“If You Feeling Froggy, Jump!”

Posted on April 10, 2018 by daaorg1214

“If you feeling froggy, jump!” Back in the day, you wouldn’t say those words to someone unless you were confident in your ability to back them up. It was a dare—a challenge—an invitation to sho’nuff throw-down on the playground. And after you duked it out (if it came to that), you would have solidified your reputation. If you were a smaller kid with glasses, like my cousin, Steve, and you were looking to make your mark, a lot of mileage could be gleaned from making a dare like this. The thing is, it only worked if you were serious. The other kids could smell your bluff if you weren’t prepared to do battle during recess and back up all that talk.

Faith can sniff out a bluff talker in less time than it takes to blink an eye. Lots of folks will tell you they’re believing God to receive one thing or another. Maybe it’s a single sister or brother praying to cross paths with the quality person they will ultimately call hubby or wifey. Many of us are praying about our finances. We’re on the grind every day, but the 9 to 5 just ain’t cuttin’ it; and some of us are facing circumstances that are much more serious. We need the intervention of God’s miraculous power in a major way. Whatever the need, whether it’s finances, good relationships, better health, or an improved well-being in every area of our existence; faith is required. We need it to move us from point A to point B, and its necessary to go higher and progress further in every aspect of our lives.

James 2:24 says that just as the body without the spirit is dead, faith without works is dead as well. This tells us something extremely important about faith, it doesn’t respond to our whims. Faith responds to authority. Hebrews 11:1(NKJV) gives us the definition of faith. It says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is a substance. We can’t see it, but it’s a heavyweight. God has given it to us to get some things done in the earth. Faith is the title deed to what we’ve prayed to receive even before it has arrived on the scene. In other words, a bluff just ain’t going to cut it. We have to believe in the Father’s love so much that we don’t doubt for one second that He loves us, wants to see us blessed, and is willing and able to do just that…to bless us!

If you felt froggy enough to jump, it meant that not only were you willing to go toe to toe, but you most likely would dive in first. If you got caught brawling it out, you’d take the blame in the principal’s office for instigating things. My cousin, Steve, was never in trouble and was the last person you’d ever expect to see in front of the principal, but he was tired of this one kid who’d snatch his glasses, and then hide them. He got to a point where he was no longer going to be afraid to fight. He was ready to put it all on the line.

For those seeking to stand with the spiritual armor that God has provided through Christ, we put it all on the line every day, but we brawl with faith! Challenges are unavoidable in life, and we can’t bluff our way to victory; we have to get froggy when it comes to anything that seeks to separate us from the life God desires us to have. James 1:2-4 The Message (MSG) tells us exactly how to do it, “2-4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”

Trying to get out of something prematurely is the same as trying to meet a challenge with undeveloped confidence. It’s shaky ground, where a person doesn’t really believe that God will back their steps. It’s when your mouth is trying to write a check that your heart isn’t prepared to cash. Deep down, this person isn’t in the faith for the long haul, and the devil can smell it. Best not to play that game. Instead, get cemented in the real deal—the all-in commitment to God. That’s when you get froggy with any challenge the enemy throws your way. You’ll fight the good fight of faith, and Jesus will make sure you always win. ■

“Jesus, Take the Wheel”

Posted on April 3, 2018 by daaorg1214

The revelation that Jesus Christ spoke in John 8:32(NLT) is more than revolutionary. It is the foundation upon which our healing and restoration rests. In this verse, Jesus said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” As truth speakers and truth seekers, we cannot let the splendiferous opportunity to dissect and digest this yumminess slip by us. It is my personal belief that throughout humanity’s history, God has been very patient with us as our minds and hearts expand, for they must do so to accommodate the heft of His truth, as well as the infinite treasure of His provision and goodness. He doesn’t force us to accept or assume it all in one fell swoop. We can only handle the truth in small doses.

There can be no question that the knowledge of Jesus Christ expands our minds monumentally, and walking in his example swells the expanse of our hearts exponentially. This increase in our spiritual and internal landscape is what creates a landing strip for blessings. As Ephesians 3:20(NLT) tells us, it allows God’s mighty power to be “at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” It is therefore logical to deduce that if we have a little biddy piece of truth, we cannot live above that which we know.

Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing—perceiving—trusting the Word of God. In order to build our faith—the faith that is necessary to become all that we are meant to be—it is essential that we know more than we know right now. The Word of God is not a little biddy piece of truth. It is THE truth! And God’s truth helps us make leaps in our minds and hearts that we would not otherwise make. God demands that through faith we trust in what we cannot see. And not only this, we must accept the truth that those things that are unseen are more real than those that can be seen. This is most definitely a release-the-wheel way of living.

To live out our destinies, Jesus Christ must be in the driver’s seat. Why? Because in John 14:6(NLT) he declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

There’s pressure all around us. It feels as if it’s coming from every direction, and some of us are losing it big time. We can’t make sense of things, and we have to ask ourselves if it is because something is missing? Is there some piece of truth that’s not in your arsenal? Is this truth the piece of the puzzle that will bring clarity, purpose, and peace to your life?

Jesus knows the answers to these questions, and they are found in him. In Matthew 7:7(NKJV), he tells us, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” James 4:2 also tells us that we have not because we ask not. Sometimes we don’t ask Jesus for answers because we know on some level that they will take us to places we’ve never been before. They will cause us to have to function on a higher spiritual level, and this scares us. We shouldn’t have fear. We were created for this.

In John 16:12(NLT), Jesus told the disciples, “There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now.” Jesus Christ IS the TRUTH! He could have given the disciples knowledge that would have blown their socks off, but he didn’t, because they had not cultivated the head-and-heart space to deal with it. Let it not be said of us.

We hold so tightly to the familiar and comfortable, because we believe them to anchor the journey we call life. Hebrews 6:19 tells us that our hope in Christ is the strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. When we loosen our grasp, and let Jesus take the wheel of our lives, he will lead us to the place that God has destined us to be. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we can know, handle, and walk in the truth!■

All Day, Every Day Love

Posted on March 27, 2018 by daaorg1214

God has given every person that is living, or that has ever lived, a wealth of good stuff. It comes baked in by virtue of our humanity and habitation on this earth. Although not everyone sees it this way, the truth is that even before our first breath we are blessed beyond what we deserve. We have life, and therefore, we have hope! And not just hope, but the hope of God’s glory! Colossians 1:26-27 The Message (MSG) tells us, “This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple.”

Colossians 1:26-27 beautifully informs us of the awesomeness that God is offering to each person. As His sons and daughters, we are replicas of Christ; therefore, like Christ, part of our purpose for being on earth is to walk by faith. We must learn to call those things that are not, as though they were. In other words, we confess our faith by speaking God’s promises into and over our lives even though our conditions are less than optimum. This means that we cannot allow ourselves to always be sold-out to the things our physical eyes can see. 2Corinthians 4:18 (NIV) puts it best. It says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

As a spiritual being having a human experience, not only must you come to recognize that those things which are unseen are more REAL than the things that are seen, but you must know that SPIRITUAL TREASURES that are unseen to the physical eye are more VALUABLE than those treasures that are tangible and can be seen. A Christ-kind-of-faith demands that we operate from this level of spiritual awareness. This is why Jesus Christ taught us in Matthew 6:19-20 (NIV), “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

We were not there when Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross for our sins, but as Christians, his sacrifice is more than the air we breathe; it is more than life itself. His ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection is the very essence of all that we are and could ever hope to be. It is something we have never seen with physical eyes, but with spiritual eyes we can see it clearly, because the Spirit of Christ within us bears testimony of it. The totality of Christ exceeds whatever we are in this moment. It is more real than the body we live in and the skin that clothes it.

God has made it possible for us to walk in the reality of Christ every moment of every day. It is not a ‘walk by sight’ thing; it’s a ‘walk by faith’ dynamic. Hebrews 11:6 gives us the barometer to measure the importance of this. It tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith.

Not only does faith make it possible for us to respond to God’s goodness, mercy, and grace with gratitude, but faith gives us the bandwidth to express God’s nature. These are the treasures we should be interested in laying up. They are enduring, and not only impact our lives, but the lives of those within the span of our influence.

