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.

In the Shelter of God’s Peace

Posted on January 30, 2018 by daaorg1214

1John 4:18(NLT) tells us, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” This is an amazing verse! It should motivate us to plumb the depths of its extraordinary revelation, but as a lonely young woman that had known much fear in my life, love without fear was elusive to me. I thought the two came as a packaged deal. Not appropriately cataloging love and fear as polar opposites, of course I both consciously, and no doubt subconsciously, assumed chaos and confusion were love’s companions as well. With all the relationship mishaps and missteps that were spun from my ignorance, I’m incredibly thankful that God saved me from myself, and guided and schooled me to know love’s way.

There was a big ol’ hole in my heart, and I had no idea what to do with the emptiness. I didn’t know why it was there, but it drove me to make impetuous choices and decisions. I could have ended up with some pretty horrendous consequences on my hands, but Heavenly Father had different plans for me. It wasn’t that I was so special, but that’s the overwhelming goodness about His love; It makes us all feel as though we’re being individually singled out and lavished in His attention and care.

As I became more acquainted with God and began reading His Word, the revelation of 1John 4:18 began to take root. It came at just the right time, because I was beginning to become bitter about the loneliness I felt. So much seemed to be missing in my life, and I quite naturally thought that God was going to have to do something really gargantuan to fill up my empty spaces and turn my blues into sunshine. That’s where I set my sights; not on God’s love, but on receiving something tangible and grand.

In my naiveté, the image of His perfect love expelling all fear meant that He would automatically and expeditiously obliterate all vestiges of it in my soul, and all I had to do was focus on how happy I’d be when the right man would finally come in and sweep me off my feet. In my mind, this would be the answer to my fear and emptiness. Well, as God would have it, the right man came along, but he didn’t do any sweeping. He put the broom in my hand and said, “Let’s work it out, together.” I didn’t like that.

I totally lost it, and gave new meaning to the term ‘adult temper tantrums’. I didn’t know what to do with myself, but there he was, this man sent from Heavenly Father to partner with me through all my baggage. Yet, my emptiness was still this gaping hole. So, I went to God with my complaints about how He’d blessed me with something that wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Sure, it was what I needed, but it—he—didn’t take away the fear. It was still there. It was the hole inside my soul, and for years I didn’t know its name.

I panicked big time, because somewhere inside, I knew that my destiny was unfolding, but nothing about it looked the way I thought it would. I was about to lose everything, and I needed peace desperately. I needed to grab on to it and never let it go. That became the theme of my prayer life, to be guided by God’s peace.

Isaiah 26:3 (NLT) says “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” God wants this to be a reality in our lives. He wants to give us His peace, but we must have a willingness to surrender our fears and anxiety to Him as well. 1Peter 5:7(NLT) tells us, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” All of us have issues, some more complicated than others, and we have to work through them. It’s sometimes a lengthy process, because fear has a way of making itself cozy, but God has placed His Spirit inside us. He will lovingly guide us to release our fears in the shelter of God’s peace.

Abundantly Blessed

Posted on December 26, 2017 by daaorg1214

Back in the day, being a faithful Christian meant being in church every Sunday. This is how folks measured whether someone had a true-blue relationship with God. In their minds, you didn’t necessarily have to learn anything new or add to your catalog of faith. You didn’t have to be a different person when you walked out of the building than you were before you came in; you just had to make sure you occupied a space on the pew each week. If you showed up, most folks considered you a faithful Christian. Cut to present day, and Luke 13:24 has stirred a new sense of urgency in the hearts of those that are convinced that not only are we living beneath our privilege, but we’re living in the last days. In this verse, Jesus Christ said, “Work hard to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail.”

We forget sometimes that Jesus was a very radical person living in his time. He completely flipped the script on business as usual. He came to give us an up-close and personal demonstration of how to live according to God’s Will and Plan. In John 10:10 (NKJV), Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Much like today, in the time during which Jesus walked the earth, people were isolated; divided by race, class, and gender; and living in their own silos. When it came to unity, peace, power, and love, they had these small little boxes that they tried to put God in. Mathematics at its most basic level teaches us that you can’t possibly squeeze the faith required for a big life out of a mindset that seeks to make God’s love so small.

The definition of abundance is a very large quantity of something. The first instinct of those who read John 10:10 is to think of abundance in terms of finance and money. Their definition of wealth is exclusive to loot in the bank. God’s definition of abundance is prosperity in every area of our lives. 2Corinthians 9:8 (NLT) tells us, “And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.” His Will for us is to have good quality relationships, good health, a kind and committed spouse, family unity, and have our needs met with extra to spare. He desires that we operate out of the overflow of His abundance, so that we have plenty to share with others.

