Paul was imprisoned for his faith in Jesus but that never stopped him from sharing his faith with people. He wrote letters to believers from prison,encouraging them to continue in their faith in God and shared his faith with those he was imprisoned with. He never stopped or allowed his circumstances to change him, who he was or what God had called him to.
It’s easy to allow our circumstances to dictate our mood, our behavior and our decisions. But when we surrender to the leading of the Holy Spirit, he can change our attitude and our perspective to lead us to make better decisions.
We can either choose to let life dictate to us or we can be the change that makes a difference.
God puts us back together at our most shattered moments, the moments when we are so broken, when we are nothing but a ball of tears, frustrations and have given up, that’s when he can do his greatest work.
In 2008 that was me, nothing but a broken ball of tears, I felt worthless and completely unworthy to be in God’s presence, but God welcomed me with open arms. When I was at my worst he was at his best. I didn’t have to do anything but surrender and let him in.
He lifted me up and enveloped me in his love, I let go of all the hurt and pain and he gave me new life, new meaning and new joy.
We don’t need to clean ourselves up, just surrender. We need to stop striving and let him do the work, surrender to his love and grace and let him be our strength and endurance, let him be our everything
God’s grace makes us feel fresh and new and clean. His forgiveness is refreshing, its a new start and new beginning, no need to dwell on the past, we just focus on who God made us to be.
When God paid for our mistakes he gave us the chance to be born again spiritual, to be made new and clean, to start fresh.
So why do we dell on our past mistakes? All it does is brings us down. Trust me I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life. But dwelling on them does nothing except distract me from what God is doing in me now.
His forgiveness lifts our burdens, guilt and shame. He never meant for us to walk around like that, but to walk free in his presence.
Don’t dwell on who you were even a moment ago, instead focus on who God made you to be and walk in his freeing forgiveness.
It’s easy to be nice to people who are nice to you. But to be nice to people who are mean, rude and completely against you is hard let alone to actually bless and pray for them.
How would you want someone to treat you if they caught you in one of your worst moments when you’re maybe sick or exhausted and irritable. We all have our best and worst moments and our one interaction with the nicest person may be the worst moment in their life and all they need is a smile or a bit of kindness to help them through.
What about the people we interact with regularly that rub us the wrong way. Being rude and mean back isn’t going to make things better. But if we pray for them and ask Jesus to show us how he sees them. It will help us to see the with the compassion he does.
Jesus endured the cross for every single person in humanity and who are we to deny them that free gift of salvation. Jesus changed us when we gave our life to him he can do the same for them.
He will show us how he see each person as valuable, important and loved. If we ask
By sharing that love with those that curse us we shine his light even brighter.
One single day can pull us from the depths of despair.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
I love Anne of Green Gables. One of the expressions Anne uses often is that she’s “in the depths of despair.”
I have to be honest, I’ve always thought she was being over dramatic, until one summer when I struggled with depression. I’m generally an optimistic, joyful, happy person, but I could not shake this funk. I tried talking to God but to be honest I was kind of mad at Him. Until one day when when I choose to forgive Him.
Yes forgive God.
It was not that God had done anything wrong, it was that I didn’t like the answer He had given regarding something I was asking for.
That single act pulled me from my depression, when I choose to let go of my expectations and trust God’s timing.
For many people, myself included. We can be angry or dis-enthralled with God because He doesn’t give us what we want, in the timing we expect it to happen. We do this more than I think any of us would like to admit. But the key to freedom is to let go of the things He asks us to. It doesn’t mean He doesn’t want to bless us with the desires He’s placed in our heart, it means He has something better or maybe we aren’t ready for what that blessing entails.
Not giving our dream over to Jesus is like staying in an old dilapidated house beyond repair because it has memories and nostalgia. When God is saying I have this perfect house over here, and we can build better, happier memories.
That’s the power of forgiveness, it can pull us from the depths of despair in one moment.
What are you holding on to that’s keeping you in the depths of despair?
Trust that God has something better for you, and let go.
Worship is about our hearts, our minds and or focus. Worship is so much more then singing songs. Worship is constant. It’s a choice in every moment to choose to glorify God in our words, our actions and in the attitudes of our hearts.
When you worship through song don’t just repeat the words, read them, mean them, sing them out as a benediction and put your all in it.
When I was in Uganda worship was hard at first, because it was in Swahili or Llungahndan which I don’t speak and they danced (controversial, I know) but they taught me about worship.
