The Right Instructions for the Right Results

Posted on February 6, 2023 by daaorg1214

In the Gospel of John, Chapter 5, Jesus Christ had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover. He came to a pool called Bethesda, and it had five porches. On certain seasons, an angel would trouble the water, and whoever went in the pool first after the troubling of the water would be healed of their affliction. Large multitudes of those who were sick, diseased, blind or afflicted would wait on the porches for the opportunity to be healed. John 5:5-6 tells us that Jesus saw a man lying there near the pool. This man had been sick for 38 years, and Jesus, knowing he had been sick a long time, asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

The question Jesus Christ asked the disabled man may have seemed like a foregone conclusion to some of us. He was there at the pool, where many sick people gathered, and he had suffered with his condition many years. Imagine what the man must’ve thought after hearing our Lord and Savior ask him this question. In our minds, we might think he’d say, “I’ve been struggling to get to this pool and waiting by it every day for as long as I can remember, of course I want to get well.” The truth of the matter is that Jesus Christ not only knew the man’s situation, he knew the man’s heart. The sick man was looking for healing to come from a change in conditions, and not from power.

There is tremendous power in the faith of Jesus Christ. He said in Mark 9:23 that all things are possible to the person that believes. Faith can activate a work of God on our behalf, but often the point of connecting to the element that energizes our believing is missing. For the people at the pool, the thing that energized their believing was the troubling of the water. Based on prior history of God’s healing power, they conditioned their minds to believe that they would be healed if the waters were troubled, and if they entered the pool first. On the unfortunate flip side of this, they also believed that healing would NOT come unless the waters were troubled. Because of this, they limited their faith.

Some have said that the man lacked faith entirely, but this can’t be true. Romans 12:3 tells us God has given every person a measure of faith. At the end of the day, the sick man’s faith placed him in the right place at the right time—the time when he would make a point of contact with the Master Jesus. You might ask, “Why did it take so long?” Well, you and I must know as mature believers that how bad we really want something is going to be tested. The sick man wanted to be healed, but his answer to the question Jesus asked him tells us about his state of mind; and he had held this mindset for a mighty long time. He had not quite made the leap between wanting something and believing that he could actually have it.

In John 5:7(NLT), the sick man answered Jesus by saying, “I can’t, sir…for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” This was his answer to “Would you like to be healed?” It was not an emphatic “YES!” as most would expect, but an explanation for why it hadn’t or couldn’t happen. He was waiting on the conditions to change instead of connecting to the One who changes conditions. This is what many of us are doing today.

Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up our mat, and walk!” A revelation regarding the authority of Jesus Christ is the point of contact all of us need, and it was evident when the man heard these words of authority come from Jesus’s mouth. He was healed instantly, rolled up his mat and began to walk.

It can’t be lost on us that the man’s faith was activated when he received the right instructions. He took the right action at the right time because he responded to the authority of Christ, and then he received the right results. Everything flowed according to God’s purpose because this man obeyed the instructions he heard from Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father knows exactly what it will take to bridge the distance between our desires and the faith to bring them into fruition. I believe one of the most important things we can do today is spend time learning how to respond to and live by the authority of Jesus Christ. A habit pattern of hearing and obeying must be firmly in place. Then, when it’s time for Jesus to give us the right instructions for our desires, they will connect with our faith and achieve results that honor and please God.■

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.

A New Heart Brings New Blessings!

Posted on January 30, 2023 by daaorg1214

The Prophet Ezekiel delivered a powerful Word of Prophecy from the Lord, our God, to the people of Israel. In Ezekiel 36:26-27(NLT), God told them, “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.” It is important for us to know that the people of God living during this time had gotten themselves in quite the pickle, and it was because of their disobedience. They made a conscious choice to turn away from God’s regulations and do their own thing. This was a terrible mistake, and they found out the hard way. In this regard, they were like many of us living today who get weary of waiting to see a change in our circumstances. Like them, some of us think about taking matters into our own hands. Our God cautions us against such actions, because He has a much better solution.

When God looked at His people living during Old Testament times, He saw the future. Back then, they were really doing the most with all that idolatry and evil darkness they were dabbling in. But despite their non-sense, despite their disobedience, God blessed and delivered them. When they saw what a mess they’d made and cried out to Him for help, He came to their rescue. The record of mercy and grace He bestowed on them is a testimony to those of us living today. It builds a foundation of truth regarding God’s love that anchors our relationship with Him even more.

Their hearts were hardened against God and they consistently ignored His commandments. The same spirit of rebellion that gets into some of us was rampant in them. Instead of bringing glory to God’s name, they brought shame to it and glorified the devil. Talk about needing a new heart, they certainly did. Great hygiene and a good bath couldn’t clean the filth they harbored in their hearts. A work had to be done internally, and only God could do it.

