Change Your Ways

Posted on June 19, 2022 by daaorg1214

2Corinthians 7:9(NLT)
"Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way."

No matter how many times you seem to move forward in your life, all it takes is one word of bad news and the pain, fear, and nervousness rear their ugly heads and set you back. They make you think they’re running the show, and it makes us feel so down. When I read the verse in 2Corinthians 7:9, I was reminded that pain can be purposeful because it can cause us to change in ways that we never thought possible.

You might ask, “Why do we need to go through pain in order to change our ways?” I also asked myself this question, but what quickly came to me is the freedom that God extends to us by allowing us to choose. We have free-will choice, and we get to choose how we’re going to respond to situations. God is the complete opposite of the hurtful feelings we experience. He represents love and liberty for us, and He doesn’t ever want us to feel pain. But if we are going about our daily routines of life, walking around asleep to God’s Word and what He’s called us to do, pain and sorrow will inevitably find their way to us. Our hiccups and missteps can almost always be tied back to something we could have changed or could have let go but didn’t.

God is a loving Father. He is full of joy and love, and He wants us to be full of joy and love as well. Jesus Christ said in John 10:10 that he came to the earth in order to make a more than abundant life available to us. So, we should be confident that Heavenly Father wants us to have a successful life. And in order for us to have the life that Christ made available, God commands us to live like Jesus Christ; we are to live through him. This means we must pattern our lives after the example Jesus left for us.

We experience discomfort when everything around us is conspiring to help us recognize that change is in our midst, and we need to make some adjustments before life no longer cooperates with our refusal to do so. Emotional stress is often a blinking indicator that something is going on internally that requires our attention. Sometimes it relates to an area in our lives that we have not yet given God access to, like our significant relationships, for instance.

Many women have difficulty prioritizing when it comes to the love they feel for a man and the love they should have for God. We must understand that our love for God should be exponentially higher, more intimate, and more fulfilling than the love we have for anyone else. Jesus Christ commands us in Mark 12:30(NLT), “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” We must love God with all that we are, and this is not up for negotiation. As we think about what we need to change, alter, or increase about ourselves and our faith, this is the first place to start.

We need to ask ourselves if we are loving God the way Jesus Christ has commanded. Some of us never ask this question of ourselves, and this is sometimes what our sorrows will reveal. Going back to 2Corinthians 7:9, Heavenly Father reminds us that the positive change that our sorrows spark is the greater gain. In His Word, He tells us His expectations regarding how we should change. He spells out exactly what we should remove from our lives, and exactly the kind of love that should saturate our hearts, and not only this, it is the kind of love we should be receiving from others. In Ephesians 4:30-32(NLT), Heavenly Father tells us, “30 And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. 32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

As God’s children, we are created to house His Spirit and to be conduits of His divine love. We aren’t built to hold on to bitterness, rage, anger, and evil behavior. Not only can these heavies break us down physically, but they take a toll on us spiritually. We can’t be who God has called us to be when our hearts are not flooded with His love and goodness. Change can be very challenging, but we cannot grow without it, and growing in Christ is our reason for being on this earth. We must always remember that we are never alone. The Lord is with us always, and He will never forsake us. We can be comforted in the reality that He is helping us to develop spiritual character, and when we have reached the level of spiritual maturity that He desires, He will be pleased, and we will be rewarded. ■

He Had Two Families and She Didn’t Know It

Posted on May 8, 2022 by daaorg1214

How does a woman with four children, all under the age of 12, find herself abandoned after 13 years of marriage by a man that has another family, and she knew nothing about it? Were there signs that she missed? Was she so busy with everyday life and the kids that she ignored what was happening in her marriage? Or could it be that she was so consumed with taking care of everyone else that it never dawned on her to take care of her own needs? Did she nurture her connection to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, or did she prioritize everything else ahead of it? It can be very challenging to hear and face, but there is always a reason behind every event, experience, and encounter in life. We don’t always know the reason, but God knows. If we are willing and ready, He’ll help to open our eyes, and we can begin to heal and restore our lives using these three very important guideposts.

God’s Kingdom and Righteousness
Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 6:33(NKJV), “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” This is a piece of truth that is meant to ground us completely and thoroughly. It tells us definitively what we should place in the number one spot of every aspect and experience of our lives. God and the things of His Kingdom can never be number two. As a matter of course, every living and thinking being prioritizes. It’s something we humans do, and we prioritize beginning with what is most important to us. If at any time, we allow God and the things of His Kingdom to slip below first place, and we make other things more important to us than our relationship with Him, we will be in big trouble. We will see the opposite of what Jesus Christ has stated in Matthew 6:33. This means that instead of ‘all these things’ being added to us, they will be subtracted from us.

Our marriages and significant relationships are often attacked by the enemy, because he hates God’s institutions, and the devil vehemently comes against unity. 1Corinthians 14:33 lets us know straightforwardly that God isn’t the author of confusion. Confusion and chaos belong to the devil, so when we are severely attacked and emotionally distraught, we know who to blame, but we cannot stop there. If we do, we might miss the elevation and promotion God has for us. We must have the courage to look under the hood, so we more confidently put on the weapons of spiritual warfare and therefore will not continue to be outsmarted by the devil.