We worshiped for hours and I didn’t understand the words and I didn’t know the dances. But that didn’t matter.
Worship is about your heart. So I sang, I sang in English if I recognized the tune of the song or I sang in tongues and I danced, I didn’t know the steps or the moments but I danced. I worshiped with all that was in me. I worshiped with my mouth, with my body and with my heart.
Worship is about appreciation. When you worship God remember it’s about him not you. So if God has done anything for you then jump, dance and shout from the rooftops .
You may have heard some preachers or myself say to die to self. But what does that mean.
Dying to self, is just that dying to self. It’s putting to death your selfish desires, wants and even needs and putting others before yourself.
Sound crazy right, but that is what Jesus did in his life and death. He came to serve not be severed. He paid the price of his own life so that we could have his life in exchange for ours.
Trusting Jesus and following the leading of the Holy Spirit takes care of all our needs and even our desires. When we surrender our lives to Jesus and become who he made us to be he provides for all our needs and fulfills many of our desires beyond our wildest dreams.
You may think, I still need to live, to eat, to breathe, to sleep. So don’t I have to be selfish at someone point.
I have never regretted putting someone before myself, but I have regretted not putting someone else first.
Marriage is a example of how our relationship with Jesus is supposed to be. We are supposed to put our spouses needs before ourselves. They are supposed to do the same, which brings balance. I can’t tell you how many times I have been doing something for my husband and he surprises me by taking care of the other things I needed to do after I took care of him.
It’s the same with Jesus. When he asks us to do something for someone else he already has something in the works to take care of us.
So dying to self is simple putting God first and trusting him to take care of all that he has promised us.
Lord of the Rings exemplifies how we all struggle with choosing good or evil and the temptation for shortcuts to what we want in life. The ring represents those shortcuts that we are so often are tempted to take in life; it causes us to compromise who we are to achieve what we’ve been working toward in an instant. But the problem is we will no longer be who we are if we choose to compromise to get the power or control or upper hand that we so desperately think we need.
Gandalf, Galadriel and Aragorn all knew this and refused to compromise who they are in exchange. There may be options or opportunities that we are presented with in life that could skyrocket us to what we want out of life. But at what cost? Is it really worth throwing away the journey you’ve taken so far, be it a day, an hour, a week, or years for the moment or that instant gratification that will sullen who you’ve worked to become.
If any of these characters had taken the short cut to increase their power or position they would have ceased being who they were and become something they never wanted or intended.
We have to realize that the quick fix is never the answer.
God made each and everyone of us and he loves us all. He knows who he made us to be and the journey to become that person is how we become who he made us to be. It’s the journey that makes us who we are.
We can be in the worst mood with the worst outlook but if we shift our focus to him, he changes the atmosphere. We don’t have to try to change or try to be different, we simply have to let him live through us.
When we surrender everything to him, he show us his plan and his way. Which is always so much better then ours.
Let’s stop striving in life and let the one who created the entire universe direct our steps, our mood and our life.
Trusting God can seem hard if you have no faith in him, but if you know him and his character. Then you know he more then earns our trust.
When we ask God for things, it’s easy to become discouraged if we don’t get the answer we wanted or in the time we think we should get it. But when he asks us to wait for something or doesn’t answer us the way we wanted he gives us peace beyond our understanding.
Our uneasiness, fear or anxiety about his answer comes from us not trusting him. Not his answer. He knows what’s best for us and when.
Many times when he says “no” or “not yet” it is because he has something better for us, beyond what we could image or what we want in the time we want it, would harm us more then help us.
I’ve used this example many times, but my husband and I both went through a time period where we were lonely and looking for our future spouse and both of us chose people who were not good for us and took advantage of us. They were not the right people for us but we tried to get what we wanted, when we wanted it instead of waiting for God to bring us into each others lives.
Because of our selfish decisions we both had to learn how to be in a healthy relationship and heal from the wounds of those past relationships. In the same respect it took time for those wounds to heal and we were both glad that we had not met sooner as God was working on both of us to be ready to have a healthy relationship, so that we would not bring past hurts into our relationship.
Trust God’s timing and his answer isn’t as scary as it seems.
From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.
I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.[b
I always know that I can take comfort in the arms of Father God.
That no matter where I am, whether I feel strong or weak that he is always there to protect, love and care for me. I never have to worry because I know that as long as I trust God and give everything over to to him that he will take care of it.