The thing that you and I must keep in mind is that God’s people living in Old Testament times were servants, they were not children. They could not have His seed in them because Jesus Christ had not yet come and made the infilling of the Holy Spirit available. For believers today, it is an incomparable treasure to know that God will restore us utterly and completely. If He would do it for His servants, He most certainly will do it for His kids.

There isn’t anything that our God can’t and won’t do for His people. His promise of a new life brings hope when we’re struggling with pain, shame and disappointment. Relying on His power, and His love instead of our own is the only way to usher in the newness we need. Heavenly Father assured the Israelites that He would give them a new heart, that He would remove from them a heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. This is the heart that believers can have through the Holy Spirit, a heart that delights in pleasing God.

Our desires to partner in marriage, to have loving families and relationships, are desires that God has placed in our hearts. For many of us, this wonderful dream represents the newness we desire, but it must be matched by newness in our commitment to obey and trust God’s Word in a greater way. The prophecy that He gave Ezekiel was a foretelling of the redemption He planned for His children through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through Christ we have a new covenant with God, and Hebrews 10:16 tells us that God has placed His laws and regulations in our hearts and written them on our minds.

We can have every confidence that God wants us to fulfill His purpose, but He also teaches us through the prophecy given to Ezekiel that a stubborn, stony heart doesn’t please Him. We must respond to Heavenly Father by doing the things that honor His name and doesn’t bring shame to it. Through Jesus Christ, God has given us a clean heart. He’s given us a new and right spirit, and we must do our very best to stay faithful to Him so we’ll be prepared for the new blessings He brings into our lives.■

When Answers Don’t Come Easy

Posted on January 23, 2023 by daaorg1214

The psalmist said in Psalm 23:3 (NKJV), “He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” This is what God will do for us. He will restore our souls, and then lead us in the path of His righteousness. The question we need to ask ourselves is are we willing to be led. For those that have been praying to cross paths with the person they will marry, it is important for them to know that our Heavenly Father hears their prayers. He’s designed the universe in such a way that the moment we begin to pray, something shifts. Things begin to come together to bless us, and a momentum starts to build. Our faith is the force that continues to move this momentum forward, but there will most definitely be some blockers along the way. Immediately upon noticing them, we must look for something in our souls to be restored. We must make sure we’re hearing what God is saying, so we know exactly what needs to be healed and continue to follow the path of His righteousness.

In Deuteronomy 1, Moses was handling some final business with the Children of Israel, because he knew he would not enter the Promise Land. In an address to them, he reviewed the journey they had been on together. It took the Children of Israel 38 years to cover a territory that should have taken them 11 days. Why? Because of their unbelief. God had promised to give them a land of milk and honey, a land that was beautiful, with good soil upon which to grow crops and increase livestock. Yet, they wouldn’t bring themselves to trust the Word of the Lord.

Exodus 6:7-8 (NLT) gives us the record of what God told Moses to tell His people. He said, “7 I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. 8 I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the Lord!’” In verse 9, we have the record of the people’s response to what God said. It tells us, “So Moses told the people of Israel what the Lord had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.” They doubted God’s promise. Even though they were physically free, the harsh labor under the Egyptian pharaoh had put them in mental and emotional bondage. So, they wouldn’t listen to Moses and went around in circles because doubt took root in their hearts.

God’s people were slow to have faith in Him, and this is why instead of marching to victory they wandered in the wilderness almost 40 years. This wandering, not seeking God and not having faith in Him, happens to many of us living today. We lose sight of God’s goodness, and this cripples our hopes and dreams. Jesus Christ teaches us in Mark 11:23(NLT), “I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.” We must have faith in God’s love and in His willingness and ability to bless us, and we must trust that He always keeps His promises. It’s very important to God that we have a faith mind-and-heart-set towards Him.

Healthy communication is crucial to any successful relationship. Not only must we speak the truth, but we must be in a position to hear it. Our relationship with God is the most precious gift we will ever have. We need to hear what the Father is saying to us, because we need His instruction to carry out His Will. We also need to hear from Him about those places in our souls where we’re not allowing His love to rule. Very often, not hearing or perceiving God’s message is a blocker that slows our faith momentum. The Spirit of the Lord resides inside of the believer. God wants us to know that no one can be closer to us than Him. This closeness and intimacy in our relationship with Him was His plan, not ours, and it demonstrates His overwhelming love for each of us.

