Free To Trust

I apologize for failing to post yesterday! Our second year of home schooling is starting today, so I was gathering and organizing the last materials! This post will be a continuation of the soul therapy sermon series I have been listening to and taking notes from. As you could probably already figure out, the subject is trust.

The definition of trust: A firm belief in the liability, ability or strength of someone or something.

I have to add, before I start, that this verse just happens to be a special one for me! I have a friend back home who always reminded me of a couple of verses and this was a big one he never forgot to repeat often ❤ Just wanted to throw that little tidbit out there 😜

If you’ve never read the book of Proverbs, you’re missing out! I personally like many of the verses from that book. Solomon is the one who wrote the book of Proverbs, so you can find many wise scriptures in there.

Trust is a learned behavior. We can see trust occur naturally, usually in the beginning stages of our lives or another, through the relationship of a mother and child. Trust tends to be established at infancy because this new child is helpless without trust. This trust is built upon 4 main things:

Provision: Mom provides the basic needs.

Security: Her touch provides comfort and security.

Intimacy: Her voice and presence express unconditional love.

Mutuality: As the child matures, love is reciprocated.

When there is no trust in our lives, we will ultimately live a life full of negativity. Trust is something we must all learn, at one time or another; it’s never too late to learn! If you can’t trust anyone, put your trust in God because He provides for us both spiritually and emotionally; He works from the inside out!

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We can see that David was expressing hurt when he spoke about the rejection he felt from others and all the gossip and slander towards him, especially from those claiming to be his friends and even worse, family.

We all know, especially in times like now, that trust is not something we can easily give to others. I myself have a hard time putting trust in others; I’m very guarded. There are few people I completely trust, VERY few, but at least I can say there are those few that I can! I know some may ask, how can I trust God when I can’t even trust anyone else in my life? We all struggle with trust because we have all been hurt, betrayed, lied to and backstabbed and our natural human response is to trust no one. Those who hurt you are also hurt themselves because only hurt people, hurt people!

Why should we trust God? Trust is the glue that holds everything else together! He is 100% committed to you and He is never too busy or preoccupied to be there for you, whenever or wherever!

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In the scripture above, Moses reminds Joshua and Israel that God will always be there to go ahead of us. He will never fail to be there for us. He CAN be trusted.

The outcome of trusting God is:

Courage

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Courage to face anything and everything. We will never have to be afraid because we know that God is for us and goes with us no matter the circumstance. Put your trust in the Lord, not man. For instance, a doctor may tell you you’ve only got a certain amount of life left to live or you have an incurable condition, but God may have different plans for your life, so put your trust in Him because with Him anything is possible! He can cure and has cured many who have been told they couldn’t be.

Protection

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God put angels in charge over us. We all have an angel who watches over us; This is a promise from God.

Guidance

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That passage is so good we use it twice 😉 Seek God before making any decisions in our lives.

Healing

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God heals us spiritually through salvation. He heals us physically through “His stripes”. He heals us emotionally through all the hurt and rejection He himself faced. Many venture to say, but God doesn’t heal anymore, that was only back in biblical times but that is quite inaccurate. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow! We have taken for granted many miracles of life all around us. Nothing and I mean, NOTHING is too big for God to heal!

Prosperity

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Usually we tend to view prosperity in the form of financial blessings. You have everything you need with some leftover and we should always use that leftover to bless others and bring honor to God.

Finally,

Peace!

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If we put our trust in God, we see the trouble/difficulty yet we look beyond and keep our eyes on God! This doesn’t mean that in trusting God there will be an absence of conflict in our lives, but we will have the assurance during those times that all will be alright because God is for us and goes before us; we’ll be bigger and better for this! When we trust in Him, we will do more and experience more all we need to do is settle our trust issue.

I pray that all of us resolve any trust issues in our lives. I struggle with trust as I am sure many others do, and I pray that God continues to always prove to me and all of you why trust is worth giving. Sometimes if we close ourselves off we never take the risk of trusting someone and that someone may just have a pivotal role in our life. We may miss out on more blessings from God when we choose not to trust but play it safe by hiding our hearts away. May we all put our full trust in God and believe that He is who He says He is and He will do what He says He will do!

Much Love and God Bless 💚

Grateful Heart

Good Morning Everyone!

I’m not quite sure if today I will be able to continue blogging my notes from the sermon series I have been listening to, it may have to be tomorrow. It would seem today is leading me down a different path; I seem to have woke up with a message on my heart, so we’ll see how it unfolds. I’m sure God is leading me to this message for a reason, so it’s likely something to offer peace and comfort to all of us in some form. ❤ Wherever He leads, I’ll go!

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I woke up this morning with an urgency to discuss gratefulness. Many of us, like myself, would say they’d consider themselves to be a rather grateful person; always doing their best daily to thank God for the blessings in their lives. Honestly, some days it seems I give thanks constantly because I am filled with an unexplainable joy. Good times seem to cultivate more joy and without much effort. What of the not-so-good days? How can we remain grateful, with that same unexplainable joy when our days aren’t going well or our life has taken some unexpected sharp turn?

I know I may seem wise, but I don’t have all the answers 😉 I will, however use personal experiences to give my best opinion/views on the matter. I also love using Bible scriptures as a reference because the Bible is our cheat sheet…it has all the answers to any question we will ever have, we only need to look.

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Most of us would say, I have a grateful heart. I wake up each morning, thank God for the gift of life and for the health and contentment of myself and my family. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this scenario; it’s ideal! We should be thanking God as soon as we wake up because He is the reason we do. But, we have all had those times in our lives when we have gotten so deep down in our trials that we wonder if we even want to wake to face another day. Of course, to me, this is a form of bitterness; something has gone wrong in our lives and we are a bit bitter and confused. We think things we don’t mean wholeheartedly because we feel pain, hurt and sadness. We want to know why. Why God is something like this happening to me? Am I not a good person? Am I not worthy?

