Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Friday 09/28/2012)

The Truth About Grace

Romans 5:19-21 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁹ For just as by one man’s disobedience (failing to hear, heedlessness, and carelessness) the many were constituted sinners, so by one Man’s obedience the many will be constituted righteous (made acceptable to God, brought into right standing with Him). ²⁰ But then Law came in, [only] to expand and increase the trespass [making it more apparent and exciting opposition]. But where sin increased and abounded, grace (God’s unmerited favor) has surpassed it and increased the more and superabounded,²¹ So that, [just] as sin has reigned in death, [so] grace (His unearned and undeserved favor) might reign also through righteousness (right standing with God) which issues in eternal life through Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) our Lord.

            Yesterday my husband and I were having a conversation about what God was speaking into our hearts and lives.  During the midst of the conversation, and as we began to look over our lives and how God had brought us to where we presently are I realized how absolutely amazing Grace was then and is.  Grace is defined as “God’s unmerited favor.”  Grace is an abundant favor that we could not earn, but was given to us, in spite of how retched of a person we were and are.  You see I was not perfect, and nor was my husband, we had some issues in our lives, but it was the hand of God and His love for us that brought us out of those things into His marvelous grace.  He favored our lives and blessed us with first salvation and His limitless forgiveness, and then He had predestined us and called us, even when we were not acting like it, or living in situations that were conducive to that call being shown or revealed in us, God’s grace said it was still so.

            You see the truth about grace is that we are all living under it at this very moment.  Even in our waking up, if we were to be truthful about it, we probably did not deserve to see another day, but it is God’s grace that kept us, and allows us to operate and function today.  It is God’s amazing grace that gives us that favor that we experience; being blessed in the city and in the field, blessed when we come and go, and it opens doors that no man could.  We live under the grace that God will change our circumstance when we have no clue how we are going to get out of the situations we find ourselves in.  God’s grace brings healing when no doctor can, it brings love when your life has been loveless, it brings deliverance when you have been left for dead (spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically).  Grace will keep you even when you do not deserve to be kept and until you come into the understanding that you really cannot make it without God and in stark reality you have not made it without Him thus far. Yes the truth about Grace is that none of us deserve it, but it is a benefit of God that He gives, and none of us have the ability to create, but we can receive it, and we can give it because it has been given to us.

            As I woke up this morning a song resonated in my spirit and I laid and bed and sang it to the Lord.  This song is my response to God’s “Amazing Grace,”  “I love you, I love you< I love you Lord today, because you cared for me in such a special way, that is why I praise you and lift you up and I magnify you name that’s why my heart is filled with praise.  My heart, my soul my mind belongs to you; you paid the price for me way back on Calvary. That’s why I praise you I lift you up and I magnify your name, that’s why my heart is filled with praise…By Edwin Hawkins

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day

Today’s Devotional Written By My daughter in whom I am so extremely blessed tro see step out in God: D’Aja Micheon Anderson

Is God Pecking At Your Head

Jeremiah 33:2-3 Amplified Bible (AMP)

² Thus says the Lord Who made [the earth], the Lord Who formed it to establish it—the Lord is His name: ³ Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden, which you do not know (do not distinguish and recognize, have knowledge of and understand).

A few weeks ago I was visiting a church with my family. During the message the pastor happened to mention that you do not have to sow in order to receive a blessing form God. He told the people to take that money that they would sow and use it to meet their own needs by buying what they needed.  Needless to say I found that very puzzling, because of what we have been taught by my parents, our pastor and in the Bible. On the ride home I began to think about the pastor’s words again. The next day we went to our church service and during the service the guest speaker that was preaching read the story of the Queen of Sheba and how she came to see Solomon and she sought to get something from him, which was information and wisdom, but she “gave to him.” As I sat in service I began to think about it from another side. God used the example of a baby bird with me.  When a bird brings food back to the nest for her babies you will notice that the babies don't even have to see the mother coming before they start flapping their wings, bobbing their heads, and making noise. This is to show the mom that “Hey I am hungry and you should food me,” and in turn mommy bird responses. If the mother bird does not see the baby moving around then she will assume that the baby bird or birds are sickly or weak, which will cause her to ignore that baby or babies. In some cases the mother bird will attempt to invoke a response from her baby by pecking it on the head. If the mother gets a response the mother will  feed the baby bird, if she does not, she will continue to ignore that baby and feed and care for the others.  Being shown that example it became clear to me that God is very much like the mommy bird. He watches over us hoping that we make a move so he can bless us. God is looking for us to flap our wings (giving God praise), bob our head (being prayerful), and make noise (Letting God know we are all in it no matter what) we are saying to God “Hey, I know that you have all that I need and I would like to have all that you have for me, the blessings and life that you have said are for me! When God see us there in his nest not moving, just like the mommy bird he will give us a few nudges and pecks to get us moving.  Give Him something, let Him know that you are alive and are willing to do what it takes to be fed and to receive what He has for you!

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Friday 09/21/2012)

Finish What You Started

2 Timothy 4:7 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁷ I have fought the good (worthy, honorable, and noble) fight, I have finished the race, I have kept (firmly held) the faith.