Forgiveness, not condemnation
None of us are perfect. We make mistakes, and some of those mistakes are doozies. We make these mistakes sometimes because we’ve been lured into a trap. God warns us in 1Peter 5:8(NLT), “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” Just as angels see what we’re doing, demonic spirits do as well. Angels protect us according to our faith, and demons are dispatched by the enemy to identify our sin and weaknesses; they are looking for a legal way to cause chaos and confusion in our lives, because they cannot do it illegally. Our mis-prioritization of not seeking God’s Kingdom and Righteousness first, as well as any other sin we commit, gives the devil and his cohorts the legal opportunity to interrupt God’s agenda for our lives.

We are the ones to open the door. Sometimes we do it unconsciously or out of ignorance, but our failure to seek God and His Will preeminently is just the opening the devil is looking for. Heavenly Father does not want us wallowing in self-condemnation, blaming ourselves, and putting ourselves down for being blind. Romans 8:1 tells us that Jesus Christ has done away with that condemning business for those who walk after the Spirit. Through his sacrifice on the cross, he cancelled out all the charges the devil could bring against the believer. So, we shouldn’t want to minimize in any way the work of the cross. Condemnation is a tactic of the devil to keep the believer down. TRUTH will always lift us up and open our eyes to the light of Christ.

Causing emotional distress is an evil plot to keep us licking our wounds so we will not know and seek the deliverance God offers. In the case of our significant relationships, many of us get caught up in bitterness and resentment, blaming the other person for the tremendous hurt they’ve caused. We get angry and sometimes this anger turns to rage. The bitterness, resentment, anger, and rage we feel didn’t just suddenly show up on the scene. Even before the husband’s infidelity was exposed, those feelings were in us. But because the infidelity is out in the open, we can see our patterns of behavior. We can now lay bare before Heavenly Father, which is what He requires. We must seek His forgiveness for any sin we’ve committed and place our focus on our relationship with Him.

Jesus Christ is your hope
When there’s an issue in our families that critically impacts us and our children, we might feel helpless and hopeless. But we must remember that feelings and emotions cannot hold a place of governing authority in our lives. Only Jesus Christ can hold this position. He opened the door to the throne of God’s unyielding grace, love, and mercy. Our responsibility is to walk through that door, so that we might obtain God’s favor and mercy, especially in the time when we need it most. Our emotions and feelings will tell us to come apart at the seams, but Jesus Christ tells us to put our trust in God, and do not lean on our own understanding.

1Peter 1:3-4(NIV) tells us, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…” Praise opens the door to deliverance! We should praise God with all that is within us for what He accomplished for us through Jesus Christ! Most of us haven’t understood the resurrection and all that was done through it. Because of what our Redeemer has done, God reconnected us to the brilliance of His purpose. This purpose is that we have His Spirit actually living inside of us. You cannot engage your victory in all the fullness of what God meant your life to be, unless you come out of emotional enslavement and begin to walk in the liberty of Christ. Your origin is not earth, it’s heaven, and in order to access its resources, you must grasp your completeness through Christ. He is the way! He is your hope, and he cannot fail.

If someone fails to honor who you are, never allow it to define your identity. That man may have another family and you didn’t know it, but now that you do, refuse to be defined by the trick the enemy has played. Open your eyes, pray often, and let the Lord lead you to the victory and treasures that He desires to give you.■

How to Be Content in Life

Posted on April 18, 2022 by daaorg1214

John 10:10 is probably on every believer’s list of scripture favorites. It’s the words of our Master Jesus, and he teaches us, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” In this verse, Jesus Christ tells us exactly why he came to the earth. He came to rescue us and to give us a more than abundant life. Most of us would be fine with just an abundant life, but our Heavenly Father deals in the exceedingly abundantly above anything we can ask or think. So, there you have it. More abundant it is! And this is good news indeed! Our problem is that our world has become bombarded with hate, disappointment, mistrust, lies, cruelty, and cynicism. Sadly, it’s rubbed off on many of us, and we no longer believe or stand on the Words of our beloved Savior. We have to change this and turn it around as quickly as we possibly can.

Very simply put, a worldly mindset is one that is shaped and molded by the world. By this, we know that when the Bible refers to the ‘world’, it is defining an anti-Christ consciousness that refuses to honor God. When a mind is blinded in this way, faith eludes it. A worldly mindset can only accept and believe what it perceives through sight and other senses, so it only believes what the systems of the world feed it. This kind of mind is dangerous for the believer, because it is a mind that is disobedient to God’s commandment to walk by faith and not by sight.

The Struggle

As believers, many of us are struggling with John 10:10 because we won’t come to grips with the degree to which we have allowed the world to influence us. We’re not following God’s blueprint, and we want everything on the double. We have refused to put on the Spirit’s fruit of patience, which is God’s requirement. We’re discontent with life because our Heavenly Father doesn’t coddle our refusal to get our heads in the game. He’s committed to our spiritual maturity in Christ, and our excuses will not work.

The discontentment really sets in, and in some cases turns to extreme sadness, when we simply won’t take the initiative to turn things around through our faith in God. In 1Corinthians 3:10(NKJV), the Apostle Paul said, “According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it.” In this verse, God is teaching us through Paul about His amazing grace. He’s teaching us what we are able to accomplish through His grace and love. Just like Paul, we are master builders who are empowered by God to build on the foundation that our Master Jesus laid for us. We accomplish this by using our entire lives. In other words, our very lives should be the strong, solid layers that we are laying on the foundation of Christ. Jesus laid the initial foundation with his finished work, and our lives should be built on it by following God’s Word.