A simple fact of life is, bad things can happen to the “best” of people just as they can to the “worst” of people. We are all human and no matter how good we are, we are never immune to the bad experiences in life. There is ALWAYS a reason, very evident or not, for why we are assigned specific mountains at certain times. In any circumstance, I can guarantee that a gift is hidden in the darkest of times. You’re being equipped to help someone else who will need you or your words. We can all appreciate and be thankful for people in our lives who give us great words and express care during our tough times, but in all honesty, don’t we wonder how they know how we feel when they haven’t been in our situation? We feel their heart is in the right place, they’re saying all the right things, but in a way their words are empty to us because we don’t believe they can relate. So, whose words can hold meaning to us most? Yes! The ones who have endured things we are going through. Someone who has personally been where we are at and made it to the other side! I believe any bad we go through gives us this unique ability to be someone else’s hope and light in their time of darkness. I know I sound repetitive with that statement, but it’s so true. Think of how many more people you can reach on a personal level, when you have been through some of the same situations they have. That is the beauty in our pain. That is where our gratefulness can come from in our darkest hours. We can thank Him for allowing us to go through this terrible time, because we know He has much bigger things in store for us. Trust me, in those hours, I KNOW it can be difficult and almost near impossible for us to think that way. It’s in our nature to question why something is happening to us, but remember we have tunnel vision and God has that panoramic view; He sees the whole picture, while our focus is what’s right in front of us at this moment.

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One of my most difficult times with maintaining a grateful heart during a hard time was when I endured the loss of my pregnancy in 2014. January 16th, 2014 to be exact; one never forgets. My husband and I had our oldest son at the time, he was approaching 2 years old, yet we were so excited to be expecting another child. We love babies and they’re an amazing miracle from God! Unfortunately, our baby wasn’t to be here on this Earth with us…we were unaware we had conceived a real angel. I feel we often forget that our babies are a true gift from God and they’re His before they are ever ours. Even with that knowledge, the pain didn’t seem to subside any. I was about 7-8 weeks when we lost our pregnancy. Some would say an insignificant amount of time to have such a tremendous reaction to, but no matter the size of the baby or the amount of time you carry your baby…it was still a part of you. You had plans for this baby that went years into the future; it was already a part of your life because it was a part of you. I remember going to the hospital because I had to leave work early that day because I started bleeding. Of course, some bleeding can be considered normal in the beginning of pregnancies, I however was not convinced. I guess I just knew in my heart where this was leading at that point. I passed some clots prior to leaving for the hospital and all I could do was cry. I do remember telling my father through my tears that if I’m losing my baby, it’s what God thinks is best for my baby and I. Still sadness was ever-present. There I sat in the hospital waiting room…waiting and waiting and all the while still bleeding. I felt like I’m losing my baby and no one is trying to help me. It’s an emergency! I’m in a hospital, I’m pregnant and bleeding and I can’t save my own baby and no one is coming to help; I must wait. What a sick and devastating feeling, especially as a mother, knowing what’s happening to your baby and yet you cannot do one thing to stop the process…all you can do is witness the unfolding of events. After waiting in the waiting room, being called back for blood work, then sent back to the waiting room, then called back to lay in a hospital bed in the middle of a crowded hallway and given an IV, I was finally seen. By the time they administered an ultrasound, there was no sign of pregnancy; like my baby never even existed. It was heartbreaking. At some point from leaving our home to waiting in the hospital, we had lost our baby. I had lost our baby. Guilt weighed heavy on me, as I felt I had failed at my job as a mother. I felt I had failed to keep my child safe and protected. They gave me a discharge paper which read in big, bold print: Miscarriage; then they sent us on our way. My husband and I got to the car and as we were leaving we just stopped the vehicle and held each other crying. It was such a long day, yet it seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. It’s a sadness and pain I would never wish on anyone. I struggled with seeing pregnant women or babies. I am a person who has always loved children and babies and pregnancy etc, yet I developed this aversion to them. I worked in a grocery store so it’s not like I could escape them. I remember crying because I missed being pregnant and knowing I was having another baby, yet I also cried because I didn’t want to be that kind of person. I didn’t want to feel that feeling of avoidance when encountering pregnant women, babies and children. I knew miscarriage was a common occurrence but we never imagine it could happen to us until it does. I’m not going to say I did not struggle and still don’t shed tears for our angel baby, but I chose a grateful heart instead of accepting a bitter one. I thanked God for the short time I had with our baby and I chose to talk openly about it to not only help my healing process, but to bring honor to the life we had made. I chose to name our baby, although gender was unknown, I went with Uriel, which means “God is my light.” It was confusing and one of our toughest times, but I told others I would be open about it because God will use me to help others going through the same circumstances and that He did! I have be able to help several people since and was able to give them comfort, peace and hope that no one else could.

Of course that example was one of many. Whether it’s my anxiety disorder, depression, struggles with self harm/ suicidal thoughts and tendencies and all that I have experienced, the same gift has come from all of it…the gift of light. In those times I often wondered the meaning and purpose of it all, but as time went by I had my “ah-ha!” moments. I realized God had better plans for my life. He might say yes, no, wait or simply not right now, but trust me when I say better is around the corner. ❤

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I sit here typing this to you at 30 weeks pregnant today with our 4th baby (3rd earthly baby). God is good 🙌 Nothing is impossible with Him! I know He cares for my Uriel until I am reunited with him/her later in life. I am still blessed in many ways! I am very blessed to be able to speak from a personal place to all of you as well! I pray my words always help someone who needs it! Let’s all be grateful in the good and bad times because we know God is for us, not against us!