The gift that we can readily give ourselves is to be persistent in pursuing a revelation from the Lord. When answers don’t come easy, and we’re faced with dilemmas in life, God is always present. Some believers have complained that God is not speaking to them, but He never stops communicating with us. We must learn to listen. We have a hard time hearing His voice because we’re so focused on other things. Jesus Christ told us in Matthew 6:33 that we must seek our Heavenly Father first, and this must be a continuous habit pattern in our lives. We are spiritual beings and the more we quiet ourselves and get still before God, the more our spiritual hearing will increase. When it comes to the revelation that we desperately need to hear, it isn’t enough to receive a word from someone else’s lips. We need to be confident that God will speak to us and that we can hear Him. Pray on this. Increase your faith in the reality that God desires and is willing to speak to you. Read and study His Word, then you will hear Him speak, and wander no more.■

My Heart Rejoices in the Lord

Posted on November 21, 2022 by daaorg1214

God has placed the record of Hannah’s faith in the Old Testament Book of First Samuel. During the biblical time in which she and her husband lived, much of a woman’s worth was predicated on her ability to bear children. If she was barren, she would most likely face public ridicule, as well as the disappointment of her husband. Hannah had been childless for a long time, and she grew very distraught about this. Peninnah, her husband’s other wife, had children and made Hannah’s life miserable by taunting her about being barren. 1Samuel 1:7(NLT) tells us, “Year after year it was the same—Peninnah would taunt Hannah as they went to the Tabernacle. Each time, Hannah would be reduced to tears and would not even eat.”

Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, did not seek to divorce her because she couldn’t have children. 1Samuel 1:8(NLT) says that when he’d see her crying, he’d say, “Why aren’t you eating? Why be downhearted just because you have no children? You have me—isn’t that better than having ten sons?” However heartfelt Elkanah’s sentiments were, they didn’t silence Hannah’s anguished cries about the inability to conceive.

Barrenness in the Bible wasn’t viewed the way it is in modern society. The advancement of science and medicine has made it possible to recognize infertility as very often a treatable medical condition, but this was not the case thousands of years ago. Fertility is a gift from God, and in biblical times it was believed that pregnancies occurred when the Lord “remembers” the woman and then opens her womb. When this didn’t happen, most believed that either God was withholding the blessing of pregnancy or the woman was cursed. Under these circumstances, it is easy to understand Hannah’s grief and agony.

God doesn’t withhold blessings. Psalm 84:11(NLT) says, “For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.” This is the promise of God on which you and I must build our faith. Our Heavenly Father isn’t angry with us, and He doesn’t want to see us unhappy. God is good all the time and He wants us to place our trust in His goodness and rely upon it continually.

After the sacrificial meal, 1Samuel 1:9 tells us that Hannah got up one morning and went to pray. In deep anguish over her condition, she cried out to God and 1Samuel 1:11(NLT) says she made this vow, “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime, and as a sign that he has been dedicated to the Lord, his hair will never be cut.” This vow was Hannah’s promise to God to not only commit herself to Him, but to make sure her son would be committed to Him as well. In other words, Hannah promised to return God’s gift back to Him. This was a tremendous act of faith on her part. Hannah understood that whenever we give God our best, God will multiply it back to us, and this is the continuous cycle of giving and blessings that He has established towards His people.

Just as Elkanah might not have understood the depth of Hannah’s desire for a child, some husbands today may not understand the pain and frustration that many wives are experiencing. These are not necessarily related to infertility but could be other emotional issues that sometimes weigh us down. The reality is that our husbands don’t always understand us, but we can be confident that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, understands us and everything we go through. Hebrew 4:15(NLT) teaches, “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.” Jesus Christ knows our pain, and he offers us a solution. We are to surrender our pain and all that we are to him.

Another human being should never be our everything. Therefore, we should not look to our spouses to fill up our empty spaces. Only the Lord Jesus can do this for us. Placing this expectation on another person is unfair, because it is beyond their capability. We were created to worship and have fellowship with our Creator. In marriage, both spouses are to join together with an understanding of their purpose to be unified in Christ, always putting God first, and always seeking Him first.

Hannah went to the Source of all blessings for the desire of her heart, and this must be our practice as well. After conceiving and having a son, she declared in 1Samuel 2:1(NLT), “My heart rejoices in the Lord!” Hannah knew from whence her deliverance came. It did not come from her husband; it came from trusting and believing God! This is the way all our problems and issues are resolved, by taking it to the Lord in prayer and believing in His promises with all that we are. He hears our cries, He knows our hearts, and He will bless and deliver us when we place our trust firmly in Him. ■

Your Victory Status

Posted on October 31, 2022 by daaorg1214

Deuteronomy 28:12(NLT)
“12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13; If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom.”

