to God and disconnects us from things and people that can suffocate our imagination and our ability to dream, build and plan. A place where the enemy cannot touch us and people cannot derail us for the Kingdom assignment on our lives.  Remember God really is a present help in our time of need, He does hide us, if we allow Him to!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day ( Monday 08/27/2012)

One Wrong Move

Psalm 130:3-4 Amplified Bible (AMP)

³ If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat [us according to our] sins, O Lord, who could stand? ⁴ But there is forgiveness with You [just what man needs], that You may be reverently feared and worshiped.

           

            How many times have we watched a movie and the bad guy or girl said, “one wrong move and you’re dead.”  But how often in life have people made us to feel like, one wrong move in our lives and we are dead, or we are doomed to hell, or even less than a Christian or less than they are?  Recently, I have been going through a season where I have been able to trace some events in my present life to past bad decisions or mistakes that I did not apply thought or time to.  It has caused me to see how even though things occur in our past that sometimes we can connect the dots to the past.  If we don’t remain prayerful and seek God’s wisdom about how to deal with these revelations we can find ourselves challenged in our thinking about how one wrong move that has led us to days, weeks, months and even years of struggle, trial and reorganization and rebuilding.

            As I sat today and prayed I could hear one wrong move does not define who I have called you to be, or what your purpose is.  Isn’t it funny how people will attempt to hold you a prisoner to your past mistakes, decisions, but God once we have asked for forgiveness keeps no record of wrong?  Although the enemy may attempt to bring up things that keep us feeling bad or guilty, God has let it go, so why haven’t we?  He does not keep score or keep a tally, so then why do we attempt to bury people for their one wrong move, when God has not buried us for ours?  If we cannot identify mercy and God’s grace that has covered us in the wake of our many wrong moves and missteps, we are blind or just choosing to turn our heads from the truth in order to keep blaming others or ourselves. If we are thinking that our wrong moves, mistreatment of others and missteps are not as bad as someone else’s we may need to seek God’s wisdom, because the Bible reminds us that we have all fallen short of the Glory of God, and we must remember that sin is sin in God’s eyes.  God has been kind enough even when we find that we have fallen down, to bend over and pick us up.  God has provided for us even when we have been wasteful, and He has blessed us in spite of our deficiencies, and shortcomings. You see one wrong move is not the end of us, and it does not always take us out, but we have to remember to humble ourselves at God’s willingness to forgive us, keep us, to provide for us and to restore us and not to hold things over our heads, in order for us to do the same for others and even as it concerns ourselves. 

No it is not okay for us to think just because God will forgive us that we should continue in sin, or do things out of the will of God because grace does run out; even more than this fact, is the fact that we should desire to be in God’s will and to do what he is asking of us.  We should desire that each step that we take is ordered of the Lord and in He is in delight if our ways. One wrong move does not define us it is only when we choose to continue to do what is wrong, knowing what is right, or choose to hold the sins of another over their head, knowing that grace and mercy has been extended to us that our move can cause us pain and disdain!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day ( Monday 08/20/2012)

Simply Amazing

Exodus 3:2-6 New Living Translation (NLT)

² There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. ³ “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” ⁴ When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. ⁵ “Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned. “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. ⁶ I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God.

            Today, when I woke up, it hit me how absolutely amazing God is and has been to me.  I know most of you are looking for a miraculous story to follow this statement, but the miraculous story is He has truly been better to me than I have been to myself, and in spite of all of my mess ups, falling down and getting it right and wrong He still loves me and still loves to spend time with me and cares enough about me, to give me more chances than I deserve.  He is simply amazing because He loves me the way no other can love me and in the midst of one of the most challenging years of my life, He continues to bless me and keep me, even when I have no clue how it is all going to work out.  Amazing, God is because He is God all by himself, and when people had not the ability to be my burning bush, He was the flame in the midst of my life, that did not consume me, but kept me and lite the most dark of circumstances.

            Do you ever take a moment and stop and consider how amazing God is? How it doesn’t take Him doing anything, but it is about Him just being who He is, and loving us and seeing in us, what we would never see within ourselves.  I remember years ago Denise Williams sang a song, “God is Amazing,” the lyrics say, “He is a friend in need, He is a problem solver, He is the strength, that never let's you fall, He is your peace, faith is the key! He is the Light, that brightens up the day,  He is the Shepherd, whose flock don't ever stray, Faith is the key, if you only believe…God is truly amazing, My God amazing is He Giving you peace if you only believe, faith is the key, in time of need, my God amazing is He.”  God is so much and He does so much for us, but yet many times we lack standing in awe of who He is because we do not recognize His awesomeness and the sheer wonder because we are worried more about what people think, we are looking at the wonder of people and we are more amazed by where people are then who God is and can be to us.  For some of us we are just caught up in what we view are the overwhelming circumstances in our lives.  But if we stopped for one moment to recognize that if we stand before God we stand on Holy ground; if we could recognize that we are standing in the presence of the creator of the universe the one who has the ability to speak a thing and have it come to pass, we would understand the magnitude of who we have not just before us, but with us.