Much Love and God Bless! ❤

Bitterness

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Can you guess what today’s sermon topic was on? 😉 Yes, today we discuss bitterness! This is something I very much needed to hear and I am certain I’m not the only one. I believe it’s an extremely relatable topic. Again, these are my notes mixed in with outline points from a sermon series I am following. This one is part of the Soul Therapy series, if you’ve been following my other posts. Whether you have or haven’t been following, I’d encourage you to continue reading because I guarantee you it will be relevant in your life.

In covering this topic, we’re basically going to break down that verse posted right above. First and foremost, we need to understand bitterness.

Bitterness: Deep controlling sense of anger and resentment, usually towards someone who has wronged us.

Resent is a Latin word which means to feel again.

So, we can deduce that resentment and bitterness work together in that we relive and constantly replay in our minds how people have wronged us. Bitterness and resentment, once let in, will only deepen. This is why the Bible advises us to watch out and avoid bitterness.

Bitterness poisons us, troubles us, corrupts us and plainly put, it’s a sin. Bitterness is poison to our souls; we are told this, yet we still consume it. It’s like reading a warning label on a chemical product and drinking it down anyway. Bitterness comes from being hurt by someone whether intentionally or non intentionally. Bitterness will grow and worsen and cause unhappiness. I would wager that all of you reading this know of someone in your life who lives in bitterness and they are one of the unhappiest people you know! Bitter people are constantly living in yesterday and it wrecks their today! If you reside in your past, you can’t be present in your future. You have condemned your own self to a life full of unhappiness and negativity. Sadly, bitterness doesn’t just affect us, it contaminates everyone around us and corrupts many. If we allow bitterness to reside in our lives, it will change how we interact with everyone in life. It compromises all of our current relationships/friendships and future ones as well.

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Bitterness is a sin and it can hold many captive. You can see when people are bitter; it’s evident in the way they relate to others, in how they speak, how they treat others and just how the live in general. Any sin will destroy you and bitterness is no exception. It will put a wedge between not only you and God, but between you and everyone else in life.

So, how do we get beyond the bitterness?

We confront it, we repent, we accept God’s sovereignty and we release ourselves! We confront bitterness by admitting we’ve been hurt/offended by someone and that we’re angry and resentful about it. We have to be honest with ourselves and quit trying to deceive ourselves. We will never be able to correct what we are unwilling to confront and this is why we must deal honestly with our feelings. Once we openly deal with our feelings, we can turn from our old ways of bitterness and turn to God for help!

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Are we obligated to talk to or confront the person or persons who have hurt us? Not always, but we should be asking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us to where we should go and how we should deal with our bitterness. We may not always be led to confront or talk to the person or persons, but we should forgive them and move on. This is something I have personally dealt with and blogged about before. The hate, anger, resentment and bitterness will eat you alive. I often quote that meme we have all seen at least once, “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” You’re the one dying a little every day while the person or persons you’re bitter towards are clueless; they don’t care and they’re free to live life while you have made yourself a prisoner in your own mind. Don’t give others that control over you, they don’t deserve it. I personally DID contact someone whom I was angry and resentful towards. I didn’t necessarily want to, but felt led to. I wasn’t looking to rekindle any friendship nor did I want to let this person back into my life, I just wanted to openly acknowledge how this person treated me and tell said person how despite all the negative they caused me, I forgive them. I’m not going to lie, it was HARD. It was so difficult, especially when I had been carrying this baggage around for years! There were many other things I would have loved to say as well, but the Holy Spirit kept me out of trouble and gave me the courage and strength to extend forgiveness. Now forgiveness doesn’t mean amnesia. We don’t have to forget to forgive and we don’t have to let the person or persons back into our lives. God allows things to happen in our lives for a purpose. He has a reason for every event, big or small. Most of the time we won’t understand why things have happened to us or are happening to us, but we can rest assured that God knows what is best for our lives and He is for us and never against us! We have all been hurt/offended by someone at some time in our lives; this is a part of life. Sometimes bad things happen to the best people, but we cannot let ourselves become bitter…we must get better!

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God elevated Joseph because despite how badly his brothers treated him and how cruel they were to him, Joseph refused bitterness. They intended to harm him but Joseph knew God had more in store for his life. Joseph knew God had a purpose for his life and a purpose for his pain. Another thing I say often is that all of the things we go through in life, especially the bad, equips us to help others. Our difficult times are giving us the gift to reach others and save them when their time comes. We go through the dark to become the light in someone else’s darkness. This is the basis of my blog! I have started it with the intention to use my struggles and pains to help as many people as I can! That’s the beauty of our pain! We can allow it to cause bitterness or we can allow it to cause betterness. 😜

We must trust God and His plans for our lives, even when we don’t see the full picture. He has our best interest at heart. Don’t waste your pain and disappointment; let God heal you and direct you and keep serving Him. Release yourself from the spiritual and emotional prison you have put yourself in!

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One of the toughest parts of getting beyond bitterness will be forgiving the person or persons that hurt you, trust me I KNOW! In forgiving them, whether they are aware of the forgiveness or not, you will release yourself from the weight of the bitterness you have been carrying! Trust me, TRUST ME when I say I still struggle with bitterness trying to creep its way back into my heart, soul and mind…but we have to let it go and leave it in the past. Don’t let anyone’s actions rob you of your joy and peace or ruin your relationships with other people in life. Don’t give those people any more power to hurt you and don’t give them the power to control your thoughts. Bitterness is not winning. Those people will never care that you are living with bitterness, they’ll be living free while you’re holding yourself captive. Free yourself, then you’ll win! ❤🙌

I pray anyone reading this today will find the courage and strength to let the Holy Spirit guide them in ridding their lives of bitterness. It will be hard, but in the end it will be very much worth it! You’ll feel a weight has been lifted and you can not only breathe again, but LIVE again!

Much Love and God Bless! ❤

P.s. We often forget how many times God has forgiven us and how forgiven we are. We shouldn’t let bitterness keep us from extending forgiveness to others because we are constantly extended forgiveness ourselves.