1John 4:12 (NIV) says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” This is huge! The nature of our God is love, and His love—love from the Creator of all that exists—is made complete in us! Through the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love expands us. It will stretch a person beyond his or her comfort zone, and make them all that God created and intended them to be. Nothing in life is better than this. The question is whether we will actually live and walk in the reality of all God has made us. This is our choice, and if our aim is to honor Him, we’ll choose love all day, every day. ■

The Biggest Break Imaginable

Posted on March 20, 2018 by daaorg1214

We all have distinct and different avenues that we took to establish a relationship with God. Some of us came to the Lord Jesus Christ because a person witnessed the Gospel to us, and we were overcome with his love in that instance. Others were brought up in the church, and it was more of an organic progression. Then, there are those who felt compelled in their souls to embrace the call. No matter how we became reacquainted with Heavenly Father, we should know beyond any uncertainty that it was not by chance or luck. We were destined to be His sons and daughters, even before we were born.

Ephesians 1:7 The Message (MSG) tells us, “Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!” In most instances, it isn’t until you’re out of the frenzy that you can really grasp the freedom that it talks about in this verse. An abusive environment is chaotic; sometimes managed chaos, but chaotic nonetheless. An atmosphere that lacks the peace of God is one where there’s a heighten level of alert all the time. Any minute the script could flip from reasonable to unreasonable, from quiet to crazy, and from calm to fear. Anyone that deals with this for an extended period will have a mindset that is very different from the peaceful mind of Christ that God desires for us.

We were destined to be free from the oppression of fear, and we are called to live through God’s love. There are certain truths that we simply must trust in order to do this, because we cannot build our relationship with God on fear. He sets the terms, and His terms are such that He wants us free in our hearts and minds, because that’s how love moves—it moves freely.

One of the truths we must trust is that God accomplished through Jesus Christ what we could not accomplish for ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, God’s Word declares that He thinks we’re pretty awesome. In Ephesians 2:10, He calls us His masterpieces, and He has great things in store for all of us, but we tend to let sin and fear rule at times, so we don’t always cooperate with His plan. Another important piece of truth that you and I have to know and trust is that God indeed has a plan, and we’re a big part of it. Ephesians 1:8 The Message (MSG) says, “He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.”

Cooperating with God’s plan is how we cut ourselves the biggest break imaginable. That brings me to another juicy hulk of truth that we must trust to build our relationship with God; He knows best. This is huge, because most of us either think we got it all figured out or that we have to carry the load ourselves. Jesus Christ invites us in Matthew 11:28 to give him our burdens. He knows how to handle them. He wants to help us, and we need to cut ourselves a break and let him.

A whole lot of us struggle with this. We really do think we got it going on, and that we can somehow make all the pieces of our lives come together. I found out the hard way that it ain’t so. I was one of those people that felt the pulling in my soul. It came at a time when I was pretty low, and emotionally numb from dealing with situations that I lacked the maturity, wisdom, and strength to handle. It was during this time that my soul cried the loudest. I heard it, and knew that nothing in the earth would satisfy what I needed. It was the utmost imperative that I experience something real. It had to be something that would scoop me up from the muck and mire of a gloom that was thicker than molasses. God’s supernatural power is larger than life, but at that time I could only provide the tiniest opening for it to come through. It’s amazing to me even today that this was all it took, because with that smaller-than-a-pin-head opening, God’s love wedged through and transformed my life.

Heavenly Father tells us in Romans 8:28 (NKJV) that “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” This is His promise and we can trust it with every fiber of our beings. Jesus Christ invited us to this life of freedom—free to love him, free to love others, and free to love ourselves. It’s not a ‘hot one minute cold the next’ kind of love. It’s the glue that holds everything in our lives together! If you’ll surrender to it and let the Spirit have his way, God’s love will nurture your soul and work with you until you’re all grown up in Christ, walking tall and strong in faith. Cut yourself a break and let the love of Christ do this for you.■

The Once Hopeless and Now Grateful Onion Peeler

Posted on March 13, 2018 by daaorg1214

I was raised in a rural community, and our house was on what used to be a long dirt road. It was paved with asphalt when I was a teenager, and our neighbor’s son must have thought it belonged only to him. Young and sometimes very foolish, Frankie would speed down that paved road on late Saturday nights like a crazy person, and there was no way he would have been able to safely stop for anything in his view. As we ran for our lives down that newly paved road in the dead of night, oddly enough that’s what was on my mind. Not the fury of rage that was chasing us, not the abuse we’d spent the entire night trying to fend off and would spend the early morning trying to conceal. My concern was to motivate my mother and sisters to push through exhaustion, to keep running so we’d be nowhere on the road if Frankie came through. That’s how anesthetized I had become to our weekend traumas.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I don’t sleep well at night. I sleep like a baby during daytime hours, but nights, forget about it. Growing up, my nights were often filled with terror…unspeakable terror, and I was never not aware of it. My constant state of being was a cross between nervousness, nausea, and numbness. No one outside the walls of our home suspected a thing. My siblings and I were always impeccably dressed, and very well behaved. We were bred to be keepers of the secret—to keep our mouths closed about family business. We were quite good at it.