This is a construction phase that will continue until he returns. Our lives are our building material, and we offer them up to God so He can make them what He desires them to be. We know this because God tells us in Romans 12:1 that our whole lives must be presented to Him as a living sacrifice. Our lives are to be holy and blameless before God, and He is the One that will work within us to achieve all this.

Build a life

A foundation is the load-bearing part of a structure or building. This means that it can withstand pressure, and it can support the weight of other hefty material, structures, fixtures or furniture that may be placed on it. A foundation will not collapse when storms come, and strong winds blow. It will continue standing because it is made well. Our lives must be this kind of foundation or else we will not be able to steward God’s blessings in the way He expects, and most importantly, our house will not be in order when our Lord and Savior returns.

We cannot receive spiritual strength from the world. It’s impossible. We must build our lives from God’s Word, and this requires us to use the building material of the present. We can’t try to build a life from our pasts or from the future. Jesus Christ teaches us in Matthew 6:25-27(NLT), “25That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?”

We cannot be so dependent on the world’s customs that we’re lost when it comes to living by the light of Christ. But the truth is that some of us don’t have a clue how to build a life. We can change this by doing as Jesus Christ instructs in Matthew 6:31-33(NLT), “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” To lay a foundation of contentment in life, our faith must grow and continually increase in our Heavenly Father. This must come before any other person or thing.

Work with what you have

All we have is right now. If gratitude and thankfulness for this very present moment escapes us, we are in trouble. Sadness, disappointment, insecurity, doubt, and all the other defeating emotions, have their root in fear. They increase because we are not living in the moment as Christ instructs us to do in Matthew 6:31-33. Instead, we’re worried about what happened in the past or in many cases, we’re worried about not having a need fulfilled in the future. We must wake up and recognize that the worry, angst, fear, and doubt that we indulge in this moment is laying the kind of foundation we don’t want for the future. It’s a shaky foundation, and it is not sturdy enough to hold all that God has in store.

Contentment is the choice to clothe ourselves in gratitude to God for the blessings we have right now. He is a faithful God, and He deserves every good thing from us. Paul said in Philippians 4:11(NLT), “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.” We must be committed to learn this golden lesson as well. He said in 1Timothy 6:8(NLT), “So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.” Heavenly Father doesn’t mean that we should stop wanting greater blessings. He expects us to understand that this moment is all we have, and we should make the most of it with gratitude and contentment before Him; He deserves this. He’s blessed us wonderfully through Christ, and if we’re not as thankful as we should be, we need to pray that He will open our eyes to His goodness. Contentment isn’t having everything we want, it’s the confidence that we have all we need in Christ, and when we need more, we’ll have that too. ■

The Rebuilding Phase

Posted on April 4, 2022 by daaorg1214

Lexi was waiting at the red light, both hands clutching the steering wheel as drivers behind her furiously blew their horns. Two male sympathetic pedestrians trying to get her attention in the kindest way they could, yelled. “Sweetheart, don’t cry! It will be all right!” Tears bolting down her face uncontrollably, the kind words of the pedestrian strangers delivered just enough of an intervention. She looked at them pitifully, noticed the greenlight, and drove through. Utterly distraught, she had no awareness of driving home. Automatic recall had taken over her usual routines and for weeks, all she did was go through the motions. Her heart was so broken that she became both emotionally and physically ill.

She was defying the wisdom of her grandmother by allowing her world to be totally shook by a breakup with a man. And to be honest, she never thought this would happen. Jayden, her boyfriend for the last two years had honestly believed that if he ever got married (and it was a big ‘if’) that Lexi would be the one, but when the ultimatum she’d given him was nearing its expiration date, things fell apart. Undeniably they made a beautiful couple, and Jayden had always tried to be very careful with her feelings. He remembered her birthdays with special gifts and sometimes flowers. He made space for her in his life, and was very attentive when they spent time together, but he wouldn’t commit to a wedding date, and made no assurances that they’d actually get married.

Lexi loved him so much, and she wouldn’t accept that rather than give her a date, Jayden opted to end the relationship. Lexi’s love was a heavy glob of affection and fear, and although Jayden didn’t articulate this to her, he was repelled by the weight of her insecurities. When she saw him with someone else days after their breakup, the pain was beyond anything she had ever experienced. She felt as if the bottom had fallen out from beneath her.

It’s true that you and I don’t know what rests at the core of our beings until an event brings those emotions and feelings to the surface. We often think that the hurt and heartache are new feelings that we’ve never had before, but this is a misconception. These emotions and feelings are already in us. As hurtful as they are, they are showing us the places within that have been hidden in darkness. They were beneath our consciousness, meaning we didn’t know they were there and had been operating in our lives as if they didn’t exist. Even those parts of us must be exposed to the love of God. His love must go down deep, and most of us will only go deep when we’ve clung to someone or something very tightly, and the enemy has caused the loss of that someone or some-thing.