The other night, I watched an interview of a woman that had much success in her life, but she’d also experienced many pitfalls as well. A successful entrepreneur with a thriving business, she was asked by the interviewer, “What keeps you humble?” She replied, “The shoe is going to drop one day. I know it is, so I work hard to prepare for the hard times, and I never let my head get too big.” I thought her response spoke to what it means to have a level head and a good work ethic, but the reality is that the shoe dropped for all of humanity when Adam sinned against God. Adam fell and took all of us with him and Eve, but God had a plan. Through Christ, He laid the path for our victory, and all we need to do is walk in it.

In Luke 14, a large crowd was following Jesus Christ. They had no doubt seen and heard of the miracles he performed, how he healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, and caused the deaf to hear. They wanted to be where the action was. Some wanted to be entertained and others were only interested in what they could get from him. But there were a few who genuinely wanted to be a part of God’s Kingdom and to learn more about it. Our Master Jesus is the Great Discerner and Separator. Luke 3:17(NLT) says of him, “He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.” Our Redeemer separates what is real from what is fake. That is what he did with this crowd, and this is what he will do when he returns to the earth.

In Luke 14:26-29(NLT), Jesus Christ turned around and said to the large crowd, “26 If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. 28 “But don’t begin until you count the cost.” Our Lord and Savior is fully transparent. He doesn’t keep anything hidden from us. He wants us to know that there’s a cost to discipleship. There’s a cost to following him.

When we give our lives to Christ, we make him LORD! He is the head of everything in our existences, from the smallest to the greatest detail. Our lives belong to him totally and completely. 1John 4:4(NLT) declares, “But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.” We belong to God! And Jesus Christ is Lord over our emotions, over our thoughts, over our conversations, our relationships, our going in and our going out. He is Lord over us, and we must honor him as the head. This is what it means to give our lives to Christ. In Luke 14:26-29, he makes it fully transparent that this is required, and if we’re not up for it, he tells us to consider carefully whether we should begin this journey.

In Luke 14:28, he tells us to count the cost. This means we should think about the price or cost of following Christ before we begin the journey. As born-again believers, our lives may be targeted for adversity and tribulation. This Christian walk is not always easy, and Jesus Christ asks us to pick up this cross and follow him. We do it because we made the choice to follow righteousness and turn our backs on darkness. God rewards this choice in a big way. 1Corinthians 2:9(NLT) declares, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

When we are going through the battles of life, it can get so bad sometimes that you can’t find the Words that God has imprinted on your heart. You want to declare that you are more than a conqueror in every situation, but your tribulations seem insurmountable. This is the time when you must trust God and do everything in your power to stand on His Word. It’s not about how we feel. It’s not about how a situation looks. It’s about believing that God does not lie, and that His Word is true! He has all power in His hands, He is faithful to deliver us, and He will set our feet on higher ground. This is what we must trust.

Never doubt your victory status. It was purchased with an exceedingly high price. God wants us to obey His Word because this is how we walk in the victory of Jesus Christ. Life will throw many things at us, because the devil is busy, but we must remember what God tells us in 1John 4:4, “the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.” Our Heavenly Father has put us in this race. It’s a race that started when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and God has made sure we are all equipped to win it. He tells us in 1John 5:4(NLT), “For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.” We are destined for victory in Jesus Christ, and we are not defeated. We must keep the faith, continue to read and study God’s Word, and be willing to carry our crosses no matter what comes our way. ■

You’re Never on Your Own

Posted on October 24, 2022 by daaorg1214

Matthew 11:28-30(NLT)

“28 Then Jesus said, “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.”

A good friend and I were having a conversation the other day, and she told me how tired she had been lately. In her words, “Life seems to be getting tougher, and I’m tired of having to juggle everything by myself.” She’s 58 years old, and even though she’s always wanted to be married, it has never happened. Feelings of depression and loneliness creep up every time she thinks about all the heartaches and obstacles she’s had to face on her own. Even though my friend is over fifty, the feelings she’s having are not unique to a certain age group. The loneliness of being single far longer than you’d like doesn’t discriminate.

My conversation with my friend made me remember when I felt much the same way she does. I’d go to bed at night feeling depleted and sad, thinking that I’d feel better in the morning. The funny thing is, I’d awaken the next morning just as tired as I was the day before. It dawned on me that I needed more than a good night’s sleep. Like all of us, I needed, and will always need, the deep spiritual rest that only the Lord Jesus Christ can give.

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus Christ extends an invitation to all of us that are feeling exhausted and burdened down by life. He knows that the world can wear a person down, and he tells us to bring our tired and worn-down selves to him. He will give us rest. The rest that he gives is supernatural. We can’t use human reasoning to explain it because it exceeds our understanding. His rest is administered to the deepest part of us, and there, it restores and replenishes our souls. It’s a rest that belongs to us because our Master Jesus paid for it with his life when he died on the cross for our sins.