No matter what your facing today. Know that God is always there for you. Give him your worries, your concerns and your cares and let him bear your burdens.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
How do you know God? Who is he to you? What comes to you when he’s mentioned? Is it joy? Is it peace? Is it love?
Do you know him or do you know what others have said about him? What has shaped your image of him?
Knowing about others perception of God and actually knowing him are two very different things. Think of it this way. If someone asked you to describe someone famous that you admire but have never met in person how would you describe them? It would be from what you’ve read or watched or learned about them from various sources of those that have met them in person. But then if I asked you to describe the person you are closest to (your spouse or best friend) you would describe them differently because you have physically been around them, you’ve spent time in their presence. You’ve been with them for your best and worst moments in life and you could probably finish each others sentences. The later is the type of relationship God desires with us. He wants us to know him, so intimately that we know how he would react to different situations.
So what if you don’t have that type of relationship with God. Well you can. Start spending time with him not to study or learn but just to be with him. To learn his character, his speech, his mannerisms, his presence. So that we know him instantly.
Struggling to hear his voice. I highly recommend you check out Voice Of God
Sometimes God doesn’t answer our question because he already has we just don’t realize it. Sometimes his answer is in what has done for us more than in words. Knowing the character of God is crucial to our communication with him.
As I mentioned last week we have a had a lot of financial struggles in the last year. But every time I bring it up to God he reminds me of his character. That he is our provider and that he doesn’t worry about it so why should we. Logically we should not have made it through the last year. But God provided over and over again each month I’m astonished at how he provides. But he does because that is who he is. He is all our providers and we have no reason to doubt him because he always provides when we put our trust in him.
What have you been asking God about? Ask him to show you if he’s already provided the answer in just being who he is.
If you’re not sure you know his character read Galatians 5:22-23 and look for his answer in his character.
God’s love is for everyone, rich, poor, sad happy, angry or calm. You don’t have to fit a certain mold or criteria to be loved by Him. He made us each unique on purpose. He is the creator. You need only to look at the variety of plants or animals to see His love for diversity. What He asks of us is that we love Him back and love others.
That encompasses everything, if we accept His love, He shows us and gives us love overflowing to love ourselves and to love others.
Worship is a choice, to choose to focus our attention on the Holy Spirit and let him spill out from us or to ignore him and let our own thoughts and desires lead us.
It’s letting Him live through us each and every day, all day. It’s choosing to sacrifice our selfish desires the same way Jesus did when he lived on earth and let the Holy Spirit work through him.
We can easily get wrapped up in who we were before Jesus and let that dictate how we act, think and speak. But that’s not who we are anymore. Jesus makes us new and gives us a new life and that is how we worship. By foregoing our own selfishness and letting him spill out through us.
Its easy to get wrapped up in ourselves, in our own world and to neglect or take for granted our relationship with God. We know He will always be there for us but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss us. With all the responsibilities of life its easy to push Him off till later to say, let me just take care of this first or do that and then I’ll get to Him.
But its when we put Him first that He helps us to accomplish all we have to do and somehow when we follow His plan there is always extra time left. When we follow His lead and His way He does things faster and better then we ever could have and shows us little surprises along the way.
He sees the big picture, He sees how everything all works together and when we trust His leadership He guides us to bigger and grander things the we could of done or learned if we’d done it on our own. When we are wrapped up in what is right in front of us, we miss what’s a few steps ahead.
My husband and I have moved a lot and in one of ours search for a rental home. All I could see was the things that I was looking for instead of what I was looking at. After viewing a few homes I picked one and my husband picked the other. When we returned to view his choice he showed me what I had missed. The beautiful woods that the house backed up to. He saw the big picture while I just focused on what I wasn’t seeing he saw what really mattered.
When we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit we can accomplish things we never would think ourselves capable of. Holy Spirit gives us the confidence, the words and all we need to do what he calls us to.
Esther is a great example of this. She did what God asked of her and saved an entire people through a few dinners.
God calls us to do and be more then we could of ever think possible. In my life God has provided over and over again in ways I never expected. In the last year my husband I moved across the country to plant a house church and in that year we’ve had the most financial instability we have ever faced since we got married nine years ago. But God has provided over and over again from people and places we never expected. Although we are not out of the woods yet. We know that God will continue to provide because he always does.
We all need to trust him to provide what we need to accomplish what he ask of us.