Life comes with challenges, and some of those can be painful. We all know this, but the severity of the impact may reveal the degree to which we may have prioritized the someone or the some-thing over and above our relationship with God. We must understand that placing anyone or anything in life ahead of our relationship with God will cause devastation, because it means we are disobeying the commandment of Jesus Christ in Matthew 6:33. This commandment tells us to seek God first, it is to lean totally on Him as our Provider and Source of all things. When we’re doing this in the way Christ commands, we will not behave as if someone or some-thing else is our source. We will not be paralyzed, the way Lexi was, when we find we must go on without them or it.

Jesus Christ also teaches us in Mark 12:30(NLT) about the greatest commandment. He said, “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” In other words, we are to love God with all that we are. He would not tell us to do something that we’re incapable of getting done. As God’s children, He made sure to give us the ability to love Him this way, and we are to do it by modeling the example of Jesus Christ. We are to love God the way the Son loves God.

When we come into consciousness about what we’re treasuring in our hearts, and we find out that we might be treasuring someone else’s love more than God’s love, some reconstruction is necessary. We need to enter a rebuilding phase of fortifying our believing and knowledge of Jesus Christ as we allow his love to saturate our beings.

1Peter 5:8(NLT) tells us, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” We see this a lot in relationships. We fall so deeply in love with a person and we place all our eggs in that person’s basket. This gives the devil just the opportunity he is looking for to wreak havoc on our lives. When this happens, as hard as it may be, it gives us an opportunity to come face to face with our vulnerabilities. It’s an opportunity to rise up in the authority of Jesus Christ and regain the power the enemy tried to steal.

To rise up in the authority of Jesus Christ, we must know more about him than what we do at the time of our encounter with heartache. The rebuilding phase signals it’s time to grow spiritually, and we don’t do it alone. The Holy Spirit helps us. Jesus Christ tells us in John 14:16 that the Holy Spirit is our Comforter, and he will reside with us forever. Our responsibility as God’s children is to partner with the Holy Spirit’s work within. We must pray often, fast, and increase our understanding of God’s Word through careful study. Most importantly, we must spend a whole lot more time with God. This requires us to spend quality time in quiet meditation, just keeping our minds and hearts light, free of worldly distractions, and focused on God’s goodness.

If your heart is broken, give God time to work within you and commit yourself to Him. Meditate on His promises and allow Him to help you rebuild your core through quiet meditation and prayer. He will give you a peace that passes all understanding, and you will be strengthened and healed through His love. ■

Pain Is A Calling Card for Change

Posted on March 7, 2022 by daaorg1214

Proverbs 18:21 tells us that death and life are in the power of the tongue. If we have a pessimistic mindset, we may not be as excited about this verse as we should. In truth, we should be over the moon about it, because our Heavenly Father is teaching us the potential of something that we all have, our mouths. What we speak and how we speak have tremendous impact, because it is a determining factor as to whether we are walking in the newness of Christ or still stuck in old patterns that do not serve us well. Romans 10:10 makes it clear and plain that confessing the truth regarding the accomplishment of Christ through his sacrifice and resurrection transfers us from eternal death to eternal life. Our confession ushers us into new life! This is huge! It demonstrates how powerful our words are. It also demonstrates that heaven, and everything beneath it, pay attention to the words we speak.

And when it comes to the words we speak, there isn’t one in the English language that can express the enormity of speaking life into your own existence. Whether you believe it or not, your own voice carries more weight with you than any other person’s voice. Your conscious mind will believe your own confessions over the confessions of another person. So, when you make a habit of telling yourself the truth, your heart will believe it and your mind will accept it. And ultimately your life will manifest the truth of your confessions, because this is the authority and power of Christ that God has placed in your hands. By the same token, if you confess a lie, it will diminish the value you place on your own life. If you speak words that underestimate your worth to God and convey that you doubt His love and empowerment, your life will manifest circumstances that match the lie you have confessed.

Pain, heartache, and hurt are often the byproducts of false confessions. These false confessions are echoed from wrong beliefs. Pain is a calling card that signals its time to change your confessions and beliefs. We must believe ourselves worthy of investing in our own minds and hearts to this degree. Patterns are entrenched and they have a voice. They bring up all kinds of excuses to keep us stuck in our comfort zones, but we must break out of them and the Holy Spirit will help us. He abides in us, and He is our Comforter, Teacher, Friend, and Guide.

Jesus Christ said of him in John 16:13(NLT), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.” The Holy Spirit lives within the born-again believer, and he will guide us to God’s truth, but we have a responsibility to allow ourselves to be led. We must partner with God through His Holy Spirit and begin to speak the words of truth that Jesus Christ taught us in God’s Word. Negative people are negative because they speak negatively, and they think negative thoughts. This should not be said about a born-again believer. We’ve been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, and we must rise up in our thoughts and confessions to the level of what we have received.

You’re not in control of anyone else but you. When you begin to speak and think like Christ, people, situations, and circumstances must line up with the truth of your confessions and thoughts. Failing to do this causes life to feel like we’re going around in circles. This is not what God intended for us. He commands us to depend on Him alone, because He is our Source and Sufficiency. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 139:5-6 The Message (MSG) “I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too—your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful—I can’t take it all in!” This verse communicates the wonder of God’s unspeakable, never-ending grace and overwhelming love for us. His love is a consuming fire as it says Hebrews 12:29. This is the path of love and goodness that God wants us to remain on continually, and to do this we must wake up and come into consciousness about our words and thoughts.