Don’t Wait! Speak Life To Someone, TODAY!

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These words.
These words are my actual words from a very real conversation I had with an extremely close friend.
These words also happen to be the last words I ever had with that friend.
You never know what tomorrow holds, so always speak with love and hope and compassion…
Speak LIFE. ❤
I always say, if you feel something, express it. If someone is put in your mind and you can’t seem to figure out why, contact that person and let them know you’re thinking about them. If you feel overcome with love and gratitude for someone in your life, no matter who it is, TELL them. If you have memories of someone that pop in your head randomly, seek that person out and share with them. It may make all the difference to them. You never know what someone else is going through, but the good thing is you don’t HAVE to know to share your love and appreciation for them!
Much love to you guys ❤ xoxo
You’re never too lost that you can’t be found and you’re never too broken that you can’t be repaired!

Tell someone today that you love them, appreciate them and are thinking of them!

A Clear Conscience

God addresses the challenges of life and offers us answers through His word, the Bible. In my last blog, I shared from the sermon series on Soul Therapy, which was all about Accepting Myself. We are a spirit. We have a soul. We live in a body. We should be viewing ourselves as God views us and be unconcerned with how the world views us. This blog is a continuation of that same sermon series of Soul Therapy. As you can see, this one will touch on the subject of a clear conscience and living with guilt.

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Conscience: A sense of right and wrong; it governs our thoughts and actions.

Many of us, Christian or not, live with a guilty conscience. We even get to a point where we don’t feel comfortable in God’s presence…whether praying, attending church etc. We often forget that we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

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The key to a clear conscience is dealing with guilt.

Guilt: The nagging knowledge that we have done wrong; often accompanied by regret and shame.

There is both a positive guilt and a negative guilt. Living with negative guilt can rob us of any relationship in life, even our relationship with God. Positive guilt is the kind of guilt we are overcome with through the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will convict us for things we have done wrong in the eyes of God. The Holy Spirit’s guilt is specific and focuses on exactly what we have done wrong and points us to God.

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The Spirit’s conviction will always point us to God, who offers forgiveness through repentance. When we repent we see our errors and commit ourselves to going God’s way. The Holy Spirit offers us the positive kind of guilt in that it always allows you an escape from danger; a remedy for your circumstance. The Spirit will always point you in the right direction and give you hope!

The devil’s guilt is the negative kind of guilt, otherwise known as condemnation. This guilt is never specific and is usually always general. This type of guilt points us away from God and tells us we are hopeless and without worth. Many people are living in condemnation, even when it comes to things they have already been forgiven for through God. The devil is relentless and will continually attempt to break you down. He will repeatedly bring up old issues to produce guilt in you and try to make you feel as a hypocrite, only to strip you of your beliefs. He will force-feed you lies such as, “God will never forgive you” and make you question yourself as a Christian. We must remind ourselves that we are free from condemnation through God! Christianity does not equal perfection. We sin before we become Christians and even after! So many of us become absorbed by guilt and yet we don’t determine it’s correct origin. Where is it coming from? Is it truly the Holy Spirit convicting you or is it the devil making you relive something God has already forgotten?

Sometimes with negative guilt we try to hide the wrong we have done. This may work with hiding from certain people but we all know we cannot hide anything from God. Trying to hide your guilt will weigh heavily on you and your health. You’ll try to ignore it, avoid it and yet you’ll remain miserable and exhausted. We cannot hide our guilt, we have to DEAL with it!

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Another wrong way we try to handle negative guilt is by rationalizing the wrong! Some try to justify their wrong doings like King Saul. King Saul started off on the right path but ended in tragedy. He continually made decisions without consulting God and placed blame elsewhere; always blaming others for the outcome of his own actions. With these type of people there is always a “because” or reason they will give you for why they did wrong. This is not responding correctly to guilt.

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Genesis 3:11-12 is probably the most classic example of someone trying to rationalize and place blame.

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We see God talking to Adam and Adam placing blame on Eve. Instead of owning up to his decision to eat the forbidden fruit (which he was told not to eat) he tried to shift the blame from himself to Eve.

ALL of us know right from wrong. We ALL ultimately make our own decisions in life. We have to stop placing blame for our wrong choices on how we were raised, our parents, our siblings, our friends, where we had to grow up etc and we have to acknowledge we are in charge of what we choose. We have to take responsibility for our actions. There comes a point in time where we are all old enough to know right from wrong and we cannot use those excuses or continue to blame those people or circumstances for our mistakes and bad choices now.

To enjoy a clear conscience we must address the guilt, confess the guilt, accept forgiveness and live freely! Everyone makes mistakes and we will never experience grace if we don’t address our sin.

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God erases our mistakes and makes us clean. He is always offering us a fresh start and we must not let the devil keep reminding us of what God has already forgotten! You’re not obligated to entertain the devil. Put him in his place and live freely through God!

I pray all of us are able to decipher between the positive and negative kind of guilt in our lives. May we all deal with our guilt and set ourselves free! Don’t live in negative guilt and allow the devil to control your mind. Remind yourself that you are forgiven by God. We can never go wrong when we bring our problems to God!

Much Love and God Bless 💚

Accepting Myself

I listened to the first of a new sermon series today and it’s entitled Soul Therapy. The first sermon was all about accepting who you are. I am excited for this series because self-esteem and self-image are things I have struggled with most of my life and I feel I am not alone in that! I believe so many of us struggle with these issues and I hope that my notes and thoughts on these sermons may help someone reading in some way!

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Many times the greatest battles in our lives, both spiritually and physically, are from within our own minds. The enemy (the devil) can do more damage in our minds than anything else. If he is let in our mind, he can slowly gain control and ultimately change our perception of ourselves and hinder our relationships with not only other people but God as well. In the passage above, David was amazed with God’s workmanship. David was someone who was rejected many times in life, yet he often reminded himself that God made him and he has value!

