Kind Love

 I have a saying, "If you are doing ungodly speech and behavior with less intensity and less frequency then you are growing. Praise God for that growth. If you're anything like me, you probably put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect. When we constantly feel like we are letting God down, we are actually giving glory to the enemy. God never expected us to be perfect! That's why Jesus went to the cross. This sounds like such a simple message but think about how many times you choose to live according to your own abilities and strengths. That is pride. We are called to live in God's grace. It's such a beautiful word filled with so much kindness.

Have you ever gone to church and for months they will talk about what we need to do, what we should be doing, how we are not living up to the standard of God's Word, etc... Then, this special gift shows up one Sunday morning and some guest speaker will simply talk about God's grace. You feel your shoulders relax, a smile forms on your face, you feel this spring of refreshment bubbling up in your spirit and your heart feels loved and happy for the first time in a long time. 

Today, have your own service with God. Look up scriptures about his love for you and about His grace. Soak it in and carry it in your heart and mind all day. Memorize the words he speaks over you about his unconditional love. He is the Savior NOT you. Release it all unto him and feel the freedom of living under grace and not legalism. Breath deep, in then out, over and over, play worship songs, dance, sing, relax... Don't worry about ANYTHING but trust him with ALL your concerns. This actually sounds like something we should do often. Giving ourselves a break from it all once in awhile. That's how we think but God actually wants us to live like this everyday. 

Why is it so hard for us to feel this freedom? Why is our default to always go back to stress, control, juggling too many things, worrying... Spend time with your friend and Savior and let him speak to you through his Word about this. We should all be growing and changing in ways that please our Lord but not under a cloud of shame. We should be doing it in a Spirit of Joy. Pull away from the world and draw near to God. He is waiting for us with open arms and a heart of pure, tender love.

John 1:16, From his fullness we all received grace upon grace.

2 Timothy 2;1, You therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6;4, Sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.

Galatians 2:21, I don't reject the grace of God, for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!

1 Corinthians 15:10, But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile...

Jeremiah 31:3, ...I have loved you with an everlasting love: I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

Lamentations 3:22-23, The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases: his mercies never come to an end: they are new every morning: great is his faithfulness.

May we all learn to LIVE IN HIS GRACE and stop trying to earn it. Breath in JOY. In Jesus name. Amen

He is in it

Today's message is going to be short but powerful. In my study this morning it asked me if I believe what God says. And then it asked me if I believe what God says when I am in pain. I had to think about that. My pain always triggered my immaturity that God was not with me. That he pulled away because I wasn't Worthy or I wasn't important etc. But through pain God has taught me and matured me in his Word that he never leaves me or forsakes me. That I can crawl under his wing and that he is a refuge for me! That I am so worthy he gave his life for me. That his thoughts toward me everyday are more than the grains of sand. That I am the apple of his eye. That the Son of God literally intercedes on my behalf and prays for me everyday, all day.

Think of the Bible stories that go with these examples. God is in the Lion's den. God is in the prison. God is in the fire. God is in the open sea. God is in the pit. God is in the desert. Reading and understanding your Bible every day is what will make you fearless in those times when it looks or feels like God is not there. 

2 Timothy 2:13, "If we are faithless, he remains faithful. For he cannot deny himself"

James 4:8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." 

Silently Screaming

In my quiet time with the Lord last night I felt like he was pouring this message into me.

When I enter my day and I give it to the Lord making his will above mine, he will many times make Divine appointments. He will have a certain person cross my path and I always thought it was because I needed to tell them about the Lord. However, he has been showing me that we have to be very sensitive to not speak what we WANT to say but speak to THEIR emotional needs.

The Lord has been teaching me that these Divine appointments are usually because someone needs to be seen or heard. Inside they are silently screaming for someone to see them, hear them or care about them. When we come across these people during our day we need to silently ask the Lord, "You know what this person needs. I am asking you to use my mouth to speak to them or my ears to listen to them or my arms to help them. Let your will and your purpose be done right now." 

My first instinct was always to jump in to their emotions and immediately share a story of mine to let them know that I empathize with them and they're not alone. That might be something that you can share later but I've come to learn that it's more important just to focus on their need in the beginning.

I once read that " Hurt people, hurt people." Romans 12:15 also says, "weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are rejoicing." Most people that I come across just need someone to see them. They want to be heard and acknowledged.  However, there are times when a person is hurting and they may not be acting very nice. I would have to say though that most times I can break through that with love and get them to smile, talk or accept a compliment. There are very few people that are hard as Stone but I still say something nice to them and I know that God will send someone else to keep trying to make them feel loved. Sometimes it's simply just not our job that day. The Lord may only want us to start the softening process and leave the rest to someone else.

As you reach out to people you start to sense what God wants in the situation. Sometimes I come across people that are broken. They are emotionally distraught about something and they just need someone to listen or be on their side. They need to not feel alone, abandoned or deserted. They simply need someone to care. 