Jesus had a habit of taking peoples biggest mistakes and using them to help others. Zacchaeus stole money and when he chose to change for Jesus he gave money away.
He took my mistakes and bad choices and gave me a heart for people who have done the same. He gave me a passion to see people find their worth and value in Jesus. Something I struggled with my whole life until I came to know him personally.
Jesus is in the redemption business. He’s not looking for perfect people. He’s looking to love people right where they are, to pull them up out of their mess so they can help others find that same redemption.
He looks at us and sees our potential and we need to do the same with others and see their potential in him.
Prayer is simply a conversation with God. Talking with him, listening to him, enjoying his presence. But our approach to the conversation determines the outcome.
If we come to him with demand after demand without giving him even a moment to respond. How do you think that would go? How would you react, if that was how someone approached you?
Go to God with thankfulness for him, humility and appreciation of who he is. Speak to him as you would to the person you respect and love the most and listen for his answers.
Love is powerful, it drives us. We seek it out wherever we can, but even when we find it through others it’s not perfect.
I love my husband more then anyone else and he loves me. But our love for each other pales in comparison to the love of God.
Gods love is what drives me, it’s what fills me up, his love is the one thing in life I cannot live without and that I know I can count on one hundred percent. God loved us before we were even born and he sacrificed everything to share his love with us.
His love is unconditional, you can’t earn it, and he will never take it from us.
We are the ones who choose to abandon his love, because we think we don’t need it or we don’t understand it.
His love is untarnished, overflowing and unending. Letting him love you where you are at will be the greatest decision of your life.
Why do we doubt God’s forgiveness? We say oh, he can’t forgive me, he can’t, you don’t know what I’ve done, I don’t belong.”
I used to think the same thing.
In my late teens till my early twenties I choose to walk away from God and pretty much did whatever I wanted. But when I finally decided to give my life back to God, I was terrified.
The first Sunday I was so scared that I clung to my best friends arm digging my fingernails into her arm as I walked back into the sanctuary of the church I had grown up in.
I truly believed everyone knew exactly what I had been doing during those years and I was convinced that everyone was going to turn, look at me and shoot fiery red darts out of their eyes.
But I was wrong. Everyone greeted me with smiles, hugs and open arms. No judgement, no questions, just people happy to see me.
That is how God sees us. When we choose to invite him into our lives, he greets us with open arms and a huge smile.
God loves us.
He always ready and waiting to welcome us into the family.
So what is holding you back? Fear? Worry? Anxiety?
Well good new those thing are not of God so won’t find them in him.
God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful and he has self control.
He’s not up there waiting to strike us down. He’s right next to us waiting patiently for us to allow him into our lives. He’s constantly there wanting to spend time with us, talk to us and show us who he made us to be.
Trust me, who he made you to be is beyond anything you could ever imagine. When I began writing I knew that it was what I was meant to be doing. God had been telling me for years but it wasn’t until I took the leap of faith to really pursue it that I felt like this is it. This is what I was meant to do.
Ask God who he’s made you to be and trust that he knows what suits you best, he made you.
Kindness and seeing people for who they can be, not for who we judge them to be in a moment. Can change both our perspectives for the better.
In the movie the Blind Side the people around Michael see him for who he could be. We all have gifts and talents and many times it just takes that one person to believe in them to help us succeed.
That’s how God looks at us. He sees our full potential to do great things, he created each of us and he knows what we can do and its even more then we can image.
Its his kindness that he sent Jesus and its his kindness that he waits for us to be ready to receive all that he has for us.
Seeing people the way that God sees them changes our perspective of ourselves and of others. Next time you doubt God’s plan for you ask him how he sees you. Trust me you won’t be disappointed.
We are bombarded every day all day from every direction by things that try to tell us who we are, what we should do or who we should be.
But our identity should be in Jesus.
This video is one of the most healing videos I have ever watched. Listen to it and let God tell you who he made you to be. I hope it brings you as much hope and comfort as it has me. Enjoy!
Jesus saw people as valuable. We all are the joy set before him that he endured the cross. He gave everything to bring us into relationship with Him, Father God and Holy Spirit.
We should be encouraging others to find Jesus so that He can show them their true potential through relationship with Him.
He changed our lives. Why wouldn’t we want Jesus to do the same for others.
Bringing others into the family should be our joy and be the crown that we lay at Jesus feet.
We can’t take money or possessions to heaven with us, but we can take people.