If God had not let us in on His desire for us to be abundantly blessed, we would not know what is available and achievable in life, and we would not do our very best to meet the standard He’s laid out for us in His Word. But the truth is that not only can we renew our minds to His promises, we can live the life of love that draws good things to us like a magnet. That’s good news indeed!

A myth that many people have believed for a long time is that you can have one without the other, that you can have the goodies without the good works to back them up. James 2:26 (NLT) tells us, “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.” The yummiest desserts are made by skillful hands that labor in the kitchen. It should never be lost on those of us who like to partake of the goodies that the goal is that we get in the kitchen and learn to make them ourselves.

The Word of God is the bread of life. Our privilege and responsibility is to feast upon it as often as we can. It’s how we put on the love of Christ and begin to walk as he walked, talk as he talked, live as he lives, and love as loves. Sometimes this journey is uncomfortable; learning to be the embodiment of love often is, but it is what we are here to do. Jesus Christ warned in John 9:4(NLT), “We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.” We don’t know the day or the hour when Jesus Christ will come again, but we know he’s coming. He’s not coming back for a building, He’s coming back for us, and if we’re not ready, there’s not a better time than now to prepare.

God tells us in 2Corinthians 2:15-16(NLT), “15 Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. 16 To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?” We’re still in the game! We’re alive, and if you’re above ground you’re abundantly blessed. Through Jesus Christ, God has given us a Christ-like fragrance that rises up before Him. What could be better than that?!!! We’re a life-giving perfume to those that are waiting for us to influence their lives. So, the question is whether we’ll step outside our comfort zones and share with others what God has so freely given to us. If we commit ourselves to work hard and live the life of love that He has called us to, we will enter that narrow door to God’s Kingdom.■

A Sad Smile

Posted on November 7, 2017 by daaorg1214

Some Christian folk have this thing where they don’t want anyone to see them unhappy. We’ve bought into the persona that we’re not supposed to have problems or issues. We walk around all day long telling folks, “I’m blessed!” as if everything in our worlds is peachy, when actually we really don’t feel all that great. Many of us have a sad smile on our faces, and we’re not as good at pretending as we think we are. Any person that is empathetic and compassionate can pick up when someone is hurting. So we’re not fooling nearly as many people as we think, and we need to stop trying to fool ourselves.

Psalm 37:4 (NKJV) tells us, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” This is a beautiful verse that tells us to find comfort and delight in God’s beauty, bounty, and blessing. John 10:10 is probably on everyone’s favorite scripture list. In this verse, Jesus tells us that he came to the earth to make available a more than abundant life. Most of us would be satisfied if we hit the abundant mark, but God wants us to have a life that is more than abundant. That’s amazing! Another piece of yumminess is in Mark 9:23, where our blessed Lord tells us that if we can believe, all things are possible to the person who believes. This is over the top!

Considering the smorgasbord of blessings that God has provided, we can certainly see how the expectation of the always happy Christian came to be, but the truth is that many of us are not skipping through fields of daisies with blissful delight; not even close. For some, putting on a happy face and pretending is as close as they’ve come to the real thing, but it doesn’t have to be that way. One truth that shouldn’t be lost on any of us is that it’s important to God for us to know His desire. We may not be as happy as all get out, but He wants us to be confident that it’s certainly His Will and desire that we get there.

The feeling of happiness is something that we associate with conditions and circumstances. If everything in our world is going good, we tend to be happy, but when things turn sour, many of us will begin to think sour thoughts and express sour feelings. God’s Will is that nothing controls us to the degree that we lose sight of who we are and why we’re here. In Colossians 2:7, Heavenly Father tells us that His plan is that our roots are firmly planted in Christ, so that we are not tossed about by all the distractions the devil throws our way. He tells us, “Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”

God wants us to be anchored in Jesus Christ, so that we are living in the Spirit of who he is. Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. He’s the Word made flesh, and his love is so extraordinary because he took on all of our sin and gave his life for us. He said in John 15:13 (NLT), “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” If our gratitude and understanding of what Christ has done for us through his love is on a surface level, our roots are not yet as deep as they should and can be. We need to be filled with something that only God in Christ can supply.

If we have even a hint of an inkling that our smiles are sad, we can pray and ask God to fill us with joy on the inside. Only the Lord can give us a smile that is real and filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 tells us that our prayer should be that God, the Source of hope, will fill us utterly and completely with a joy and peace that the world can’t give and the world can’t take away. All we need to do is trust in God’s love. When we trust Him, we’ll overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Ephesians 3:14-19 The Message (MSG), the Apostle Paul gives us the perfect blueprint for how to respond to God’s goodness and turn our sad smiles into joyful ones. He said, “My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”■

Domestic Abuse Awareness.Org

Breaking the chains of domestic abuse through the power of Jesus Christ.

Category Archives: Spiritual Encouragement