I've come across angry people, wounded people, joyful people and apathetic people. I just make sure that I make them feel loved and heard. I don't let their attitude trigger me to become defensive anymore because the Lord has made it very clear that he wants me to go out there and love people the way that he loves. Every situation is different. There will be times where I will just listen and other times where I will pray with them, or put my hand on their arm and comfort them or hug them if they give me permission. I always leave them with a scripture of Hope. I look with sincere love deep into their eyes and I tell them that I heard them and I see their pain. I'll ask their name and I put it in my prayer list on my phone right in front of them and tell them that I will be praying for them. 

I'm just a person that has a lot of empathy and thanks to God I have good boundaries also. I finally understand that it's not about going out there and giving what I think people need but just doing for others what he did for me.  He sees me, he hears me, he comforts me, he changes me and then he asks me to go out and love people that same way. I know people that could never go out and talk to people the way that I do. But they serve in their own quiet way by helping others through acts of service.

We have to stop being so busy that we don't see the needs that are all around us. Make someone feel seen today.

The Triune God

I've often wondered how this Triune God is to be looked at. How the three function in our lives. How is God present as we go through this life? I asked him and I asked for Grace to write and this is what came out. 

God the Holy Spirit enables us to press on through life and it's trials. God appoints his angels to fight spiritual battles around us! His Son Jesus is interceding with prayer on our behalf. And Father God is working all things together for the good! That is the God that is for us!!! And all he asks from us is to believe and have faith that he is in control. He also loves when we throw in some praise even when we're in the thick of it all.

Now you know how God is for you, so, will you trust him? Will you speak his name in authority to strike down doubt and fear? Will you finally put on the armor of God and know that Satan is the one responsible for everything bad and stop blaming God? If you believe this then, now is the time to turn our complaining into prayers! Because there will be no better feeling than crossing that finish line and running into his arms and he tells you, "Great job my good and faithful servant!" Life is not easy, it's not fair but we have a God who loves us and who is sovereign and wants the best for us. When life gets tough the tough get going in Jesus name 👍💞

Broken Mirror

I was reading my daily devotional on the Bible app this morning and it said something I found to be striking. It said that self-deprecation is pride also. I never thought about it like that. When we talk negative about ourselves whether it be about our weight or saying things like,  "I'm such an idiot."... It's still focusing on self. Both angles put the focus on ourselves and not on God. Whether it's puffing ourselves up OR self- deprecation we are focused solely on self. I didn't understand it fully but it hit me hard. So I laid my head down and just started to meditate on it. You just lay there sometimes begging God to heal you but it feels like your prayers are hitting the ceiling. You actually stop asking and believing. You start to think he's going to do what he wants to do anyway so why bother. All of that creeps in so slowly. That's when we unknowingly start focusing on OUR FEELINGS and not on HIS PROMISES AND POWER. 

I just started to have this vision,  there was a mirror and it was all smashed. I looked into it and I was all distorted so I picked up all the pieces and put them in this basket and I lifted them up to God but even all of the little tiny glass mirror fragments rose up at the same time and it was all sparkly. He took all of the pieces even the little micro broken pieces and next thing I knew he lowered it down and he had put the mirror all back together but all the cracks were filled with gold and he had put this pure gold frame around it that was beautiful. But here's what I learned, when I looked in the mirror and focused on me I was all distorted and it was disturbing and nothing made sense. But when I looked at the mirror and focused on the beauty of what he did there was a sense of elation, joy and completeness! And it goes back to what I said in the beginning if we're focused on our performance OR lack of, if it has anything to do with self, if it's about what a great job we did on our own or how we failed and put the focus on us as what a failure we are, we will feel distorted and not complete. But if we focus on the work that he does and the work that he's doing in us and in our situations, like how he filled all the broken places with gold. Then, we see him and his majesty, his power and his love instead of our failures, brokenness OR our self-worth. We can do nothing apart from the Vine. All glory is his.

Don't focus on your brokenness OR self-help.  Focus on what he does. We so often think that we figured our way through something but it was him who got us through. Other times we beat ourselves up because of our weakness and see ourselves as failures. Both are pride. Our brokenness is Holy and sacred ground where God sits with us as he teaches us, restores us and redeems us. It's where he fills all of our cracks with gold and turn us into his image. It's all about him. 

After thinking about all of this I realized that he has the wisdom and the power to orchestrate a much larger picture than we could ever imagine. So many times we activate our need to control and that also is pride. We have to learn how to trust, rest and be still, knowing just one thing, that he is God and we are his sheep and he loves. 