You and I must take this rest by faith. Taking it by faith is the only way. Jesus Christ laid this out for us in Matthew 11:28-29. He said, “I GIVE, YOU TAKE!” That’s the order! He gives, and then you and I have the great privilege and honor to respond to what he has done. We are to take what he offers. Well, what are we taking? In this passage, he also answers this question for us as well. We are taking his yoke—his guidance, direction, truth, example, power, and love. He tells us to learn about him, because in John 14:6, he teaches us that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

His truth is food for our souls, and after we feast on him, our souls will be at rest. In John 6:35(NLT), he said “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Jesus Christ is life to us! Again, learning about him feeds us in a way that nothing else can. This is the part where so many of us go south and miss the greatest blessing of our lives. For some reason, we will not place ourselves in a posture of studying and reading to learn more about God and His Word. We will not avail ourselves to Christ and will not connect the reality of our soul’s starvation to our refusal to know more about Jesus Christ than we know right now.

Our Master and Savior is humble. He left the throne of God to come to earth to save us. Philippians 2:6-8(NLT) declares, “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Jesus Christ was not forced to die for our sins, he chose to die a humiliating, agonizing death on the cross in order to redeem us from the slavery of sin and death.

We’re never on our own. God is always with us and knowing His great love through Jesus Christ will transform us! He freely offers us this love, and the greatest thing we can do for ourselves is to take it. Spending year and year feeling sad and depleted is not God’s desire for any of His children. He wants us to be happy and blessed every moment of every day, but the joy that He gives is no ordinary joy. The world cannot give it, and the world cannot take it away. It is a joy that isn’t dependent on what we have or don’t have. It isn’t dependent on a relationship with anyone else other than our Master Jesus.

The yoke of Christ will demand that every drop of our tendency to look to someone else for our joy and happiness is completely abandoned. Jesus Christ is LORD! There can be no other who occupies that place in our hearts but him. We don’t get to tell the Lord that our heart belongs only to him, because none of us know our hearts that well, but God knows them. He tells us in Jeremiah 17:10(NLT), “But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” Every good relationship that any of us will ever have is birthed from our love, devotion, and loyalty to God through Jesus Christ. When this spiritual lesson is firmly in our minds and hearts, we will enjoy God’s rest and all the blessings that come with it. ■

Have Hope in God

Posted on October 3, 2022 by daaorg1214

Ecclesiastes 7: 9-12(NLT)
“Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool. 10 Don’t long for the good old days. This is not wise. 11 Wisdom is even better when you have money. Both are a benefit as you go through life. 12 Wisdom and money can get you almost anything, but only wisdom can save your life.”

“Where did I go wrong in my life?”

I was talking to Louisa the other day. She’s a middle-aged Christian woman that I’ve known a while, and she expressed her desire to have a do-over with her life. Louisa has lots of regrets. She wished that she had never moved away from her hometown in the South and that she would have married her high school sweetheart. “At least with him, I knew what to expect.” she remarked. What did she get instead? A man that cheated on her most of their 25 years of marriage. She met Larry two years after she moved to Ohio. They dated for a couple of years, got married and had three children. She found out about his affairs after they had their second child, but because her oldest child had medical issues, she remained in the marriage. Raising two boys alone would’ve been more than she could handle, she thought, and after her daughter was born, she settled into what she refers to as a life of disappointment.

Most of us wake up every morning, go to work, raise our children, and do what is necessary to live a peaceable life. It isn’t a fairy tale, because life isn’t meant to be. It’s meant to be a walk of faith with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Most of us are fully aware of this. Things in life don’t always go the way we plan. Many of us are caught off guard by this and catch ourselves wishing that we could have a do-over, especially when it comes to some of our mishaps and mistakes. But life just keeps rolling, and we must have faith in God to keep up.

When our reality is far from what we’ve dreamed, we think we’ve missed something or left something behind that would have made us better and therefore made our lives better. We figure it’s almost impossible to recoup now that we have so many responsibilities. Others are depending on us to hold things together, and it isn’t always easy to be strong. Our hopes are injured because it feels that any chance of living the dream is greatly diminished. We’re left wondering how we ventured so far off track.

Romans 8:29-30(NKJV) declares, “29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Verse 29 tells us that God knew us even before we were in our mother’s wombs. He has given us a destiny, and this destiny is shaped and modeled in the example that Jesus Christ left for us. We are children of God, and God is the One who predestines our lives. It’s not our plan, it’s His plan! Our great pleasure, privilege, and responsibility is to pray, to seek what He has in store for us, and to follow His plan and purpose with all our hearts.