Some may think that their plate is too full to be bothered with the process of change, and others may not value the importance of the transformation God requires, but He is the orchestrator of our original design. He knows everything there is to know about us, and He has set the path that we should walk. He knows where we need to be, when we need to be there, and He knows how to get us to the place that He has destined us to be. In heaven, there’s a complete book written about your life on earth, and it was written long before you entered your mother’s womb. Our Heavenly Father has included all the good things He planned for you, but He will not force you to walk the path that He’s laid for your life. He will not force us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to His Word if we do not want to be committed to Him the way He requires. This is our choice. We must wake up and recognize that the continuation of wrong beliefs and confessions keep us from the plan God has for our lives.

Your voice has a vibration. When you use it to speak #1 what God says about you, #2 what God says you can do, and #3 what God says you can have in Christ, you come into agreement with His goodness and truth. Whenever we do this, His Word accomplishes that for which He purposed it. Use the conviction of your faith and the sound of your voice to align your life with the newness Christ has made available to you. Speak life into your existence and refuse to allow doubt and darkness any place in your mind and heart. When you take your rightful place of power and authority by being responsible and aligning what you do, think, feel, and say with the example of Christ, God will transform your life.

Change Your Ways

Posted on December 27, 2021 by daaorg1214

“Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way.”
2Corinthians 7:9(NLT)

No matter how many times you seem to move forward in our lives, all it takes is one traumatic event or a word of bad news to set us back. The pain and hurtful emotions we experience, not to mention the fear and nervousness; they all seem to rear their ugly heads without invitation. These emotions can make us think that they’re running the show, and we feel so defeated, powerless, and down because of it. When I read the verse in 2Corinthians 7:9, I was reminded that pain can be purposeful because it can cause us to change in ways that we never thought possible.

You might ask, “Why do we need to go through pain in order to change our ways?” I also asked myself this question, but what quickly came to me is the freedom that God extends to us by allowing us to choose. We have free-will choice, and we get to choose how we’re going to respond to situations. God is the complete opposite of the hurtful feelings we experience. He represents love and liberty for us, and He doesn’t ever want us to feel pain. But if we are going about our daily routines of life, walking around asleep to God’s Word and what He’s called us to do, pain and sorrow will inevitably find their way to us. They often do so at a time when we are not spiritually strong and mature enough to handle them.

This is the devil’s handywork for sure. Like the Old Testament Book of Job demonstrates, the evil one studies us for vulnerabilities, and pounces when we least expect it. As hard as it is for many of us to consider, the first thing that you and I must come to grips with is that our hiccups and missteps can almost always be tied back to something we could have changed or should have let go but didn’t.

Many of us have difficulty prioritizing when it comes to the love we feel for the significant person in our lives. We put this person above our willingness to demonstrate love and loyalty to Heavenly Father. We must understand that our love for God should be exponentially higher, more intimate, and more fulfilling than the love we have for anyone else. Jesus Christ commands us in Mark 12:30(NLT), “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” We must love God with all that we are, and this is not up for negotiation. As we think about what we need to change, alter, or increase about ourselves and our faith, this is the first place to start.

As God’s children, we are created to house His Spirit within and to be conduits of His divine love. We aren’t built to hold on to bitterness, rage, anger, and evil behavior. Not only can these heavies break us down physically, mentally, and emotionally, but they take a toll on us spiritually. We can’t be who God has called us to be when our hearts are not flooded with His love and goodness.

Change can be very challenging, but we cannot grow without it, and growing in Christ is our reason for being on this earth. We must always remember that we are never alone. The Lord is with us always, and He will never forsake us. We can be comforted in the reality that He is helping us to develop spiritual character, and when we have reached the level of spiritual maturity that He desires, He will be pleased, and we will be rewarded. ■

Dissolving the Dark Cloud of Sadness

Posted on August 9, 2021 by daaorg1214

One of the residuals of surviving domestic violence and abuse is the feeling that everything is stacked against your happiness. Not only is it an alarming place to be, it is emotionally exhausting. Once you’ve placed your trust in someone you believed to be worthy of it, and they end up betraying this trust, something is lost. You no longer believe the world to be a safe place or that you can carve out a small piece of safe harbor for yourself. Living daily with this can make you feel like there’s a dark cloud looming over your head, and it follows you everywhere you go. For many of us, it is a sadness we can’t seem to shake.

Some abusers cloak their manipulative tactics with a very charismatic personality. They seem exciting and have a lot of fun, and this can be a very attractive and magnetic draw, especially for a person that is starving for attention and isn’t secure in themselves. Many victims fall for the abuser and latch on to them very tightly because of this. It’s the beginning of such internal conflict. One part of you, a very important part, is being fed in a way that is deeply satisfying. The other part of you is being zapped of all its vitality and strength by someone who wants you to believe they love you. To say that you are torn is an understatement.

Likewise, to say that a person in this situation needs rescuing is also an understatement. The first truth that we must accept is that we’re unable to rescue ourselves. God is our Rescue. 2King 17:39(NLT) states, “You must worship only the LORD your God. He is the one who will rescue you from all your enemies.” Without God, we wouldn’t be able to do anything. Nothing in the universe happens without Him allowing it to occur. We are given this earth experience to grow in our relationship with Heavenly Father and to also increase our knowledge and understanding about Him, so that we can make wise decisions and choices. The goal in life is to trust Him more and more with each passing day, our trust in Him transforms us into all that He desires us to be.