            God really is amazing, and He is truly a wonder, but there are many things that can block us from seeing His majesty and His splendor, if we allow it.  But if we choose to stay focused on how He truly is as the fire that burns but does not consume us; that He is the creator of all things, that He loved us enough to give us life, choice and chances, we would understand that He is all we really need to be successful, to be happy, to overcome and to be at peace, because He possess all that we need; truly He is all sufficiency in perfection.  God is amazing, for many reasons, but mainly because He is God all by himself and He was, is and is to come!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Tuesday 08/14/2012)

An Invitation To Stay

1 Chronicles 15:1 Amplified Bible (AMP)

15 David made for himself houses in the City of David, and he prepared a place for the ark of God and pitched a tent for it.

            Before we bring new furniture into our homes, before we bring new appliances into our kitchen, we do something to prepare for these things to take up residence in our home.  Most of us who have had children, we understand this process more clearly because we go through what is called a nesting instinct we begin to clean, paint, organize, in order for the baby to enter as clean and sterile of an environment as possible, that is specifically intended for them.  When my husband moved down from New York, last year after we got married, we had to shift rooms and change some things around in the house to prepare for his arrival.  Even when people visit our homes we go into a panic trying to ensure that things are as presentable as possible, so we prepare.  How can we find the importance of preparing for inanimate objects and even other people, but we do not prepare our home for God?

            I have a beautiful sistafriend, who I love dearly; she has prepared a literal prayer closet; it is her alter essentially.  She has ensured that just as David she has prepared and identified a specific place to go meet with the Lord.  My bedroom is that for my husband and myself, even sometimes it is the restroom as well.  DO you ever notice when you prepare for people and you serve them well while they are present it feels like they are comfortable enough to stay, as long as they need to?  I have a BFF who moved away to Texas, when she was in a rough period in her life, and she came over to our home, she laid on our couch and was able to sleep, when she was not able to sleep at her own home.  We have been told our home is peaceful and it is restful, it is because we have invited God to live here not just visit and we try not to do anything to drive Him out.  We try to keep our conversation so that it is pleasing in His sight, we set an atmosphere where He can identify that He is always welcome.  The atmosphere in our home we pray is always inviting for those who come, but more importantly I am concerned about God understanding that I have prepared a place for Him, and He is welcome to abide here with me. A matter of fact I need Him to.  So many times we make room for things and people, but we have not taken the time to make room and prepare for Christ to come in and the Holy Spirit reside in our homes, because we have not made room in our lives for Him in our lives, and even our bodies, which  is supposed to be His temple. It is important for us to ensure He has a place.

            Is your home Jesus ready? Can the peace and presence of God be recognized in your home?  Have you prepared or reserved a place just for you and God to meet and abide together in communion?  If we want God to stay we have to make the same effort that we do when we want a friend to stay with us.  Make Him feel welcome, make Him feel as if you have prepared a place that is His and His alone, that He does not have to share a space with the enemy or any other thing you have elevated above Him. Open up not only your home but your life to Him, surrender all to Jesus, freely and gladly give to Him a place to stay.  One that allows Him to know that you desire Him to be there and you are happy to have Him, living not just with you but in you!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Monday 08/13/2012)

Lay It Down

1 Peter 5:7 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁷ Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.

Ephesians 4:21-25 Amplified Bible (AMP)

²¹ Assuming that you have really heard Him and been taught by Him, as [all] Truth is in Jesus [embodied and personified in Him], ²² Strip yourselves of your former nature [put off and discard your old unrenewed self] which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; ²³ And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind [having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude], ²⁴ And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, [Godlike] in true righteousness and holiness. ²⁵ Therefore, rejecting all falsity and being done now with it, let everyone express the truth with his neighbor, for we are all parts of one body and members one of another.

            One of my Sistafriends has a purse that  I love, I admired it one day and it has become our running joke whenever we see one another and I am always teasing her telling her I am waiting for her to bless me with this purse.  You see she confided in me one day that this purse hurts her shoulder, and from that moment I began to tease her and tell her God was trying to tell her to lay her weight down, and give the purse to me.  No matter how bad the purse hurts her she refuses to give it away or even stop using it.  She has lightening its content and switches shoulders, but still she holds on to this purse, all the while knowing it causes her discomfort.  She will not lay this purse down.

Although, my interaction with her is in jest and love as we often do with one another about many subjects, the truth is we do this with so many things in life and especially as it concerns what God is asking us to lay down, give up, put away or stop using or doing some things that we have continued to hang on to.  Have you ever been shopping and had to carry all your purchases around all day long, and by the time you got home all you could think about was laying them all down, and the joy of discovering what we had purchased was gone.  I know while I was in the Air Force, I was in a mobile unit that required us to carry  specific types of bags that had uniforms and equipment in them, those bags were heavy and weighty and they were uncomfortable to carry for long periods of time.  They altered our ability to get where we were going expeditiously and they caused us to have to alter the way we did business.  Isn’t that many of us?  We are carrying issues, problems, behaviors, attitudes, lies and deceptions, betrayals, habits, mindsets and lifestyles that are weighting us down, causing us to stumble, and even fall.  Things that are causing us to alter the way of Christ in our lives to accommodate them; some of these things are hurting us and others, keeping us from gaining the blessings and favor of God in our lives but yet we know that it is causing us drama, pain and to be in a place where we are not in the will of God or it is causing us to be so stressed out we cannot even recognize the will of God, but yet we refuse to lay it down, give it up, or stop, look and listen to the voice of God that is begging us to come to Him so that He can heal us and give us rest. 