We're Only Human

I'm writing this from a very troubled place in my life right now. I'm not writing from the Pinnacle of joy but from the valley of despair. I signed up to do this 4 month cleanse and it goes down to a cellular level and cleans out your cells and then fills them with good things. However, it's a long process. The first two phases went great and I loved what I was eating and I had tons of energy. I was really feeling like I was finally out of my bed, accomplishing things and feeling creative again! I was feeling joyful. Then I started phase 3 which is a detox phase and it has taken me to a very difficult place. Having all of these toxins released from my cells and they're loose in my body which is what makes you not feel well. There are binders that you can take that pull these toxins out but sometimes there's a backup of toxins in your body and it affects you mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. My niece and I have been helping each other go through a hard time right now. She's been committing herself to taking these walks and just talking to the Lord. She records them and sends them to me everyday and I've been gleaning so much from that. As I was sitting here in bed feeling terrible, not only physically but all of this is stirring up a lot of emotional turmoil and old thoughts. You start to ask God all kinds of questions of why you have to go through something like this. I remembered a metaphor that I gleaned from the movie Shawshank Redemption. I think I wrote a blog post about this. Tim Robbins plays an innocent man who was convicted and inprisoned in a maximum security prison. He went through hell there but all along he was planning an escape which took years of planning and execution. He dug a tunnel behind a poster in his cell and that tunnel led to the main sewage pipe that let out of the prison. The day came when he did his escape and I can't remember exactly but there was probably about 250 yd of sewage pipe that he had to go through and when he emerged outside of the prison walls it was pouring rain. He raised his hands up and the rain was just washing the sewage off of him. 

That story has been something that I have shared with so many people. How many of us would have just given up and never started digging a tunnel? How many of us would have never even formulated a plan to escape and just curled up in our prison cell and lived a life of despair? This story reminds me of the story in Song of Solomon. Where the Shulamite maiden made herself very comfortable in a cave but her lover who represents God went up ahead and found a beautiful place, he would call down to her trying to encourage her to leave the cave, the comfort zone and to follow his voice up to freedom and sunshine! These two stories are so representative of where we want to stay and where God wants us to go. If we stay in our comfort zone we never change but if we go and follow God's voice we arrive to that sacred ground not as our old self but as a new creation in Christ. 

My niece told me today we need to keep our minds off of the why's and how's of the journeys that God calls us to and to just stay focused solely on the God who is calling us. 

I don't even want to admit this but I have backed out of the sewage tube and I have crawled back to my cell, my comfort zone and I'm basically curled up in a ball crying to God telling him just to leave me there. I can't go in that sewage tube again I'm not strong enough, I don't even feel committed enough. It's almost like in the movies when someone says, "Go and save yourself just leave me here." It really is a cry of desperation, self-pity, weariness, lack of faith etc. But you know what, we're only human. We may cry and kick and scream but the bottom line is he wants to rescue us. He wants to give us something better. He wants to build a character and a mindset and a determination in us that cannot be destroyed by the enemy. When we say it's a comfort zone we're not really happy there we're just not challenged there. We're in a place where there's no growth, no hope, no reward. I'm thinking right now how many people live their life like that everyday. But I'm not that kind of person. I may be kicking and crying right now but I'll go back into the sewage tube. I will become fully aware of my pity party and my immaturity right now. I'll realize which I already know that I don't want to stay here and I don't want to stay the way that I am. I want what he has ahead for me. This is a rough one right now but I'm recommitting. I have to depend on him for every breath and every step. I have to lean on him and trust him and believe him. Yes, I am only human, but in Philippians 4:13, it says,  With Christ I can do all things! Luke 1:37, Nothing is impossible with God! Jeremiah 29:11-12, For I know the plans he has for me plans to prosper me and not to harm me. Plans to give me hope and a future. And if I call out to him he will hear me. John 4:4, Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. 2 Tim 1:7, God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. Isaiah 40:31,Those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength, they will rise up on wings like eagles, they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint. 

We serve a God that empowers us, he stands with us when we're weary and gives us HIS strength. When we say, "Just leave me here and go save yourself." He looks at us with compassion and probably a little smirk as he holds back the words, "Why do you have so little faith my child." Then, he empowers his Holy Spirit within us to press on toward the goal that is set before us (Philippians 3:14). We need him and we just have to make the choice of whether we want to be immature children or wise adults.

How far are we willing to go to be where our Lord is? Yes, again, we are only human and we will have our tantrums, meltdowns, come aparts, we will doubt and overthink and spend more time in the why's than the what's. We will sit in our fears and allow the enemy to kick us around when all the while Jesus is standing there with his hand held out telling us," Come to me, 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. Matthew 11:28-30

You see, no matter what we go through he wants us to share his yoke. When we go through the sewage tube he goes with us! We may not see him or feel him but he's there. He's there through all the sewage and he's there at the end to celebrate over us and wash us. Life is dirty and hard, but it's also a terrain that has highs and lows. Every Joy is a road to sorrow and every sorrow is a road to Joy. That's just life and to think otherwise leads only to disappointment. He knows that we're only human that's why he went to the cross. When he pleaded with the Father in The garden of Gethsemane to remove the cross experience, I think a lot of us forget that even though he sweat blood in his pleading, his prayer was not answered with a yes. When he carried the sins of the world on his shoulders he was separated from his Father for the first time and cried out, Father, why have you forsaken me? When the Bible says he did that for the joy that was set before him - we were that Joy! 