            Fear can be a dangerous and counter-productive dynamic when we allow it to have strength in our lives.  It can hold us back, but not only can that it keeps us from completing task, assignments, it can become a barrier that prevents us from coming into and completing the call of God upon our lives. I am very familiar with fear and its ability to keep me from completing things, to include things that concern ministry.  I have even allowed the fear of people to dominate my life and keep me from accomplishing goals or even addressing certain issues that may have arisen as it pertained to our relationship.  Thank God, the Lord allowed me to see these things, so that I could get free from it.  The one thing I do not have fear of is people, and in many cases God is given me strength and the ability to run right over things that I used to be afraid to face and accomplish what needs to get done.  I had to come to the fact that I would never finish much if I did not hold on to faith, focus and fortitude. If I did not have a firm grip on who God said that I was, I would find myself in a sea of unfinished business, projects and an unfinished life.

            God is calling many of us to new things, new places in Him, but we are scared to step out in Him and in them and face the process that will bring us to a place of completion and success.  We will start a process, or begin a journey with the Lord and quickly fall by the wayside, because we allow things to distract us or we allow thoughts to begin to take us away from the task at hand.  There are times when we look at what God is asking us to do and we become intimidated by its magnitude and the responsibility that comes with saying yes, or completing the call or walking out the gifting upon us. We will convince ourselves it is better to quit than it is to keep going or that we will save ourselves the embarrassment of not completing things and just give up really before we actually get started.  I started working out months ago, and I was afraid because of the weight I wanted to lose. I began but things moved slowly, but as I approached a more intensive work out program the fear and anxiety of it, caused me to become a bit intimidated, but I had determined that my weight loss, health and fitness was and is more important to me than the pain after a workout, the intimidation of a run and the complexity of a boot camp work out. 

You see the way to finish is to see the importance of what you are called to do, to see that being in the will of God and living the best and most successful life is more important than anything you may have to encounter on your way.  It is have a firm hold on the fact that the faith that you have is enough to see you through, and get you to a place where you finish what you have started and complete the process. Completing those things that feel overwhelming only means that we need to lean more on God and less on us, that we need to look to Him to find out exactly what is He wants and what we need to make it to where He wants us to be, to become fearless and to be able to pull out all that lies within us to become a person that is successful according to God’s standard and vision. A person that doesn’t just start a thing, but finishes what they start and lives a life that is filled with the joys of completion.

Words Of Encouragement For Your Day ( Monday 09/10/2012)

The Cause and Effect of it All

Deuteronomy 28:1-20 Amplified Bible (AMP)

28 If you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments which I command you this day, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. ² And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God. ³ Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field. ⁴ Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock.⁵ Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough. ⁶ Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. ⁷ The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. ⁸ The Lord shall command the blessing upon you in your storehouse and in all that you undertake. And He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you. ⁹ The Lord will establish you as a people holy to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰ And all people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name [and in the presence of] the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. ¹¹ And the Lord shall make you have a surplus of prosperity, through the fruit of your body, of your livestock, and of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. ¹² The Lord shall open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. ¹³ And the Lord shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day and are watchful to do them. ¹⁴ And you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. ¹⁵ But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you: ¹⁶ Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the field. ¹⁷ Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading trough. ¹⁸ Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, of your land, of the increase of your cattle and the young of your sheep. ¹⁹ Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out. ²⁰ The Lord shall send you curses, confusion, and rebuke in every enterprise to which you set your hand, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your doings by which you have forsaken me [Moses and God as one].

            There was a quote I posted on my Facebook page yesterday that simply said, “People need to learn that their actions do affect other people.  So be careful what you say and do, it’s not always just about you.”  This quote was something that screamed to what I have all too often seen in people and experienced from people. It’s all too often that we do not think that there will be any consequences to our actions; we think what we say and do no matter how we act or respond in life, that it should be good and people should just conform to what they desire. We often think that our actions and words have no effect on people, relationships or the benefits produced by those relationships.  It is all too often that people do not look at cause and effect of much that they do, say and even think.  I have heard people say this is just the way I am, and if you don’t like it oh well, but for one moment what if the treatment, attitude and behavior you are extending to others was being given to you, if the shoe was on the other foot, would it be safe to say that our responses would be, for every action there is a reaction and that we all deserve a certain level of consideration and courtesy?

            As with the children of Israel, I have met people with lack of consideration and conscious awareness for anyone other than self.  But more critical of a state is when we conduct ourselves like this with God.  God has given us so many benefits that can be ours, if we just follow and submit to His ways and conduct ourselves as He has requested that we do, but instead, we would rather do it our way, we would rather get mad at God when our situation is cursed, instead of examining our contribution to the effect that we are receiving. We totally miss the lessons that we needed to learn to receive the benefits of God, we just carry on, business as usual, caught up in our own agenda.  Why would we want to act like we act with the expectation that God will reward us?  Many of us live by the motto, “I treat people the way they treat me,” but yet we will not treat people the way that we want to be treated, and we take an even more offensive stand as it concerns our relationship with God, and yet we do not want Him to treat us the way we treat Him.  We also adopt an out of sight of mind attitude with God; we think our living does not affect how we are blessed or not blessed and how we receive from people and from God and how God will respond to us…As I tell my children all of the time “you cannot have it both ways, either you are going to be obedient and reap the benefits or you are going to run this thing and reap what you doing you produces.” 

There are rules and regulations, boundaries and considerations that apply to every relationship to include the one that we have with God.  Our will, will produce our results, our obedience will produce the benefits of God in our lives.  Just as when we learn to treat people well and to not be so inconsiderate, judgmental, and nasty or out of pocket that we will reap the harvest of those actions.  We have to know if we build an altar to ourselves, we will be cursed, but if we bow in humble submission to the ways of God we will reap the benefit of His promises, His love and grace towards us!