I didn’t know that I had a right to speak about my pain or to hope that I would be free from it. The heaviness was crushing me, and my soul, oh my soul was tired. But I couldn’t give it a name. I was too young to be tired, my grandmother would say, and I was too old to cry. When I did cry, no one tended to my tears, and I truly had no expectation that they would.

I heard someone say that they couldn’t face another day in the shape they were in. I didn’t have a day to spare. I was the epitome of weary, wounded, and sad. I sought the face of Jesus at a point where I couldn’t face one more minute of life as I had known it. When I gave my life to him totally and completely, the light came on, and I knew in that moment I was changed. Many people have made that statement, but I don’t believe one can do so as veraciously as someone that understands the depth of how ravaging fear can be on the human soul.

Jesus Christ said in Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT), “28 Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” I learned this passage in Sunday School. For years, it cascaded about my shoulders like a warm shawl, but I didn’t wrap myself in it. That took some time.

Jesus said come, rest, then take. This was not an instantaneous process, and most of us are far too impatient to see the beauty of it unfold. I came and rested. It was glorious. Then came the work.

Like an onion, I had layers; most of us do. The first is peeled lovingly by our blessed Lord, and there are tears of joy. We experience his freedom, but then we realize that there is so much more. There are more layers to peel, and deeper wounds to heal.

All these years later, I’m still peeling back layers, and still crying tears of joy and sometimes sorrow as I do, but I realize that this surrendering work in Christ is vital to life. Our precious Savior does not force his way into our hearts. Peeling away the layers of hurt and pain is part of our life’s work. Through it we learn how deep Jesus will go to heal us.

I’m very aware of how the abuse I suffered has affected me. It’s given me survival skills that no longer serve me well, but often hinder me. It’s given me an almost obsessive need for peace, and it has also allowed me a front row view of my own life as I’ve transformed from hopeless to grateful. What I received from God through the Lord Jesus Christ was a drenching that completely deluged my pitifulness. The memory of it so impacts me today that I find joy in being an onion peeler. The deeper I go into my wounded self, the deeper I feel his unyielding, unconditional love. ■

My Heart Hurts, But My Soul Feels Good

Posted on March 6, 2018 by daaorg1214

God has created us to be three-part beings; spirit, soul, and body. People often wrongly identify the parts, but 1Thessalonians 5:23 clarifies it quite nicely. There are three parts that make us humans, and our soul is the part of us that we must constantly keep in check. It’s governed by our will, and God won’t violate our free-will choice. We can do whatever we want to do. We’ll pay the consequences of our wrong actions, but the choice is squarely ours to make. The soul has a couple of gates. Stuff goes in and stuff goes out. That’s an over-simplified statement, but true nonetheless. The mind is the thinking center, and the heart is the feeling center. Both have storage capacity, and sometimes they hold on to the wrong things, and this causes us major problems down the road.

In Proverbs 4:23, God tells us to guard our hearts, and to let this be one of our chief occupations in life. If Heavenly Father has told us to make guarding our hearts a priority, then it means that the heart is pretty important, and not guarding it will cause some serious malfunctions. To guard something is to be careful about what goes in it and what comes out of it. In other words, we must be extremely discriminating about what we let through the gate. This places us in a position of discernment, and sometimes we’re not so good at it. We can’t predict the future, things don’t work out as we expect, and the people we choose to have relationships with are not always who they purport to be. These are just a few of the reasons why we desperately need the help and guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit. He’ll help us discern what is true and righteous.

With the heart, a situation might make us feel really good, but be bad for us. On the flip side, a situation that is for our overall well-being might break our hearts. That’s the tricky part, because oddly enough, what’s best for the soul doesn’t always feel good to the heart at first. But here’s the whopper piece of information that none of us can afford to miss, whenever we do what is best for the soul, we increase spiritually. God tells us in 3John 1:2 that He desires that we prosper, be in good health, and that our souls will flourish in His goodness. This is why the adversary blinds the minds and hearts of people through his tactics of bombardment and chaos.