We need to recognize the poison or poisons of self-rejection.

Insecurity-lack of confidence which usually leads to feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. This can then lead us to jealousy.

Jealousy-When we are filled with self-rejection we can become jealous of others; what they do, what they have, how they look etc. Jealousy can lead us to anger.

Anger-Occurs when we are always comparing ourselves and believing we got the short end of the stick. This can then lead to selfishness.

Selfishness-Can be a result of poor self-esteem. It can cause us to become absorbed with ourselves and give us I-itis. Everything will be about “I, I, I” which can lead to the last of the poisons of self-rejection, fear.

Fear-We will end up living in fear. Fear of what might happen to us. Fear of trying. Fear of failing.

All of these points will poison our spirit and souls. We are all spirits and we all have a soul and our soul is our mind, will and emotions. If our spirit, and especially our soul is poisoned, the devil will use this against us. The devil will never hesitate to use self-rejection to control how we feel and destroy us.

The place of self-esteem.

Many people have heard the verse above, yet don’t often focus too much on the last 5 words. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is hard to fulfill when we don’t love ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves, we can’t truly love anyone else. We don’t need to become arrogant and prideful, but there is a balance between having too high of self-esteem and too low of self-esteem, and the balance or middle ground is ideal! Too high or too low of self-esteem are equally harmful.

Self image is how we view ourselves and that in turn determines our value. So we’ll never know or acknowledge our true values if our perception of ourselves is off. Self-esteem is how we value ourselves. I think it goes without saying that both self-image and self-esteem work hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other. David, whom we referred to at the beginning of the blog, had a great handle on self-image and self-esteem; often reminding himself that God made him and he found his value in that fact.

Our functional nature is based on what we can do. This includes our talents and abilities gifted to us by God. We ALL have been given a unique gift or talent and even some of us are given multiple gifts and talents. Our gifts and talents can determine our functional nature.

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Intrinsic nature has to do with who we are as a person. In Psalm 139:14 it states, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” David wasn’t boasting in pride but he was biblically and spiritually recognizing God made him. He knew he was special in the eyes of the Lord and that God does not make junk. We would all do good to remember that. When we are feeling down on ourselves in any way, we need to remember God created us the way we are and He does not make junk! We are all made unique and we should be confident in who we are and BE that person. BE YOU!

We need to change the way we think by accepting God’s viewpoint of who we are.

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In “our” image or in “our” likeness. Our or “us” refers to The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit! We have been given authority and part of God is in ALL of us. We were ALL made in their image. How then, knowing that, can we view ourselves in a negative light?

We have to stop comparing ourselves to other people. This is both unhealthy and unproductive. No two snowflakes or blades of grass are the same; they’re unique and such is the same with people. We are all unique and no two people are the same or have been equipped with the same abilities or talents. We need to compare ourselves to the Lord and strive to be like Him and NOT like others around us.

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Remember, your weakness doesn’t disqualify you! Moses gave about 5 different excuses to disqualify himself because he didn’t seem to think to highly of himself.

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What Moses didn’t realize is that we ALL have weaknesses but none of those disqualifies us from being used by God! We need to focus more on what we CAN do and less on what we CAN’T do!

We also need to separate our worth from our importance. We should always strive to do our best; try our hardest in all we do! We are never going to win every time and we will never be immune to criticism, but our failure or even our success does NOT define our worth to God!

I fully understand the struggle with self-esteem and self-image; I have never been one who thought highly of myself at all! I often told people if given a scale of 1 to 10 my level would be in the negatives! Many times it’s hard for us to reprogram our brains to see our worth when we were wired at younger ages to believe negative things others told us about ourselves. It will definitely be a challenge for myself, but I have never thought that the way I viewed myself basically insults God. If I don’t love who I am, am I not telling God He made a mistake? We all know God doesn’t make mistakes, therefore I (and you) are created just how we are meant to be created…we just have to nourish ourselves in the right way to grow in the right direction! Reflecting back, I think I allowed some things to happen in my life (maybe not intentionally) but I believe now that my lack of self-image and self-esteem caused my poor judgement in several areas in life. The good thing is that God doesn’t condemn me for any of it, but graciously accepts me and has confidence that I can always grow from these situations. Not all of us view negative circumstances in that way, but I believe all that happens to us equips us to learn, grow and then help others who need help that we once needed ourselves! I pray that everyone reading this acknowledges any poison of self-rejection in their lives and makes every effort to rid it from their lives, especially their minds! May we all recognize our uniqueness, special talents and differences as positives! You are exactly who you are supposed to be! Let us all love ourselves for who we are inside and out and let that allow us to love each other the same!

Remember, you were not made to be the same as anyone else, so don’t attempt to be!

Much Love and God Bless ❤

Lordship In Our Life: The Bottom Line

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The Stability of Lordship

In Luke 6:46-47 Jesus is addressing the attitude of our hearts towards Him. It was as if He was surprised and disappointed at the opinions some had about following Him. So many of us are quick to say what we think should be said, yet we don’t live the words we speak. In other words, we talk the talk but most of us don’t walk the walk. God wants us to not just tell Him that He is number one in our lives, He wants us to show Him that He is number one in our lives and that is true Lordship!

We are kind of given a biblical blueprint on how to have a relationship with God.

Salvation- when we come to Him. He makes us brand new and gives us this second chance at living the life we were called to live.

Discipleship- when we listen to Him. When we truly listen to Him, we learn from Him and we grow in our faith and maturity as believers and we become better followers.

Obedience- when we follow Him. True obedience is Lordship. Through true obedience we are continually learning. We are prioritizing God and making Him Lord of our life! We are acknowledging that He is not just our Savior; He’s more than just forgiveness! True obedience and Lordship is often forgotten because we accept God as our Savior yet that’s where our faith ends; we forget to live out our faith and follow His word and put it to practice in our daily lives.