See people as the true value that they are. The value that Jesus placed on humanity is priceless. You are priceless. All of us are priceless in God’s sight. Treat people the way Jesus did; as valuable beyond measure.
God doesn’t ask us to go without having planned and provided for us in advance. Walking in faith isn’t about knowing what he has planned for us but trusting that he has already provided for what he asks of us even if we can’t see it.
God goes before us and lays the ground work, we each build on the work of each other and provide for each other. He uses each of us to support the other. Going forward to who and what he calls us to makes us who he made us to be.
He’s called me to write so I write, he’s called me to preach so I take any opportunity given, he’s called me to encourage and uplift others and I pray I do that for with each devotional. I hope I encourage you to see God working in your life, that you grow closer to him and learn to love and trust him more each day.
Trusting God isn’t about knowing where or what your going to but about who your going with. If he has called you to something or someone. Know that he is with you and he will give you the words, the means, the knowledge and the wisdom in what and where he has called you to.
The song I can only imagine by Mercy Me speaks to me every time I hear it.
One of the most pivotal times was when my husband and I went to a Astros game in Houston. We were living in Louisiana at the time and decided to go to Houston for our anniversary. We found tickets the morning of the game and had no idea that it was the Faith and Family day for the Astros. (If you’ve never been to one you should go most MLB teams have one)
After the game one of the players and his wife shared there testimonies. Following that was a Mercy Me concert. I have always loved them but had never heard them in concert. It was amazing, I think I cried through the whole time just praying and worshiping God as He broke my heart, reminding me that He had a calling on my life to be a writer and that I had been ignoring it at that time.
At the end of the concert the lead singer Bart Millard shared how Mercy Me was his dream and how God had pushed him to it and used the song I Can Only Imagine to do it. A song that had been strung throughout my life and has always driven me to the feet of Jesus.
This experience with God was the catalyst that pushed me to write this devotional blog, it was the push that I needed to follow the dream that God had placed in my heart.
What dream has God placed in your heart? Seek God, ask him what he’s called you to and his plan to accomplish it.
Trying to change people by nagging pestering and yelling never works. We may get them to do what we want in the moment but it doesn’t change their heart. It doesn’t bring about real change.
Prayer is how we fight. Prayer changes things. Prayer changes our perspective of others and prayer is what can change their hearts. See prayer is simply a conversation with God letting him show us how he sees us and them.
So often we think we can change someone. Or we’ll love them more if we just get them to be who we think they should be. But if we look to change ourselves instead, to love them no matter what, God’s love through us will change them.
Think back to when you gave your heart to Jesus. Did you do it because he was nagging you or because you came to know his love and forgiveness. When we give our heart to God we repent of our past mistakes and we choose to let God change us. We have to do the same with others. Allow God to bring about the change.
Gods love changed us and the expression of that love will change others.
In order to reach the mountain tops in life we need to be equipped to handle them. Experienced mountain climbers train for month to reach the peak of mountain tops and some make sacrifices to achieve their goals.
God is the same with us. He will led us up the mountain, but he must equip us to handle the conditions at the top first.
Ask him each day what he wants to teach you? And know that even if you don’t always understand it, trust that he’s preparing you for your next mountain top moment.
God loves to change our stories from what we think would be likely for us; to blessings beyond our belief.
Mary was an ordinary girl and we would probably know nothing about her in history, if it had not been for her birthing and raising Jesus. God loves to take everyday people and make them extra-ordinary. It wasn’t Mary’s own achievements that gave her the blessing of bearing Jesus but her humility and willingness to serve.
We are not meant to achieve greatness on our own, but to serve God and let him bless us instead. His blessings will always surpass what we could achieve on our own.
Following the leading of the Holy Spirit can sounds scary and intimidating. But all it really is, is simple small choices that lead to the big ones. Even small choices can have a big impact.
For years I asked the Holy Spirit which way to drive to work as I had a few routes that would get me there. Every time I followed His leading I arrived on time. But when I didn’t I arrived late. Little decisions can make a big difference that we may not see in the moment.
I had a friend that was driving to an event across the state, it was something he attended yearly and never usually needed a restroom break in the two hour drive. But this one time he needed it; completely out of the norm for him. Later he found out that had he not stopped he would have mostly likely been on the highway at the spot where a massive car pileup happened.
The Holy Spirit gives us little prompting, even something as simple as bathroom break and we may never know the impact, but we need to trust that he has a reason and a purpose for everything, even the small stuff.