Distraction is his game, and so often we fall for it. We become so consumed with the heart business that we neglect the soul, and end up missing the blessing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed this in the lives of others. They feel as if they can’t catch a break. It’s one problem right after the other for them, and it’s because a pivotal blessing is coming their way. Causing them to miss it by distracting them is the name of the devil’s game.

We have to open our eyes and begin to see these distractions for what they are. They are sent our way to keep us from making the very decision that’s going to usher in what we’ve been praying to receive. Our choices can be doors to opportunities that will advance us in Kingdom pursuits. These are the choices that are before us every day; choices to nourish our souls with God’s Word, so that it will cause all aspects of our lives to thrive.

You have to face the reality that when it comes right down to it, it’s YOUR soul on the line. When you stand before the judgment seat of God’s throne, you can’t take anyone with you. This should motivate us to move everything in our lives aside so that we can get quiet and spend some quality time with God in His Word. This is a very important way that we can hear from Him.

Looking at romantic movies or reading novels, you might have come across the advice, “Just listen to your heart.” This sounds like the right thing to do, but it isn’t always wise counsel. Jeremiah 17:9 warns that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and Proverbs 26:23 cosigns this. It warns that smooth words sometimes hide a wicked heart. So, when it comes to someone else’s heart, as well as our own, we need the Lord’s help to discern the right choices so that we can make good, solid decisions.

God has a treasure waiting for you, and He doesn’t want you to miss it. Don’t let chaos and bombardment confuse you. Isaiah 26:3 tells us that God will keep us in perfect peace when we trust in Him and keep our thoughts fixed on Him. Your heart may want what it wants, but let God take control, because only He knows what’s best for your soul.■

“I Cry to You, But You Don’t Answer”

Posted on February 27, 2018 by daaorg1214

My friend, Maxine, ran into a rough spot when she got sober about nine years ago. Her personality is bubbly and infectious; she never had a problem landing a job, just couldn’t keep it. With her prior arrests, background checks always caught up with her. It made her employment history sketchy at best. Maxine’s dad worked in maintenance and janitorial service most of his life, and she had picked up a few skills here and there. She decided she’d try her hand at cleaning homes. When she told her friends about the idea, everyone was on board, and she was off to a good start.

Maxine was introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ in rehab, and her relationship with God continued to grow. She began to meet new people, and her housecleaning jobs increased. She decided to specialize in cleaning floors, rugs, and carpets, and make a go of a small business. Things really began to take-off from there. Her friends continued to be very supportive and gave her lots of encouragement and referrals. Maxine gained a reputation for good, reliable service at a good price. It wasn’t until six years later, when she started to take on larger clients, that her business hit a snag.

She enjoyed the initial building stage, but things took on a much different tone as the business grew, and her faith took a hit as well. As the money stream tightened, Maxine became anxious. She felt as if the Lord was letting her down. Many of us have been in this place, where our backs are against the wall and we don’t know quite what to do. The things that used to work for us are no longer working. We cry out to the Lord, but it seems that He isn’t hearing us.

In the Book of Job in the Old Testament, Job said as much. He said to the Lord in Job 30:20 (NLT), “I cry to you, O God, but you don’t answer. I stand before you, but you don’t even look.” These moments, when it seems that God isn’t responding, His mercy is speaking loud and clear, and we have the distinct privilege to press upon our spiritual hearing to receive what His mercy is saying. Heavenly Father is incredibly patient with us. 1John 5:14 tells us that He always hears our prayers. He’s interested in every detail of our lives, but we must also remember that God’s number one priority is our spiritual growth in Christ.

Heavenly Father wants us to succeed in life, but sometimes a subtle shift slips in. It’s one that causes us to lean less on the Lord Jesus and lean more on the flesh. We begin to walk more by sight than by faith. We forget that the goal is that our view of who God is and what He is willing to do for us grows, as our reliance on self-effort and ability diminishes. Hebrews 13:5 (NIV) gives us some extremely good counsel when this happens. It tells us, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Everything happens for a reason, and although you may not understand it, the lesson learned will inevitably be that God didn’t bring you this far to leave you. He’s working in you to will and do of His good pleasure through the Holy Spirit. He’s helping you to grow into the person that He desires you to be.