So, when we think we can't go through something, when we shimmy backwards into our prison cell, it's only because we have not spent time with him, basking in his promises and truths, recalling every blessing that he's ever done for us, having fellowship with a dear friend to help us straighten out our thoughts and feelings. We haven't sat quietly and let his peace soak into us. He is more than human, he is the God of the universe who came down to earth as a man to die for our sins. He understands our humaneness completely. He's patient with us, he comforts us while we struggle, and he gives us courage to walk through the fires. 

My favorite verse is from James 4:8, "Draw near to me and I will draw near to you." When we have to go through trials we have to recall his Word and in it we will find Jesus, who has all of these beautiful things to say to encourage us and remind us that he will never leave us or forsake us. He's in it with us, interceding for us, his Spirit is inside of us guiding us and comforting us, the angels he has appointed to watch over us are fighting battles all around us on our behalf and the Father is cheering us on every step of the way! Our God is for us not against us! We are his precious children and he will never abandon us.

Let it Go

If the Son of God can go through what he went through prior to the cross and on the cross. Forgiving a bunch of sinners simply because he loves us. Can't we also forgive  and offer a sacrifice of self. Putting our needs aside and desiring instead the unity that Christ asks us as his children to have toward each other? I want to encourage us this Holy week to humble ourselves and go and make peace. Forgiving others as Christ has forgiven us. 

The Tin Man

Do you recall in the movie, "The wizard of Oz" when they came upon the tin Man? His first words that he tried to utter were, "oil can". He had rusted up as he was working because a rainstorm moved in. Frozen in mid swing he stayed like that until some kind people came across and offered assistance.

Have you ever felt like you needed an anointing from God because some situation had Frozen you. Whether you feel unjustly treated, confused, frightened, perturbed or wounded. You feel Frozen physically but your mind is running in high gear struggling to make sense of it all and trying to manage all the emotions that are stirred up. 

I've had such a situation and I do feel physically Frozen. I've been unable to sleep because my mind won't stop. My emotions are hurt. I felt left in the dark and when I expressed my feelings I received no understanding. There's nothing worse than feeling unjustly treated and then dealing with a troubled mind. 

When a disturbance threatens our peace, as a Christian we struggle because our natural instinct is to defend our self. However, the Holy Spirit constantly prods us to forgive the offense, to be kind and compassionate to the offender. Even though we want to do the right thing, our mind has to go through a process of giving up the struggle for what we feel Justice would be and simply surrender and let it go. 

There is nothing more painful in life than to feel rejected or unjustly treated. It hurts and those feelings roll around causing a clenched jaw, sleepless nights, tears and pleas for peace. We become Frozen in that state until someone kind comes along and offers to oil us with compassion. But the final unfreezing comes through the anointing oil of the Holy Spirit. That is a penetrating oil that finds its way right to the heart. After our exhausting battle in the mind of what is fair and what is not, the Holy Spirit, if we allow, will anoint us with the truth. The truth that though we were yet sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) and we are to show the same Mercy to others that Christ showed to us (Matt 18:33, James 2:13-18). It doesn't have to be in person but it does have to be in our heart. We must remember that the battle is not ours. It is God's. (Joshua 23:10, Duet 3:22, Deut 20:4). Like Mother Theresa says in her famous quote, Love them Anyway, "For you see in the end, It is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

Everything in us wants to scream, "But that's not fair!" Was it fair that Christ went to the cross for us and bore our sins upon his innocent body? We are called to set down our selfish pride and allow the Holy Spirit to soften us and build the character of Christ in us. Until we do that we will be frozen on the outside but tumultuous on the inside. Once we surrender our pride and take on the humility of Christ then, peace will flood our mind, and our hearts will be transformed. Our jaw will unclench, we will sleep sweet and our mind will have peace and rest. Forgiveness will have done its work in us. The situation may not change but God will have changed us. We can't control the world around us but we can remember that God is in control. Ask God for his anointing over your mind. Life is not fair. Storms will come and we can become paralysed but our God has the anointing oil can.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:13b)

Love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8)

Forgive, just as you have been forgiven.(Ephesians 4:32)

In closing, we have to take into consideration how our emotions can get the best of us and overreact. Most times it's not an offense it's just humans being humans. And we must always remember to turn the mirror upon ourselves to make sure that our own hearts are right. 

Shalom Shalom 

Forgive and you will be forgiven. (Matt 6:14-15)