Why do we refuse to lay things down, give them up or put them away? Is it because they look good on us? My daughter often says beauty is pain, is the pain that we are going through worth the beauty that we perceive we have?  Is it because it satisfies the flesh?  We do realize that this flesh is temporary and that if we continue to satisfy it we are going to have a satisfied flesh and a dissatisfied spirit and an even more dissatisfied God.  Is it because we are afraid to do something different, are we afraid if we lay it down, that we will become visible, vulnerable and that someone can take advantage of us?  Well, you know what love is a chance, God loved us and we disappointed Him, when we disappointed Him we were exposed, and vulnerable but yet He did not destroy us He covered us and developed a plan to get us back to Him. Is our inability because we don’t know how to let go or lay it down? Yes you do, open your hand, heart, mind and let it go.  Put it on the alter, nail it there, if you have to write it down burn the paper, change your phone number, change you r address, or in some cases just changing your mind will be enough.

Many of us have things that we have been carrying around that we vowed no one would find out about, but guess what God already knows and every eye that we perceive is closed is not sleep to what is going on within us.  Others are burdened down with a backpack of pain that they need to get rid of, forgive, give it to God and ask Him to make it a painless recollection, not a painful reminder. We are carrying around things and people we cannot change and many of us are hunched over in pain and yet we refuse to do anything different than what we have been doing.  We will never truly be free until we lay it down, give it up, put it away and cast if off.  Sometimes we have to face that we have to give up how we perceive things should be done to get what needs to be done in our lives and for change to come.  You cannot get new results doing it the old way! Lay it down!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Thursday 08/09/2012)

My Help

Psalm 121:1-8 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹ I will lift up my eyes to the hills [around Jerusalem, to sacred Mount Zion and Mount Moriah]—From whence shall my help come? ² My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. ³ He will not allow your foot to slip or to be moved; He Who keeps you will not slumber. ⁴ Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.  ⁵ The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand [the side not carrying a shield]. ⁶ The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.  ⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. ⁸ The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

            Yesterday as I encountered the new day that was to become my yesterday and that new day began to dawn, I found myself in a place of thankful contemplation, because God has always been my help but I am able to truly recognize Him as my help in areas I had missed before or just did not realize He even cared about or thought of.  The song “My Help,” rang through my head as I wrote yesterday’s devotional, because as I read scriptures previous to writing I read the scripture that the song was based upon.  I am not seeing God in some of the traditional ways that we see God, but non-traditional means, in my school work, in my resolve, my need for deeper relationship, fellowship and followship. Even in my financial situations and discerning relationships as well.  I now understand what my Grandmother and many of the older saints would declare when I was just a child that “God is an on time God and if we seek Him, He can be found and He will deliver us out of every situation.”  They also used to say, “He may not come when you want Him, but He is right on time.” Truly He is becoming that God of “All I Need.”

            As I write I know that there are others that are in a state of discovery with God, they are beginning to see Him as a type of help they have never experienced previously because they have never needed Him in these capacities, or you may not have been mature enough to recognize His ability to help, or that He was even actually helping a situation as it was transpiring.  God is our help, He inspires us when we lack inspiration, He enlightens us when the lights are sometimes on but no one is home (when we are clueless). God provides for us, mental fortitude to just keep it moving at times.  He gives us patience when that person is plucking our last nerve or sometimes just to believe that He will come through, so that we can wait in peace.  He gives us staying power when we just want to throw up our hands and walk away.  God is so much more of a help, than just someone that gets us the job, or the one who blesses us, delivers us, heals us, saves us and gives us favor.  He reveals the enemy, and shows us how to deal with them.  He gives us insight to people’s true motivation, when we are only attempting to do what is right and their intentions are to take us for a ride.  God helps by protecting our seed, and protecting our lives as well as our families, so that the enemy can do us no harm.

            Often we are looking for God to help and show up in the big things and we miss Him showing up every day, helping us and assisting us. We often get so consumed that we don’t recognize that if it had not been for the help of the Lord some people may have been, cussed, fussed, told off, given a piece of our minds or even the whole mind. We don’t look at the fact that when murder was on our mind God helped to restrain us and keep us from carrying the thoughts out.  We miss that God allowed the argument between us and our spouse, friend, or family member to end with no blood shed and the relationship still intact.  We don’t think about how many times we knew we should not do something, because it was unhealthy for us or it would jeopardize our place with Him, or our position, and we were able to consider our ways and we thought on what Jesus would do.  All of these things are God being our help.  Don’t be so consumed looking for the big finale that you miss the content of the show of God’s daily help and power!