Romans 8:28(NKJV) tells us, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Maxine had a dry spell, but things got better. She learned many spiritual lessons during that season, like how to wait on God before making big decisions. Her eyes were also opened to being more thankful to the Lord for having people in her life that were willing to support her the way that they did. But the greatest lesson she learned was how quickly doubt can slip into our hearts when situations in our lives change. Doubt is not a part of God’s Kingdom. It doesn’t come from Him, and it takes up space that only trust and love for God should occupy. So yes, dry seasons will sometimes occur in life, but our commitment to hold to God’s unchanging hands will ensure they are only temporary. He promises that ultimately, everything will work together for our good.■

Pants too Tight, Mouth too Loose

Posted on February 20, 2018 by daaorg1214

My grandmother would say to me, “Your mouth is going to get you in trouble.” She accused me of talking way too much for a youngin barely able to make up a bed. In her day, kids were to occupy themselves with quiet play, and never to be so brassy as to interject in grown folk’s business. As with every new generation, mine was viewed as a new opinionated breed. This, coupled with an insatiable curiosity, presented a sassiness that often shocked my grandmother. By the time I was a skin-tight jeans wearing teenager, she was utterly stunned by the antics she witnessed on TV and saw reflected in me and my siblings. We were completely outside the box, and nowhere in the contextual framing of her thought process was she able to connect the wires that made us act the way we did.

The combination of pants too tight and a mouth too loose never diminished my grandmother’s love and care, but it earmarked the differences between us. Of course, compared to today, the antics of my generation were mild to say the least. Talk about jeans too tight, today they’re a little more than stockings. Some of the things that bothered my grandmother about my generation are championed in today’s society, and perhaps necessary for progression and freedom of expression. But as with most generations, ours lacked the patience to weed out the less useful, while cherishing many of the priceless jewels from those before us.

My grandparents, and foreparents before them, had a boatload of what many people lack today, common sense and wisdom. Proverbs 4:7(NIV) tells us, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” Plenty of people have knowledge, but few seek the wisdom and understanding that comes from God’s Word.

2 Peter 1:3 tells us that through His divine Word, God has given us everything that we need for living a Godly life. His Word teaches us that restraint and modesty contribute to the foundation of moral character, and moral character pleases Him. It keeps us from being arrogant, which is something that God strongly dislikes.

Proverbs 18:21(NKJV) tells us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.” Words are incredibly important. What we do, think, and say are the defining characteristics of our personhood. Heavenly Father warns us that talking too much is dangerous business, and He assures us in His Word that if we don’t use wisdom, we will have to eat the consequences that tag along with a lack of consciousness about what we say. And not only this, once we release our intentions verbally, the enemy gains information better left inside our heads, between us and God. Saying the wrong things at the wrong time allows the enemy greater leverage to undermine our good efforts.

1John 2:6 (ESV) tells us, “whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” God has shared much instruction in His Word that is designed to keep us safe, fulfilled, and thriving; part of this instruction teaches us to be disciplined in our words and actions, because being disciplined is a part of His nature, and as Christians we’re to be like Him.

My grandmother was endeavoring to teach her grandchildren to be people with good moral character, and rightly so. Her approach was one of instilling the notion of an economy of words, and now that I’m much older, I wish I had paid more attention to her wisdom. As a teenager, my pants were too tight and my mouth too loose for my grandmother’s taste. She loved me to pieces any way, but I learned to watch what I say the hard way; after many embarrassing situations, lost friendships, and troublesome circumstances. The best approach is to seek the wisdom of God’s Word and walk in it. This way our words will be seasoned with wisdom, and skin-tight will be the defining characteristic of our relationship with God. ■

The Journey Forward

Posted on February 13, 2018 by daaorg1214

All of us are on a spiritual journey, whether we admit it or not. The evidence to back this up is in the very beginning of the bible, in the Old Testament. Genesis 1:26(NLT) tells us that God had a conversation with Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit. He said “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.” You and I, and everyone else, are made in the image of God. Most of us gloss over this tremendous piece of knowledge without taking the time to digest it, but we should. John 4:24(NKJV) tells us that “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” Our Heavenly Father is Spirit, and He has created us to be spiritual beings, made in His likeness. The highest and greatest level of existence that can be achieved in any person’s life is one in which we experience God through worship and fellowship. Heavenly Father makes no bones about the reality that this must be done Spirit to spirit, and it must be done in truth. Through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, God has given us the distinct honor and privilege to be able to achieve this most holy state of worship and fellowship while we’re on earth and in human form. It’s the greatest perk of eternity, and we should be amazingly thankful to Him for the opportunity.