Luke 6:47-48 gives us insight to a healthy relationship.

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Foundation.

Foundation offers long-term stability. When we have a house built, we are adamant about taking time on building a firm and solid foundation; we want time and care put into it. Why then do we not offer the same time and care to the foundation that our lives are built upon? We need to dig deep, prepare the soil of our hearts and remove all of the unnecessary junk! We alone are responsible for the foundation we lay; not our spouse or friends or family! The foundation we lay should provide us stability and we can build our life on Him! Our marriages, friendships, businesses, they should all be built upon God. When we build our lives upon Him, we can endure all the storms of life. Lordship is the foundation that holds it all together. If He is not holding your life together, it will most assuredly unravel at some point. Most of us Christians become overwhelmed over the storms of life and it boils down to our unstable foundation. We can never experience the extent of all things without the right foundation in our life.

The next passage can be a bit uncomfortable for most of us. It is parallel to Luke 6 that I referred to earlier.

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The reality of Lordship is in Matthew 7:21-23 (above). Not everyone who calls out Lord Lord will be saved. As I stated before, it’s more than just the words we use, its our actions. Whoever DOES the will of God…not whoever repeats the will of God to others. We have to live out what we believe and ask God to guide us where He wants us to go and do what He wants us to do. Lordship is more than just attending church, taking notes and singing a few songs…it’s what we are doing with our lives when we leave. What are we doing the other 6 days of the week?

What is the message we are given in Matthew 7? Lordship has nothing to do with perfection; we will never be perfect! It is giving effort and sincerity and willingness to do His will in our lives. Saying the right things does not guarantee Heaven. Doing good works does not guarantee Heaven. Heartfelt obedience is what guarantees us Heaven! That should make us all stop and think of our life’s foundation. True Lordship is not doing what we want when we want to, it’s doing what God is calling us to do when He calls us to do it.

Here are the choices we have:

Selective Obedience- when we obey only when it is convenient for us and fits our schedules; doesn’t put much demand on us.

Situational Obedience- when we obey when the situation is right; it depends on who we are with or where we are at. It should never matter who you are with or where you are at, we should always be obedient.

Steady Obedience- when our obedience is consistent.

It’s not about “maybe later Lord” or “someone else please Lord” it’s about “Yes Lord!” When our lives are built on Jesus, we do our best to follow scriptures! When storms come, we can stand up to anything and everything because God is our foundation and we know we can do ALL things through Christ!

Lordship is the bottom line. Everything else in life doesn’t become easy, but it becomes easier! We will realize we are not alone and we are not just going through the motions! We must know that we know that we know! Every thing in our lives belongs to Him and once we understand Lordship and accept it and live it, all else will fall into place.

What is your foundation built upon? Is it solid or will it start to crumble at the first sign of a storm? I speak to myself as well because we may think our foundation is rather solid, but if it was truly solid and built upon God, why then will we become overwhelmed by life’s storms? Why will we become fearful? If our foundation is truly what it should be, then we should have confidence that those storms may rage but they’ll never reach us. Those storms may cause us some headaches, but we will survive them! It’s not unlike the story we have all heard of the 3 Little Pigs. One built his house of straw and one built his house of sticks; neither wanted to invest much time in their foundations or building because it was inconvenient for them. They wanted more time for themselves to do what they wanted to do. They even laughed at and made fun of the third pig for taking so much time in building his house. We know the third pig built his house of bricks. He put time, thought and effort into building a strong and solid house; he looked ahead and prepared himself for trouble he knew would come. Many of us Christians are mocked and laughed at for investing our time in God and our faith. We are often criticised for wasting our time and life living by scriptures and the word of God and preparing for what we know is inevitable. I assure you though, there will come a time when those who have scoffed at us will be like those first two pigs; they will see their homes/lives crumble before them and run to us for safety. They will say “We’re sorry, you were right all along! Please help us!” Let’s just pray they come to this realization before it’s too late! Let’s pray that we live what we preach and model an example they need to see! Let’s pray that we all exhibit true Lordship in our lives and show others what life is like when we build our foundations on Him!

Much Love and God Bless ❤

Lordship In Our Life: Part 2

I believe, by now, you all understand where my messages are coming from and there is no need to keep reiterating! I’ll just dive right in!

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ALL things were created through Him and for Him! Not a few things, not certain things, but ALL things. As I blogged in my last entry, Lordship is giving God the place He deserves in our lives; 1st place. God should take 1st place in EVERYTHING in our lives…everything meaning ALL! God is the one who holds all things together and if He is the center of our lives, we have a solid foundation; if He’s not given His true place in our lives, then our foundation is cracking and shifting and therefore compromised!

Lordship can be the greatest challenge facing the church today, but Lordship is “The Main Thing.” The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing 😜 It’s okay to re-read and repeat that! Simply put, Lordship is the main thing and we know Lordship is the act of putting God first in every aspect of our lives. Whether it’s in our marriage, church, family, work or finances, God should always come before all else.

Lordship is rooted in love and true love is not just receiving love but reciprocating it! We shouldn’t just be content with collecting God’s love, we should also be offering our true love back to God. In Mark 12:28-30 we read that Jesus had been involved in some debating and He was answering all His questions superbly (no surprise there) and one of the teachers of the law came and offered up his question. His question (as seen below) was “Of ALL the commandments, which is the most important?” And again you can see below what Jesus’ reply was…to love God with ALL our heart, mind, soul and strength.

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If we love Him, He will have first place in our lives! We tend to offer up higher priority to other people and things we deem more worthy…intentionally and unintentionally. Speaking as a mom, when mothers get sick and then our children also get sick, we put our sickness aside and prioritize our kid’s needs before our own. Lordship is similar to that of a parent’s love in that it should be just as easy for us to put our personal feelings aside and make God the top priority in all aspects of our lives.