Believing God to this degree is a foreign concept for most. Some might believe in Him, but they don’t think leaning on Him for everything equates to the level of maturity an adult should have in life. They think it’s fine for children, but they equate a fully persuaded faith in God to believing in fairytales. Not understanding the accomplishment of Jesus Christ through his ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection, some people believe life is to be lived on their own terms and that’s that.

Faith in God is nowhere near a fairytale. Faith in Him through Jesus Christ is believing in reality, everything else is temporary and fading away minute by minute. 1John 2:17(NKJV) declares, “And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” Society teaches us to place all our trust in people, governments, institutions, relationships, and material things. We start to believe that we can use all those things as a foundation for building ourselves and to undergird the kind of life we desire. The world is corrupting, so why would we use it to build anything we want to last? 1Colossians 3:11(NLT) teaches us, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” He is the Rock of our Salvation, and because of him we have received the gift of eternal life.

The dark cloud of sadness that hovers over many individuals does so because they refuse to have faith in God. Many of them are stuck in disappointment because they gave another human being a place in their lives that only God should have been given. They put all their eggs in this person’s basket, and the eggs were crushed because this is a responsibility no human being can handle successfully. God didn’t give any human the ability to see into the heart of another, nor did He give us the capacity to keep someone else’s heart. He lets us know in His Word that we are responsible for our own hearts. He commands us in Proverbs 4:23 to guard them above all else.

Dissolving the dark cloud requires our diligence to grow in faith. The fantasy was believing that another person could give us something that God could or would not. The fairytale is thinking life will cooperate with us when we don’t trust God with all our hearts, minds, and strength. He is our Rescue. He’s our strength from day to day, and He tells us in His Word to delight in Him. There is none that compares to our Heavenly Father, and He is all we need. We don’t have to live a life dominated by fear. We’re not built for that. Our hope is in Christ, and Romans 5:5 affirms that this hope does not disappoint! We were created from God’s love, and through Christ, we can live love every moment of every day. This is what God wants for us, and one of the greatest things any of us can do is to want it for ourselves. ■

God Wants Our Eyes Open

Posted on June 27, 2021 by daaorg1214

Galatians 5:1(MSG)
“Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.”

“Why am I constantly being hit with one problem after another? Why can’t I catch a break?”

I once heard a Domestic Violence and Abuse counselor say that many individuals continue to suffer abuse because they haven’t reached a point of not wanting the abuser in their lives anymore. I must admit that I was surprised and a little shocked when I heard this, but it expanded how I viewed the traumatic events of my own life and the mindsets of both the abuser and the person being abused. There is no question that a person being abused has to make a shift. They must come to a place of recognizing that God doesn’t want anyone to be abused. They must also realize they deserve better and that God will help them. This is part of what it means to come into the light of awareness about God’s plan for your life and align our steps with His agenda instead of our own.

Many of us will endure mistreatment and abuse a long time before we begin to trust God and free ourselves from darkness. When you pull back the layers of why we suffer abuse so long, the root of it can be traced to a lack of faith in God. We don’t have faith that He loves us and gives us strength. We don’t have faith that He will bring someone wonderful into our lives, and we don’t have faith that we can become the version of ourselves that He created us to be.

Everything in life requires faith. We can’t get out of bed each morning if we don’t have faith that we can do it. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes from hearing the Good News about Jesus Christ. God is the Giver of life. He made it possible for us to have life through His Son, Jesus Christ. Most people understand that life is a gift from God; they at least know this from His Word, but most don’t invest the time to know more than this from His Word. They think they’re here on this earth to do their own thing, and that God doesn’t want to be bothered with the minute details of our decisions and choices. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Proverbs 3:5-6(NLT) tells us, “5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” We’re to trust in God with all our hearts, but in an abusive situation, sometimes all our hearts aren’t available to us. We’re too consumed with either trying to protect ourselves or deal with the dysfunction of the abuser. God tells us to cease with leaning on our own understanding, because we’re blinded by the continual shenanigans of the devil. Only Heavenly Father knows and sees the big picture. He is the Only One that can make a way out of no way. Verse 5 instructs us to seek the Will of the Father in ALL that we do. We are to pray earnestly, diligently, and faithfully. He hears us. He is able and willing to help us, and only He can direct our feet on the path He desires us to take.

Galatians 5:1 tells us that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has set us free. He did this when he came to live on the earth, became human like us, sacrificed his life and was resurrected from the dead by the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 2:14(NLT) says, “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.” Darkness belongs to the devil, and darkness has many cousins like fear, doubt, insecurity, bondage, destruction, depression, and death. These are many of the things that the devil uses to overpower people and keep them enslaved. The weapon that he uses to do it with is ignorance. People can’t rise above what they don’t know, so when we are not knowledgeable regarding what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, the devil can keep us oppressed.

God has designed life in such a way that the more we know about Jesus Christ, the more we grow in faith. The more we grow in faith, the better our lives become. Jesus Christ said in John 8:32(NLT), “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” If knowing the Good News of Jesus Christ sets us free, then not knowing it keeps us in bondage. This is the current state of many of God’s people, and it is because they haven’t learned about what Jesus Christ has made available. When we don’t hear the Good News and trust it, we live far beneath our privilege. The lights are not on in terms of us understanding our identity in Christ and who God has created us to be.