Our plans and dreams are limited to only what we can see and imagine. We don’t consider all the pitfalls and missteps because we couldn’t possibly know them all. We think about what is good for us, but don’t always know what is good for everyone, or how our dreams and desires might impact the lives of others. Our God is interested in what is good for everyone, and the benefit of all is masterfully woven into His plans. Our Heavenly Father knows everything. Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 6:8 that God knows we need before we ask Him. There isn’t any detail about our lives or the lives of others that God does not know. Acts 17:27 tells us that He alone set the boundaries of our births, and He left nothing to chance.

Galatians 3:13(NLT) declares, “But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”” The past is gone forever and will never come again. It cannot be relived, and none of us can have do-overs, but we must never, ever forget the reality that our Heavenly Father is a Redeeming God. He redeemed us from the curse of sin, sickness, and death. Adam disobeyed God and sold us all into the slavery of sin, sickness, and death, but God always had a plan for our redemption through Christ. Romans 5:12 affirms that Adam sinned, and sin spread because we all sinned too, but through his sacrificial offering for our sin, Jesus Christ redeemed and saved us from this curse. Now, we are free and have received the gift of eternal life because of what God accomplished through the death and resurrection of our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

God redeems! He delivers and restores! When we try to make our plans work, they don’t always come out the way we envision, and this is what causes disappointment, but God’s plan always works to His glory and to our benefit and glory as well. In Proverbs 3:5-6, He instructs us not to lean on our own understanding. He tells us to place all our trust in Him, and all means “ALL”. He directs our paths, and on this we can depend.In Jeremiah 29:11(NLT), He told His people living in Old Testament times, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

Romans 8:28(NLT) affirms, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” We make mistakes, but they teach us that God is the One that is in control! We don’t have any power to call our own. All power belongs to Him! Although there are disappointments in life, He can redeem them to such a degree that the sting of disappointment no longer affects us. Through Jesus Christ, God has given us a sure hope, and Romans 5:5 declares that this hope in Christ does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through His Holy Spirit! So, let’s not waste time on wouldas-couldas-shouldas. Let’s be secure in the knowledge that we can bloom wherever we are planted as long as we trust God and depend on Him to lead us on the path He’s set for our lives.■

Keep the Courage

Posted on September 5, 2022 by daaorg1214

Deuteronomy 28:13(NLT)
“If you listen to these commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom.”

Trust the truth within, don’t look back – keep going forward.

Abusive relationships are about someone trying to steal your power. This can do a number on your mental and emotional well-being. Once you make the decision to leave an abusive relationship, it’s common to frequently travel down the path of second thoughts. You’ve made a good decision by leaving the biggest mistake of your life in the rear-view mirror, but repeatedly, you question your decision. We do this because our head is convinced, but our hearts aren’t yet on board. That’s because they haven’t fully healed. You feel as though you’ve got just enough courage to make it one day at a time, but it’s tough being alone. Loneliness makes us second guess our decisions probably more than anything else. It makes us listen to the advice of people that don’t have the best track record of common sense and sound judgment. They don’t understand the courage it took for you to leave.

Whatever it is you’re facing today, at this very moment, remind yourself to keep up the courage and stay true to your faith in God. Remain strong and never forget what it took for you to get this far. Don’t look back. Understand that this is what many of us do. Many women who have been in toxic or abusive relationships allow their gut instincts to take a back seat. They make decisions with their hearts and deny what their heads are telling them. Jeremiah 17:9(NLT) offers God’s sound wisdom on this subject. It tells us,“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” God wants us to know that if we haven’t trained our hearts with the wisdom of His Word, then we can’t make our hearts the governing authority over our lives.

We can’t always do what our hearts tell us. Society has a completely opposite notion. It tells us that we can’t help what our hearts feel, and we can’t help who our hearts love. If that were true, then surely every person that has ever lived would fall madly in love with God. John 3:16 tells us that He loved us so much that He offered the life of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins. If we have no control over who we choose to love, then surely God would have preprogrammed us to love Him automatically and unconditionally, the way we should; because He is good, holy, and magnificent beyond words. But this isn’t the case. God gave us free-will agency. We choose who we will love. It’s our choice, and if we can fall in love, we can choose to fall out of love, especially if the person is hurting us.

Love is a commitment. It’s a commitment to honor and respect someone to such a degree that you place their welfare over your own. This is the way God wants us all to love and honor the significant person in our lives. 1Corinthians 13:5 tells us that love doesn’t push, shove, or demand its own way. Love only wants what is best for the other person. God has emphasized this truth countless times in His Word. This is what He means in Deuteronomy 28:13. He doesn’t want us to be egotistical or arrogant, but He wants us to know that we are His treasures. We are valuable to Him, and therefore, we must be valuable to ourselves.