In those verses above, we can see that we can show our love by doing what needs to be done and obeying God’s commandments. When we start to do that, we become not only better believers but better people all around.

Lordship also involves accountability. This is where it can become more challenging and uncomfortable. We must ask ourselves, what are we doing with the second chance God has given all of us as believers? What are we doing with the time He has given us here on Earth? What are we doing with the unique abilities or gifts He has specifically given to us? How are we blessing others with what we are given?

God entrusts us with His blessings. Every blessing is from God and although God loves us all the same, we are not all blessed the same! We are blessed in accordance to our ability/abilities and maturity levels. God illustrates this concept through a parable in Matthew 25:14-30.

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God is essentially the man setting out for a long journey and we, as Christians, are his servants entrusted with different blessings. What we do with those blessings determines what we will be entrusted with later and to what degree! His blessings provide opportunities to us to be gifted with even more blessings. Many people say they don’t have any talents or abilities because they often are looking at everyone else and comparing themselves to everyone around them. When we stop looking outward and start looking inward, we will realize all of us have a unique talent or ability God has entrusted us with and we must recognize them and decide how we can use them to bring glory to God and bless others! As we see in verse 19 of Matthew 25 the man returned to account for his money. We will ALL have to account for how we have used our blessings that were gifted to us. We all want to hear “well done” when we stand before God and He asks for us account for all He had trusted us with! Being accountable leads to God’s favor, promotion and blessing! As we see in the last verses of the parable in Matthew 25, The man was full of praise towards 2 of the men, the ones who took action and put to use what he had entrusted them with. Since they were faithful and able to handle what was given to them, they were entrusted with even more responsibilities and the man wanted them to come celebrate with him! But the 3rd servant wasn’t faithful. His fear clouded his judgement and he played it safe; he stayed within his comfort zone and therefore did not get any return on the blessings he was left. He would not be blessed with more if he was not accountable for less. Remember, in this parable, we are the servants and God is the man. We can’t expect our lives to be full of blessings if we are not using the blessings we are already given to better ourselves and the lives of others around us.

I pray that we all continue to work on Lordship in our lives and start looking at ourselves and determining what gifts/talents/abilities God has blessed us with. I also pray that as we start to recognize and acknowledge those blessings, that we ask ourselves how we are using or how we will use them to help and better ourselves and others…always giving honor and glory to God! God has invested in all of us, so let’s work on giving Him a return on those investments!

Much Love and God Bless 💚

Lordship In Our Life

Today marks the first sermon in another new 3 part journey I am on; Lordship! Much like the Importance of Prayer blogs, this will be 3 blogs each covering what I took away from the sermons through the church’s outline and my own notes. I like to pass along the messages!

Today was about evaluating Lordship in our life. What is Lordship? Lordship is putting God first in our lives.

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There were two issues we talked about; The Position Issue and The Permission Issue. The Position Issue is who or what holds the number one position in our life? Who or what will be number one in our life? Everybody serves somebody or something…The Lord, The World, Self etc. There is one thing in our lives which will constantly challenge the position issue; Pride. Pride has always affected relationships with God from the very beginning and it hinders us and our relationship with Him. Lucifer, once an angel, was essentially what we would categorize as a worship leader in Heaven; similar to say a choir director. Lucifer had too much pride in his life and he didn’t want God to be number one, he wanted to be number one, he wanted to be GREATER than God. Then we know he was cast out of Heaven and became who we refer to as Satan. We also know Lucifer (Satan) made an appearance as a serpent in the Garden of Eden where he tempted Adam and Eve. He tempted their pride in telling them if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would be like God. One issue with many of us is we always want to be number one. There are many situations in the Bible where pride and challenge of the position issue comes up. The disciples themselves struggled with the position issue! They even argued over who was the greatest among them. They let pride and position take place over Lordship. In John 13:3-5 Jesus Himself washed the disciples feet. Why would Jesus, the Son of God, wash the feet of each disciple? Did He just want to? No. He wanted to demonstrate to each of them what true Lordship looked like. He wanted them to resolve and settle the position issue in their lives. Jesus knew He was from God, He had no insecurity about who He was. He knew He had all authority but He chose to humble Himself and He submitted to His Father’s will to serve!

Let the greatest among you be a servant of all; He was demonstrating the power of God! It is much easier for us to serve when we resolve the position issue in our lives and submit to the will of God.

The other issue that was covered today was The Permission Issue. We want to know who has the right to ask for our time, talents, resources etc. There is a prevailing “me first” mentality that exists with many Christians today. They believe God is there just to make us happy and feel good every day. They see Him as their savior but not as their Lord. He has saved them, yet they’re not giving Him the number one position in their lives. In many cases we want or expect HIM to follow US. We expect Him to submit to our will and not the other way around! God is the Lord of all the living and dead; so whether dead or alive, He should be number one in our lives 😉 Many of us give excuses rather than permission.

We all know life is not easy; anything worth doing will present a challenge and call for effort on our part. Many of us just make excuses for why we can’t do what we are called to do and in turn we are making our excuses more important than following God.

Jesus always looks at the heart; He knows our true intentions. With that knowledge alone, we should be re-evaluating the motives of our heart. We can’t have things both ways…it’s either for God or for ourselves. Not everyone who professes Lordship embraces or lives Lordship. As with many things in life, it seems to be a lot easier for us to talk it than to walk it! True Lordship is embracing His will regardless of the inconvenience or discomfort; those will always be present! We must remain faithful and still place God in the number one spot in our lives. It’s embracing the future regardless of our past! We all have a past and for almost all of us, our pasts aren’t the greatest times of our lives. Our pasts are almost always full of things we wish to forget and things we are ashamed of, but the good thing is we must turn loose of our pasts and follow where He leads us! We should be moving forward with Jesus no matter the cost! There will always be a cost and often that cost is our own pride! Pride is the mother of all sin…you can see its roots in every sin. Pride is also usually something everyone around us knows we have, yet we don’t know we have! We have to recognize pride in our lives and deal with it because it will always challenge the position issue, therefore causing God not to be able to be number one in our lives. Lordship should be making Jesus the center of our lives. We naturally think of ourselves and our own wants and needs, but if we first seek the kingdom of God, He will provide all we need and we will be filled with true happiness and contentment because He makes us whole!