What has the Holy spirit been leading you to do? Take that small step of faith and follow His leading.
No matter what we’re facing in our lives be it internal, external, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual or relational.
Regardless of each of our struggles we can all cling to the same thing, that no matter what our God is good and he loves us and its because of that love that we know that we can depend on him to lift us up and bring us through any and everything.
So no matter how tired or frustrated we may be we can scream EVEN LOUDER that Jesus is our everything.
Planting seeds takes a lot of faith. You never know what you’ll get, when they’ll grow or how much the plant will produce, or if it will grow at all. But we still plant seeds.
In the movie Faith Like Potatoes, Angus a farmer finds faith in God and follows the leading of the Holy Spirit to plant potatoes. Planting potatoes takes faith because you cant see what crop you’ve yielded until you’re ready to harvest.
Planting seeds of faith can be like this. We don’t know what will stick and what will not grow but we if we want to see a harvest we still have to plant.
Sow seeds everywhere in everyone, you never know what will produce a harvest.
Fear can control us, if we let it. But God does not desire for us to be ruled by fear.
Fear limits us and confines us to the familiar, fear keeps us locked in our comfort zone and keeps us from experiencing all that God has for us.
He made us to live in his love and his power, but how do we achieve that?
Self-control.
God loves us so much that he gave us choice, the freedom to choose his love or not. In choosing his love he gives us the power to conquer fear, to say that we will not be ruled fear, but will choose to let his love define us.
It’s his love that says my God is bigger then my circumstances and I trust God to take care of all I need and more because I know who he is.
“We may feel small, weak, incapable, ill-equipped, lacking in articulation. None of this matters. Frequently, all the obedience God requires of us is simply showing up. He does the rest. When we see a need, we go to it, reach out a hand and wait. Father comes into that situation. He expresses Himself through us. All we needed to do was be there, because He has no physical hands or feet on the earth except yours and mine.”
~Heidi Baker
A lot of fear about telling people about Jesus is that we don’t know what to say or what to do. The beauty of a relationship with the Holy Spirit is that He tells us what to say, He tells us what to do.
The Holy Spirit knows each of us intimately, He knows what we need when we need it.
We simple need to be willing to be used by God to convey His words and His actions to them. To be a willing vessel.
God will never stop running after us. He will always be there for us when we need him or when we want him. God will always be there with us through everything, if we let him.
God’s will and his plan for us is always for our good. That doesn’t mean we won’t face hard things but that he will be there with us through it. He will be with us through the trials and he will use them to draw us closer to him.
A long as we keep our focus on him in the storm like Peter walking on water. Peter only sank when he turned his focus off of Jesus and let the storm surrounding him influence his faith instead of his faith in Jesus influencing his surroundings. It’s when we fix our eyes back on Jesus that he is our strength when we are weak, our joy when we are sad and our peace when we have none.
Even when we feel at our weakest and most vulnerable we can look to God. Because he is our strength. No matter whether we are having the best day of our lives or the worst day ever. He is the same.
His grace for us never changes. We could be at our worst and he will still extend his hand to us and say “Come here child.” Because we can’t earn his grace, because he gives it freely but we can always accept it.
It’s easy to get caught up in our troubles, self-pity, anxiety and worry. But only one thing can bring us the peace that surpasses understanding. Jesus.
It’s his sacrifice that brings us into a deep, intimate relationship with him, Father God and the Holy Spirit. And its only that relationship that will sustain us and uplifts us when we need it most.
When I have those moments of feeling like “I’m in the depths of despair” to quote Anne of Green Gables. Instead of indulging those feelings and letting them lead me. I turn to God and simple say “help.” He always does.
When we turn our attention back to Jesus he changes our perspective. Comforting us with his plan and showing us how he see things.
In the movie I Can Only Imagine Bart Millard pushes away his high school girlfriend Shannon when she tries to help him when she sees he’s hurting. His knee jerk reaction is to push her away.
Our natural reaction when someone tries to help us when we’re hurting is to push back, because it hurts when you poke a wound. But we have to find the root cause of the pain if we want to heal and sometimes that means a painful conversation to find that root.
When the human body is severely burned you have to remove the dead tissue to get to the healthy tissue so that it can grow and heal, which is an extremely painful experience but the end result is healed healthy tissue.
The same is true with our emotional wounds we have to remove the things in our life that are dead in order to allow new growth.