We’re the head and not the tail. We’re above and not beneath. This tells us that we are favored by God through Jesus Christ, and this is how we should be treated. Philippians 4:13 tells us that we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ. What do conquerors do? They conquer! They overcome! This is your destiny! Even if it is in the smallest way, once you’ve gotten to a place where you have enough strength and confidence to believe this, make sure you keep confessing and telling yourself that you are more than a conqueror in Christ! Remind yourself continually that your future is much better and brighter than your past. Keep looking ahead and be thankful to God for what He has already done for your life. We are God’s masterpieces! It is not His Will for you to be hurt, mistreated, depressed, suicidal, or hopeless. He wants everyone to be happy and blessed, and when you begin to trust this, you’ll see your path to peace and happiness so much clearer.

Jesus Christ Is Our Peace

Posted on August 22, 2022 by daaorg1214

John 16:33 (NLT)
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

“If she curses me out one more time, I don’t know if I can move forward.
Her words are so hurtful!”

Humans are not perfect. We make a ton of mistakes and some of them are real doozies. This is never more true than in the love department. In our significant relationships, we’re not going to get everything right, and we’re not always going to end up on the winning side. Some of us will experience the most hurtful disappointment we’ve ever endured. The targets of our affection don’t always appreciate the love we’re giving, and when it’s apparent that this person isn’t capable of reciprocating quality love, but instead they are causing us more pain, we need to open our eyes to what is being revealed. This person wasn’t sent by God and they’re not going to be the blessing we desire for our lives.

I ran into an old acquaintance, and we talked for a while. He began telling me about the difficulty he’s now having with his fiancé. They’d gotten engaged a year-ago and have called off the wedding twice in six-months. He loves her very much, but he said, “If she curses me out one more time, I don’t know if I can move forward. Her words are so hurtful!” This isn’t the way anyone should be treated. God isn’t pleased with this kind of behavior. He commands us in Ephesians 4:32(NLT), “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” Heavenly Father commands us to be kind to one another because this is the way He is with us. His mercy and grace endure forever, and He has shown us how much He loves us by giving His only begotten Son as a offering for our sins. God’s kindness towards us is our example, and He expects us to treat everyone this way, but we are to be especially kind to the person that will walk with us through life.

The world we live in can be extremely harsh, mean, and cold. The person we love should be creating a space that is a warm place for us to land. We should feel safe in their company and not have to keep our guard up the way we do in the world. Most people understand this, and when they can’t bring themselves to model God’s tenderness and love, we need to beware. There could be a darkness internally that they are refusing to acknowledge or confront. If the love you’ve given them hasn’t yet motivated them to change their behavior, it’s time to have a serious conversation with God about your life and the decisions you need to make.

Many times, growing up, I’d hear my elders say, “When you’ve done all you can do, trust in the Lord, and He will carry you through.” This is now deeply imbedded in me, and it’s how I’ve learned to address problematic situations. For years I tried to carry the weight of troublesome issues on my back. In relationships, I took it upon myself to solder the inner turmoil of the men I loved. I offered myself up for the brunt of their self-punishing behavior, but this was not God’s Will for my life. He gave His Son to die so that we can all be free. Galatians 5:1 (The Message) declares, “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.”

Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 11:28-30(NLT), “28 Then Jesus said, “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.” Our Lord and Savior instructs us to give our burdens to him and let him bear the heaviness of them. When we do this, we shouldn’t take them back. We are incapable of carrying our burdens, they are too heavy. Giving them to Jesus is all we can do, and once we’ve given him our burdens, we must have faith that he will take care of the rest.

He also tells us to take his yoke upon us. This means that we should be focusing on learning more about Jesus Christ so that we can put on more of his example. It means that we should never try to wear his yoke and someone else’s too. Jesus Christ is humble and gentle; he is our everything, and he is medicine for whatever ails us. He is our peace, and we need to let him heal our hearts, so that we love from the place of his strength and reject anything and anyone that doesn’t love us from that place as well.■

All Things Working Together for Your Good

Posted on August 15, 2022 by daaorg1214

Romans 8:28(NKJV) is a verse of scripture that is even well-known among those that haven’t made Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior of their lives. This truth is a source of comfort and encouragement for all who follow Christ. In it, God declares, “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.” This is the shining pinnacle of the eighth chapter of the Book of Romans. As God’s people, we are “the called!” We have a destiny in Christ, and whether we know it or not, it far exceeds our greatest and grandest expectations and imaginations.