I pray all of us today will take a step back and examine God’s role in our lives and the position we permit Him to have. Are there other people or things taking His place as number one? How much time do we devote to Him in comparison to these other people or things? Asking these questions will make it easier to identify a position issue and hopefully help us resolve them. I also pray that we all look for evidence of pride in our lives and recognize it as an issue. We must rid ourselves of pride because it is deeply rooted in sin and usually when pride is in our lives, God will never be at the center of our lives where He should be.

As always, thank you for taking time out to read my blog posts! I hope that God blessed your lives today and every day!

Much Love and God Bless 💚

The Importance of Intercessory Prayer

Today I was able to listen to the last sermon in the short series on the importance of prayer, and can share my notes and pass along the message! While all prayer is of the utmost importance, intercessory prayer may just be the most important type of prayer!

If you do a simple search on the definition of the word intercession, you’ll see that it is defined as follows: To plead or make a request on behalf of another person. When we come before God in intercessory prayer, we are in agreement with God on not only the situation, but also on the solution to the situation. We agree on what the person’s needs are and we agree that God has the power to turn their situation around for good.

A big problem is, not many Christians take the time to intercede for others. When we come before God in intercession, we have an influence greater than we know! In Genesis 18 & 19, Abraham interceded for his nephew Lot; he prayed for his nephew to be spared. In Exodus 32:11-14, Moses interceded for the nation of Israel; he prayed for change and believed God had the power to change. In Ezekiel 22, we know God was going to bring judgement upon Israel, but we know God was looking for someone to come and intercede! It’s a simple task with a monumental reward! I can think of no greater reward than to know I am the reason someone came to know and believe in God!

Salvation is much more than just deliverance from sin; it also promotes us to sons and daughters of Christ and also kings and priests! We are priests in relation to God and kings in relation to satan. Priests represented the people before God; traditionally a priest was a man chosen by God who had authority we didn’t. There were certain rituals and places only priests were allowed to venture, but now we can all come before God on another’s behalf! As priests, we have the privilege of going before the Father and interceding for others, claiming the provision and power of His blood! We can ALL come before God not only on behalf of ourselves, but for others…especially those who don’t believe in God. Now, we take authority over satan! Not many of us really realize that fact; we tend to let satan bully us. Ultimately though, we are kings in relation to Satan. Kings exercise power and authority. Kings defeat their enemies and establish their will or desire in their kingdom. They are in control! In the same way, we rule over satan and we control what he can and cannot do in our lives, and by intercessory prayer we can come before God and do our part to stop satan in other’s lives and in the world around us. Some people will say, “Pray for me, Satan won’t leave me alone.” Nothing wrong with asking for prayer, but as believers we can also stop running, turn around and start chasing him! Satan will only do what you allow him to do in your life; if you give him the key, he will come in! God has given us a key to His kingdom and we can open doors we want open and close doors we want closed!

How do we effectively intercede?

1. We pray that God draws them (the non-believers) to Him. We pray He creates a desire in them.

2. We should pray that they would pursue God and seek Him out!

3. Pray for someone to tell them about Jesus; whether it be us or someone else! They cannot believe what they never hear about and they will never hear unless we become the messengers we are called to be and share the gospel with them!

4. Pray their spiritual eyes are open! For those who don’t understand, allow their eyes to open and for what they hear to make sense in their minds, hearts and lives.

5. Finally, pray they believe in Christ as their savior! Don’t just pray for them to simply open their eyes and believe, but pray for them to make the most important decision in their lives; to accept God as their personal savior so they may never be condemned but live eternally. Pray for them to get to that point where they can exercise their will to choose belief. God doesn’t want anyone perish; He always gives us a way out. One thing He will not do is violate a person’s free will! Everyone has been given the freedom to choose and we must pray for others who may not believe, to get to the point in their lives where they use their free will to choose belief in God. There should be no reason any of us Christians aren’t actively practicing intercessory prayer. We ALL have important people in our lives who aren’t saved. We should be concerned and care for them and all other non-believers the same! We should be excited to tell others about God and to share our story with them!

What if the only reason someone doesn’t make it to Heaven with us, is because you or I did not take the time to care enough to intercede on their behalf? What if we didn’t take our role and responsibilities as Christians seriously enough and it costs someone eternity? Intercessory prayer doesn’t take much effort, but it can have a huge return! What do you have to lose? As Christians, possibly not much…but what do non-believers you know or come in contact with have to lose? Eternity! Don’t cheat others out of what we have in God! Pray for the power to share with others and open doors for them! We have the key to the kingdom, let’s let them in!

God, we come before you today as believers in You, interceding for all non-believers we know well, have come in contact with or those we will come into contact with! Let us share our story of Your goodness with them, and may their eyes be open! May You draw them near and create in them a desire to pursue You and seek you out. We also pray if we aren’t the person who witnesses to them, that someone else finds them and does! Thank You for allowing is to come in front of You and intercede for ourselves and others! May we all make time for intercessory prayer in our lives! AMEN!

Remember it’s as easy as A·B·C!

·Admit to God we have sinned.

·Believe Jesus is God’s Son who was sent to save us and die for our sins on the cross.

·Confess your belief to God and allow Him into your heart and life.

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Much Love and God Bless 💚