That may mean removing certain people from our life or removing ourselves from circumstances that continue to hurt us.
But it also means we have to let those that are trying to help us heal, to help. Trust the people that have been there and are ahead of you and lean on their experience to guide you through the healing process. And yes sometimes the the severest wounds scar but they don’t hurt anymore. Those scars can then be a testament to how God healed us.
Something a friend of mine taught me is that we are all different parts of the body of Jesus.
You may have heard this many times.
But he explained it that since we are all different parts, different aspects of God expressed though all of us. God is so vast that it takes all of humanity to express Him. We each reveal Him in different ways.
Some show God’s relentless love and compassion for humanity. Some show His willingness to stop everything, to show love to the poorest soul on the planet, and some show unrelenting faith by forgiving endlessly.
All you need to do is look at the many varieties of flowers or trees to see just a small glimpse of how complex God is.
All of creation cries out to glorify God and we are part of that creation meant to express Him.
We as Christians are all the body of Jesus and we have all of Him but some characteristics of Him are stronger in you then they are in me. That’s why we need each other. To be the hands and feet of Jesus together!
We are bonded together by our faith in Jesus. It knits us together, creates a common bond that surpasses all else. When we meet strangers and find out they share our faith in Jesus there is an instant connection that bonds us together.
It’s Jesus.
And He should be what brings us together, not pushes us apart. We have divided our faith up, but I can’t honestly think that is what Jesus intended.
He wants us to be one body that fights for each other, not against each other.
So instead of seeking what divides us. Lets seek what unites us.
Just because you don’t have what you asked God for right now, doesn’t mean he’s not going to bless you with it later.
His timing is perfect. He know what we need, when we need it.
My husband and I didn’t meet until later in our adult lives. We were both looking for our spouse for years but the right person never came along. When we did meet we realized there were many times in our lives when our lives could have intertwined but they didn’t. During the waiting time we each focused on healing us from past hurts and growing closer to Jesus. If we had met sooner we would of problem caused each other pain because neither of us was really ready to be in healthy marriage. But because we took the time to heal and come to know that complete dependence on Go is what we need. We don’t look to each other to fulfill us. We know that Jesus must be the center of our marriage and only he can fulfill us.
Trusting his timing can be hard if we focus on what we don’t have. But if we focus on what he is doing in our life right now, what we are waiting for won’t take as long as we think it will and will be better then if we’d had it when we thought we should.
It’s in the hardest moments when our faith is tested, when we are in turmoil what we stand on is what keeps us afloat.
God is our rock, our firm foundation and if we trust Him in our hardest moments even when we feel like we’re in the depths. We can stand against all odds.
Because God is what supports us, we can walk upon the water in the midst of the storm.
I find so much inspiration through movies. Different scenes and certain lines remind me of what Jesus did for us.
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Eustace is transformed into a dragon because of his greed, but it leaves him in a precarious situation where he can’t interact with others like he used. In the end Eustace tries to remove the scales to return to being human, but he can’t do it on his own. He needs Aslan todo it for him. To shed his tough outer shell created by the decisions that transformed him in the first place.
We all do this in life. We seek to take care of ourselves and in the process build up an armor to protect us from others. But does it really help us or hinder us from having relationships with others.
We may be protected but we are alone.
Even a dragon with his thick armor can fall prey to attack, but when we allow others in to help us and protect us we aren’t alone anymore. Having a support system is so much better then doing it all on your own.
Jesus like Alsan wants to protect us, but we first have to be willing to let him in, to let him help us shed our old habits that got us where we are in the first place.
Saul is a great example of this he tried to achieve salvation through earning it. He followed ever rule but he was callus and hard, not allowing himself to see the truth of who Jesus was, the savior he had been waiting for his whole life. He was too wrapped up in trying to protect himself and others from who he thought was a false savior to see the truth. Until Jesus revealed himself to him. Paul was then humbled by his experience with Jesus as was Eustace, they both shed their old skin to find the truth in Jesus.
What has it cost you to keep your outer shell of protection? Are you willing to pay the cost or are you ready to let Jesus to pay the cost for you and be your protector? Are you ready to not be alone anymore?
Beauty is something we all seek. We seek it in others, in possessions or ourselves. But what is beauty?
Beauty comes from God. You need only look at his creation to see his beauty; the multitude and variety of flowers and trees alone shine his authorship of beauty.