This verse in Romans 8:28 conveys the perfection of God and the perfection of His Will. It assures us that no matter our mistakes or shortcomings, God loves us, and for those of us that love Him, He will put the greatness of His power on full display in our lives. He will take details, no matter how small or large they appear to be to us, and He will cause every one of them—every circumstance and condition—to cooperate. When He’s done, we can be assured that the outcome will always be for our good. This is very good news indeed!

God works through people and situations to bless and help us. We must never underestimate the truth of this. Hebrews 13:2(NLT) says, “Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!” This verse holds a very important truth when it comes to one of the ways in which our Heavenly Father helps us. Angels can come to our aid, and sometimes they appear as people that come into our lives as helpers, and then they leave as quickly as they came.

Some worship angels, and we are never to do this. The instruction of the Father in Hebrews 13:2 is not so we will become focused on whether we have entertained angels. It is to open our eyes to His expectation regarding our treatment of others. He doesn’t want us to forget that we are to show strangers and everyone else the love of Christ. We are to treat them with the kindness that we ourselves want to receive. Many of us haven’t done this in the past and we’re not doing it now. Because we have overlooked the direction of the Father in this way, we may have repelled a blessing rather than brought it closer within our reach. We may have turned away an angel through meanness and arrogance, when they were the link to the very deliverance of God that we have prayed to receive.

Heavenly Father tells us in 2Corinthians 13:5(NLT) to “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves.” This must be a continual practice. We must look in the mirror and examine how we are treating other people, even those that do not like us. God isn’t punishing us for our ill-treatment of others and our bad manners. He is waiting for us to wake up and open our eyes. We erroneously think that we’re wide awake already. We haven’t realized the extent to which negativity in our hearts, in our behaviors, feelings, and conversations, have caused us to miss out.

God tells us in Jeremiah 29:11(ESV), “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” In some respects, we see ourselves as very small, so small in fact that underneath it all is the thought that God can’t be bothered with the minutia of our everyday lives. This simply isn’t true. God is the One with the plan for our lives. He wants us to bring everything, from the smallest to the greatest detail, before Him. Ephesians 1:11 affirms that He predestined every individual that He has called, and He has done so according to the workings of His perfect Will. He’s left nothing to chance when it comes to our sonship inheritance in Christ. On this we can depend.

God has given each of us a destiny, but it is our choice to follow it. If we do, we will live in Christ and spend every moment being perfected in him. The longing we have in our souls is often misunderstood and mistaken to be that of humans yearning for other humans. It is in truth our longing to know God, and to know Him so fully that our cups run over. His love is just that good, His countenance is just that loving, His grace is that unyielding, and His power is that all-consuming fire. He alone is our passion, and every detail, encounter, and experience are pointing us in the direction of His rich and holy presence.

We ought to burn to take Him all in, not halfway, but all the way. And we must also come to the realization that taking God fully into our hearts means that anything in us that isn’t of His love and light must die. We might think it’s too difficult to change, but to the extent that we want to please God and grow in Christ, the blinders must come off. God is causing all things to work together to bring us closer to Him. He is doing this for our great benefit, so we can know Him and then be committed to carry forth the purpose of which we were called.

All things working together is a premise we understand. We understand it because we have lived all things working against us and all things falling apart. We know brokenness. We know confusion and chaos. We know when the pieces of our lives are shattered and scattered all over the ground. The war between the flesh and the Spirit is this consuming urge we have to pick up those broken pieces ourselves, and then to try and put them back together again. We cannot. Only God knows how to restore. Only He knows which pieces are useful to our journey forward and upward, and which are not. He alone causes things to coagulate and merge to such a degree that we are lifted far above the conditions that once held us back.

God’s Will and purpose are the force behind life. His Holy Spirit is the worker behind Romans 8:28. God is, as Philippians 2:13 tells us, working in us through His Spirit, giving us the desire AND the power to do the things that please Him. Do you know the things that please Him? This is the question, and the pursuit of the answer should motivate us each day. If we seek God earnestly, the thing which we seek will be unveiled. This He promises.

We are called according to God’s purpose, and whether we know it or not, this calling is everything to us. It will cause us to live the more than abundant life that Jesus Christ made available. But we must realize that progressing to the place that God has destined for us means that some things in our lives today must be left behind. The soul-tie must be clipped and removed. They are weights, impeding our progress and bogging down our lives. If higher is our destination, those things simply can’t journey with us.

God has fully saved us through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He will not stop until we walk fully in His light, fully in His love, fully immersed in His Word, and fully living in Christ. Our eyes will be no longer blinded when we know this for ourselves, and we will see with new enlightenment and awe, that causing all things to work together for our good has been God’s handiwork since the very day we were born.■

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Category Archives: Spiritual Encouragement