2Corinthians 4:4(NLT) says, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” Have you ever wondered why when one crazy thing happens, no sooner than you get it handled, another pops up right after it? Sometimes, it’s just one thing after another. Many people become so used to this bombardment of issues and problems, that they think this is the way God wants life to go. This isn’t true. 1Corinthians 14:33 tells us that God is not the author of confusion. He is a God of peace, and He desires us to live a peaceful existence, so that we can have peaceful fellowship in our relationship with Him.

If we submit to God, repent from our sins, and trust Him in faith, God will help us. When our trust is in Him, we can be courageous and refuse to walk in darkness any longer. God has given us victory through Jesus Christ, but we must walk in this victory.

Our Heavenly Father wants us to see the glorious light of the Good News of Jesus Christ. God wants us to know that Jesus Christ gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins so that we will saved from a life of bondage and darkness. Ephesians 5:8(NLT) tells us, “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!” Heavenly Father created us to be children of His glorious light. If we allow it, His light will shine in our hearts and begin to produce good things in our lives.

It’s time out for not seeing the truth of who God has made us. Whether it is a spouse or significant other who doesn’t treat us well, when you and I don’t know the truth of God’s Word, the enemy can use people that are close to us to keep us blinded from the light of Christ. We must wake up and see it for what it is. Know that every decision you make to walk in your truest, highest self in Christ is a move towards the light. We were created by God to be free, and when we repent of our sins, seek God’s forgiveness, and read His Word more, our lives will be transformed. ■

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

“God Wants Our Eyes Open”, written by Fran and Kyrene for written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Care for the Soul

Posted on May 17, 2021 by daaorg1214

What makes us pursue someone that hurts us? I’ve seen it more times than I can say. A woman is disrespected, abused, and sometimes cheated on, and when the man leaves, she does everything within her power to get him back. Is our fear of rejection and loneliness so severe that we will do just about anything to keep a warm body near? I personally know women that have compromised their integrity, put their jobs on the line, and even sacrificed the well-being and their responsibilities to their children in order to get the man back. What I’ve learned is that when we abandon the care of our souls, our need for intimate connection can take us down a very dark and dangerous path.

Genesis 1:26 very plainly tells us that God made human beings in His own image. One of the attributes of God’s image is that He is self-governing. He makes decisions, and He doesn’t have to consult anyone about them. He alone is sovereign, and He can do anything that pleases Him. One of the things that pleased Him was to weave this self-governing attribute into our beings as well. We make our own choices and decisions, and God doesn’t stop us from doing this. In all of humanity’s history, there wasn’t a more catastrophic choice and decision than the one Adam and Eve made when they disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden and bowed to satan. Surely, if there were such a thing as God interfering with our choices and decisions, that would have been an occasion when He would have done it. He could have slapped that ol’ apple right out of Eve’s hand and prevented the series of horrific events that led to the fall of humanity, but God didn’t interfere.

Romans 11:29(NLT) tells us, “For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.” Heavenly Father allowed Adam and Eve to throw away the treasures of life and holiness that He’d given them. He gave them, and He’s given all of us the gift of free-will agency, and He will not overstep or withdraw it. Understanding His allegiance to His Word also underscores the reality that there’s no mistake any human being can make that God cannot correct. His Will goes forth no matter how foolish we are. Adam messed up big time, and God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to correct Adam’s colossal mistake. Our Heavenly Father could have wiped Adam and Eve from the face of the earth and made it as if they had never existed, but He didn’t do this. He is a redeeming God, and His willingness to offer redemption reveals that He is forgiving, full of love, and He bestows grace and mercy upon those who seek it. This is indeed good news for us!

To redeem is to compensate for the faults or poor aspects of something by exchanging them for something far better. What God did for us through Christ was to redeem us from sin, so that we could be all He originally intended us to be before the first couple’s catastrophic actions. He did this spiritually, and it’s up to us to align our souls so they are in harmony with the overwhelming love God has shown us through Christ.

Sin is not doing things God’s way. Jesus Christ told us in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life. So, God has shown us HIS WAY through Christ, but in the minds of most, sin seems like the easiest, most pleasurable and practical choice. The Bible tells us that thoughts like this about sin are those belonging to a person that has a mind blinded by satan. 2Corinithans 4:4 says that because satan has blinded them, they can’t see the glorious light of Christ and don’t understand it. This is the condition of an individual that craves the thing that causes injury to their souls and pursues that thing instead of the healing that comes from God.

Wanting a person so much that we are willing to chase after them even though we know they are not good for us; this shows us the degree to which our souls need nourishment. Fear is a lie from hell. It causes us to abdicate our rightful standing of authority and power in Christ. Fear causes us to hold tightly to what we think will bring us pleasure, because we don’t believe God’s way will achieve a better outcome. God is the One with the plan for our lives. We must not ever underestimate the good plan that He has in store for us, and we must never underestimate how much prayer will help to align our steps with what He has planned.

Darkness will cause us to think that our souls can lead us righteously, and arrogance will cause us to think that we alone can come up with a workable plan. Not so. The good news is that we can indeed become all that we were meant to be and have the life God wants to give us, but our humility is not negotiable. We must surrender our plan for God’s plan.