So how do we attain this beauty? Is it through adornments? Or is it something else? You wouldn’t hang an earring on a flower and say you improved it. Nor do adornments make us truly more beautiful. No true beauty shines from within.
Beauty is Jesus shinging from within us as he does through all his creation.
Some of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met are not what society would deem beautiful outwardly, but they shine Jesus with all that they are, and that’s true beauty.
I’ve had a few seasons of struggling with finding intimacy with Jesus. As life changes so has my devotional time.
In one of these seasons I realized that the connection I was lacking at that time was because I wasn’t writing like I used to. Writing is part of who God has called me to be and it’s how He teaches me. It’s in that teaching that I grow closer to Him and learn more about Him.
God designed each of us and He has his own special way of connecting with each of us and revealing our identity in Him is the key to that.
We don’t need to fear Him and worry about our past neglect or inadequacies. We simply need to come to Him, hold His hand and let Him lead us.
It’s easy to feel alone and like no one understands, because no one really knows what every moment of your life is like.
But God does…
…He knows because he is there with us whether we realize it or not. God is the only one who can and does understand. But we often feel afraid to go to Him because we’re worried about what He would think. But He already knows it all so there is really nothing we can hide from Him.
Even in knowing everything He loves us still.
We don’t have to be afraid of Him, because He is love. Nothing about God is something that we should ever fear.
Because God is love, He is joy, He is peace, He is patience, He is kind and He is good. So what about that is scary?
He is the one that we can always turn to no matter what.
So no matter what is running through your head or your heart you can’t surprise God. But you can let Him in.
Just the mention of Jesus name can change our whole attitude or view towards someone or something.
When we find someone who shares our same faith it brings us together and brings a smile to our faces. To have the opportunity to talk to someone about the one who changed our life.
We need to hold on to that and remember that there is the power in the name of Jesus.
In the movie I Can Only Imagine Bart Millard invites his dad to go to church with him and his dad replies that “he doesn’t belong in church.”
This broke my heart and began to make me think how often this is our reason for not inviting people to church or that we’ve given ourselves.
But this is a misconception. The church is not four walls or an organization, the people are the church. Jesus destroyed the temple and rebuilt it in us. We are the temple. Jesus is inside us.
Saying that we don’t belong in church is true. We don’t deserve to have Jesus live inside us, none of us do. But that is the beauty of his sacrifice we don’t deserve it but he gives us the free gift of having him live inside us, not by earning it but by Jesus sacrifice for us he makes the way for us to be the church.
This means that when we encounter people we are bringing the church to them.
The next time you meet someone and think “I want to bring them to church.” Remember you already have. You’re right there in front of them (you are the church), tell them what Jesus has done for you and ask them if they would like him to do the same for them.
Church is anywhere we are, we don’t have to wait for Sunday or the right service. Jesus is in us all day every day and he wants all his children to know him.
Once you have introduced them to Jesus, then invite them to the gathering of other Christians.
~May all your interactions with others reflect Jesus
How many times have you wished you could have a fresh start, a clean slate?
You can, when you accept Jesus sacrifice you get a clean slate, he wipes away all your past mistakes and starts you fresh and the best part is you an have a fresh start everyday.
From the moment you choose to follow Jesus, you can have a fresh start.
Jesus died so that we would not have to be bogged down by your past mistakes. So that we wouldn’t have to feel guilt, shame and condemnation.
He came to set us free.
Jesus makes us new in him. We die to our old ways, our old habits and our old mindset and take on his mind.
You don’t have to be what you used to be you don’t have to be restrained to your past you can be set free.
Each believer in Jesus has a part to play, each of us have something to share and to give, everyone of us is valuable. God uses the body as analogy for the body of believers because each part has a unique and different part in a fully functioning body.
We each are a part of Jesus and we each reveal him in different ways, and when we don’t show Jesus through us then we miss a part of him. He is so complex that it takes all o humanity to reveal him.
I am not called to do what he has chosen you to do and and you are not called to do what he has called me to do. He uses each of us in different and unique ways.
Whenever I encounter someone who I may not agree with or don’t get along with. I ask God to show me how he sees them, who he made them to be, and he changes my heart for them. He shows me his love for them and how he sees them.
When God started me on this journey of writing, I starting by writing my story and what he had done for me, but then he asked me to write his story. To do this I needed a heart for people which I did not have then. But over time he has developed that in me. To see each person as valuable and having great potential in his body. Because that’s how he sees each of us, as valuable.