No one ever goes before God’s throne, and comes away from it the same way that they came. Embracing Him with our whole hearts leaves us changed in a way that is miraculous. We learn in His Word that there is some fruit produced from walking in His goodness. Galatian 5:22-23(NLT) tells us, “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” Walking in oneness and communion with God through the Spirit of Christ will extend these yummies, but a staggering amount of us are still walking around sad and unhappy with our lives. God wants us to know that there’s a way through Him to change this.

“Feeling good is everything!” It’s an old saying, but boy does it ring true. Good feelings of joy, love, and peace are our birthright. It comes with the inheritance we have received through Christ. This is very, very important for us to know, because it gives us a measuring stick for understanding where we are, and where we’re going. You may be sad in this moment, but make no mistake, the joy of the Lord is your destination.

A journey is the action of moving from one place to another, and sometimes we humans don’t like that idea. We want to stay where we are because it’s comfortable. It’s what we know, and very few of us readily embrace a move to the unknown. There are a few non-negotiables that come with being a spiritual being, and faith is one of them. Faith is the DNA of moving by the Spirit. So we’re never going to get to the place that God has destined us to be by staying put. Our journeys in Christ have only two trajectories, forward and upward; and both will require us to make a change.

We need to marinate in this truth because it is the springboard of hope when feelings of sadness are hard to shake. God did not base the production of fruit on how we feel from one day to the next. He made it an absolute sure thing by decreeing that walking in the Spirit is the only way to produce fruit. So if our emotional state is one that is outside the realm of fruit, a spiritual change is on its way and we need to move toward it.

If sadness, loneliness, or any other emotion is causing us to feel down, we can be assured that this state is not our final destination. Sometimes these feelings are an indication that we’re not moving forward at God’s divine pace, and that our faith muscle is not getting the workout it needs. In Romans 12:12(NLT), Heavenly Father tells us how to remedy this. He says, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” We must place our hope in God, because He will not fail us. No, this Christian journey isn’t always easy, but we cannot allow ourselves to be stagnant. God’s Will is that we continue to go higher in Christ, and He’s given us the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit to help us every step of the way.

A Motivational Shift

Posted on February 6, 2018 by daaorg1214

God desires the absolute best for His Children. If you’re a parent, this is very easy to understand, because our children tug at our heartstrings like nothing else. We want them to be happy, and we’ll do just about anything to make this a reality. The love that our Heavenly Father gives us infinitely exceeds that of a biological parent’s love and care. It may be hard for some people to believe this, but it is true. John 3:16(NLT) tells us, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” The amazing reality that God gave his only begotten Son as a sacrifice for our sins is the evidence of His love. There’s no other love that compares to it, and there’s no other sacrifice that will ever compare to what the Father risked in order to save us.

Ephesians 5:1-2 The Message (MSG) tells us, “Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” God has a plan for our lives, and it is that we learn to love like Him. A lot of us are not aiming this high. We are motivated by many things in life. Some of us are chiefly motivated by our professions and careers, others by artistry and creativity. For many of us family is the central focus of our existences. All of these are wonderful, but nothing can take the place of serving God, and doing it with a heart that pleases Him.

One of the things that we are required to do as Christians is to search our hearts and examine exactly what our motivations are from day to day, because this matters to our Heavenly Father. Through the Apostle Paul, God challenges us in 2Corinthians 13:5 (NIV) to “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” The evidence of our faith is reflected in our commitment to Christ, and how we live this out daily through our conversations, attitudes, deeds, confessions, and motivations.

Ephesians 3:17(NLT) tells us that God desires that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith, so that we are rooted and grounded in love. Our hearts can carry a rich treasury. We produce good things from it when our roots grow down into the Lord. Only then will we have the spiritual strength and stamina to be a foundation for all those we love and support. When our motivation is to grow in Christ and love like him, we are not swayed by what we receive, or moved by the disappointment of not receiving enough. A shift to go higher in him is where we have to continually aim our sights, because that is the glue that will forever and beautifully hold our lives together.

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