Heavenly Father told us in Psalm 46:10(NKJV), “Be still, and know that I am God.” Stillness is a spiritual practice, one that requires the discipline to put the soul on lockdown, so that we give our spirit a chance to minister to us according to the Lord’s guidance. We need to cease from responding and reacting to our circumstances and move to the place of spiritual quietness and renewal; it’s a place where we humbly submit ourselves to the leadership of Christ. It’s when we have surrendered all to God and are availing ourselves to Him, and Him alone, in every way possible.

We live in a time where everyone does whatever they feel is right for their own souls, and this is usually done without accountability or responsibility to what God says is right. It simply will not work, and the current state of the world proves this overwhelmingly. Our Heavenly Father backs His Word. He’s supreme and He does not lie. Even though our souls may experience discomfort, it isn’t the person that left they are aching for. Our souls ache to be fed manna from heaven, the everlasting power and virtue of God’s Word. If we’ll make the free-will choice to turn to Heavenly Father and trust what He says, we will receive comfort and calm, as our souls are transformed by the One who made them.■

Obsessed with the Outer Reality

Posted on April 12, 2021 by daaorg1214

Sometimes, there are people that come across our paths at the oddest times, and they eventually leave as quickly as they came. I met such a person some years ago. For anonymity’s sake, we’ll call her Alexa. She’s nice enough, pleasant to talk to, and very savvy, but I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as uncomfortable around anyone as I was her. To say she was always impeccably dressed is truly an understatement. Hair beautifully coifed, makeup tight, with a perfect manicure to boot, I was super impressed and a little intimidated to be honest. Her kids were as immaculately kept as she appeared to be. Everything was designer this or that, and the Italian and French names rolled effortlessly from her lips.

As I got to know Alexa a little better, her obsession with status was hard to miss. The car, the home, private schools for the kids, all of it had to be top notch. Her need to keep up with it all was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. It would be wonderful to say that she was as adamant about her relationship with the Lord and with the condition of her soul as she was about shoes with red bottoms, but I personally saw no evidence of this. What I did see, however, was how a life can be totally devastated when an accountability to spiritual principles is ignored, neglected, or refused.

There is a very base level of consciousness that most human beings never seek to elevate. It may sound like a judgment, but truth is not bound, hindered, or bothered by any individual’s judgment. Truth stands on its own and proves itself. When we’re obsessed with the outer reality to the point that we’re neglecting the inner reality, every aspect of our existences will begin to mirror this neglect.

In 1Thessalonians 5:23(NLT), God commands, “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.” We are made in the image of God. The Godhead is triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In like manner, He created humans to be triune as well. He is our Father, we are His children, and it is therefore undeniably logical and perfectly intelligent that our makeup should mirror His. He’s a God of order, and everything He does has order and purpose. We are an on-purpose people serving and honoring an on-purpose God.

Three parts make up the sum of our being, and without all three parts, we would not be human beings, we’d be something else. We have a human spirit, a human soul, and a human body. All three parts are to be in harmony, and to be unified to such a degree that all are functioning and operating in the very same way that Christ did. A Christ-level of being is the ultimate and the highest state than any living creature could ever hope to attain. To help us achieve this highest state of living and being, God has given us a part of Himself. He’s given us His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and sealed our human spirit with His Spirit. Ephesians 1:13-14 The Message(MSG) affirms, “ It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This down payment from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.”

Our human spirit was recreated by Jesus Christ through the born-again experience and is perfect in every way. It is the highest part of us, and the soul and body must obey it in order to be in harmony with the Lord. A base level consciousness refuses to be obedient to the ways of Jesus Christ, and because of this refusal, the souls of many people are not fed the diet of God’s Word they desperately need. Our recreated human spirit contains our new nature, and this new nature wants to do what is right, but the soul is a very different story. The soul has the old nature, one that craves whatever will make the body feel pleasure. It is a flesh driven existence, one that keeps a person craving the very thing that defeats them.

The old nature rebels against the ways of Christ, and it causes the kind of self-sabotage that not only destroys our lives, but it can take others down with it. I saw the beginning of this with Alexa. Her need to control, her temper tantrums when she didn’t get her way, and the nastiness of her arrogance were corrosive. When her life began to crumble, the shame of it was too much. The marriage, the home, the car…all of it gone. As quickly as her life had crossed my path, it faded from my view, as it did for many others.

To give ourselves the greatest chance for fulfillment and peace during our sojourn on earth, we’ve got to disconnect from the old nature and feed our souls the diet it desperately craves, which is life in the Spirit. Everything in our entire being is aching for us to let the Spirit be at work within. Ephesians 3:20(NLT) says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” God’s power works in us through His Holy Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit is His seed, and He has placed His seed within our human spirits to help us lead a successful life as followers of Jesus Christ. Letting the Spirit take the lead over our lives through Christ is the very best decision we can make, and it will benefit the whole of our existence. The question that you and I must ask ourselves is whether we’re allowing the Holy Spirit to be at work. If we aren’t, now is a terrific time to start.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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Category Archives: Personal Growth & Development

Change Your Ways

He Had Two Families and She Didn’t Know It

How to Be Content in Life

The Rebuilding Phase

Pain Is A Calling Card for Change

Change Your Ways

Dissolving the Dark Cloud of Sadness

God Wants Our Eyes Open

Care for the Soul

Obsessed with the Outer Reality