Be the Reason

Posted on April 29, 2024 by daaorg1214

One of our primary responsibilities as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is to be the reason that others think God is good. There is in truth no boundary for His goodness, because He is good all the time. As followers of Christ, we should be so convinced of God’s goodness that it should be oozing out of our pores. Faith in God is infectious, and He intended that it should be that way. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5:16(ESV), “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Through the new birth reality, Jesus Christ has given us his light, because we have his Spirit abiding inside us. He has empowered us to shine bright so that everyone can see that the Source of our light is God, and because of our shine, they will give glory to Him too.

Psalm 145:9(ESV) says, “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” God is good to the last drop, and He has designed the universe and everything in it to cooperate beautifully with His goodness. It’s the driving force of all that is lovely, pure, kind, and excellent. When humanity was at its worse, God sent His only begotten Son to the earth to offer his life as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that every person, those who love Him and those that do not, can have the gift of eternal life. God sent Christ to do for us what we were totally incapable of doing for ourselves. So, like His goodness, God’s love knows no bounds. It is unconditional and unlimited, and through Jesus Christ, He has lavished His love on us all.

Our blessed Savior told us in John 10:10(NKJV), “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.” A more than abundant life is the kind of existence our Heavenly Father desires for each of us. We owe everything to Him for what He’s done for all of humanity through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because of his finished work, we can have a meaningful life with solid relationships, a fulfilling marriage, financial stability with plenty left over to share with others, and most importantly, because of Christ, we can have an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Even though some of these blessings may not have manifested in our lives yet, a more than abundant life is the empowerment of God to every person who has faith in Him, and He means for us to enjoy this level of living. Deuteronomy 8:19(ESV) says, “You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.” Again, God has empowered us to reach out and grab His many blessings. He wants us to have our needs taken care of, to have good health, good relationships, and plenty of money in the bank. The question is whether we want it, and if we will meet His requirements to receive it.

Sometimes, our faith is below the threshold of our privilege. God wants us to be blessed abundantly, but we haven’t raised our thoughts and confessions to the level of blessings we desire. Some of us hang our heads low, and because we will not renew our minds to God’s Word and elevate our faith, we appear to others to be stagnant and uninspired. That’s a witness we need to change. Just because our girlfriends are lonely and feeling hopeless, we do not have to make ourselves small to fit in. Instead, we should put the glory and blessings of God on full blast.

No matter who we are or what we do for a living, someone has eyes on us. That’s just the simple truth. People look at how we move through our lives, especially when we’ve made it known we’re a believer. The reality is that our witness can either be a blessing to them or a hindrance, but God has empowered us to be a blessing and to leave a lasting impression of His glory.

Jesus Christ said 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.” Doubt is an enemy of faith. It keeps our view obstructed so that we do not see the opportunities that have our name on them. In the Old Testament, this is what happened to the Israelites. They refused to trust God’s promise when they were in the wilderness. Moses sent spies to the land that God had promised them, and all but two of the spies brought back bad reports of fear. Numbers 13:33 tells us the spies told the people of Israel that they felt like grasshoppers next to the inhabitants of the promised land. That fear quickly spread among the others, and because of their doubt, they traveled around in circles in the wilderness until the unbelieving eventually died there.

They missed the promise of the Father because they refused to trust it. This should never be said about those of us living in the victory of Jesus Christ today. 2Corinthians 4:6(NLT) tells us, “For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.” You and I know the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ because Christ lives in us! That’s why we can do as our Redeemer commands and let our light shine in the lives of others.

Inspire people with your witness. Let it be full of praise for our God! Every believer has the responsibility to let their light shine. People living today are desperately seeking something and someone real. They want to believe the truth and want a witness of someone living it. Let that someone be you. Psalm 34:8(ESV) says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” With our families and friends, and in our jobs, places of worship, schools, and everywhere else, we should be the reason! We should be the reason that individuals who see our light want to come to the table to taste and see that God is good. He truly is and it is the greatest privilege and honor that any of us could ever imagine to live with confidence that His goodness is in our hearts, and it covers us every day of our lives.■

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.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

The Spirit of Truth

Posted on April 22, 2024 by daaorg1214

The first born-again Christian that I met who actually talked about being filled with the Holy Spirit was a woman that I had known most of my life. I was 14 and she was a mother of seven with an abusive husband that treated them all horribly. They were poor and she was often taken with illness, no doubt from the many beatings she had endured. She told me, “I go to the Holiness church in town. That’s where I got saved and filled with the Holy Ghost!” For me, this was nuanced and shocking. I was raised in the Baptist church and Christian men and women had been my teachers, mentors, and role models, but the words this woman spoke stopped me dead in my tracks. My coloring box of ‘dignified good Christian people’ made room for a new color. For the first time I saw hope in this once hopeless woman, and it made a tremendous impact on my life.

Living with Holy Spirit power was a foreign concept to me as a young believer, still in high school. I never heard about him from anyone. When I finally did hear about the power of the Holy Spirit, and inquired about him, I was told that this wasn’t for me. It was for those folks who danced and casted out demons, but it was not for me. That simply wasn’t the truth. The Holy Spirit is for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s not an abstract essence or an empty cloud. The Holy Spirit is a person. He’s more of a person than you and I could ever be.

The Holy Spirit is a gift from God to every born-again believer. In Acts 2:38(ESV), the Apostle Peter proclaimed, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is power from on High. He’s the difference maker in our lives. Jesus Christ tells us in John 16:13 that he sent the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth and to tell us what he, the Spirit, hears from Christ.

It’s not our power we’re using. You and I don’t have any power to call our own. Our power comes from God through His Holy Spirit that indwells us. God tells us in Hosea 4:6 that His people are destroyed because they lack knowledge about Him, they don’t know what’s right and true, and they’ve turned their backs on knowledge. This happened to those living in Old Testament times and it is still happening to many of us. Some of us allow religion to hold us hostage from the truth, and we deny the gift of Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth.

Many of us have studied God’s Word, and some have done so exhaustively. We may comprehend God’s love intellectually, but we can’t understand it with spiritual depth because we deny the Teacher. The Word may make sense to us, but there’s no connection between our minds and hearts to help the Word sink deep because we have denied the Helper. We need to comprehend the Word of God in a way that the power of its truth sinks deep within. Only the Holy Spirit can do that for us.

Jesus Christ said in John 10:10(NKJV), “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.” The thief is the devil, our adversary, and Jesus Christ has schooled us on what the thief is up to, however, he doesn’t want us to focus on that, because he has overcome the devil through his sacrifice and resurrection. Our precious Lord and Savior wants us to focus on what he has done for us, because he has made it available for every person to live with his victory, and therefore live a more than abundant life.

It’s no secret that life on earth comes with challenges and setbacks. Although we’re not to focus on the negative, our blessed Redeemer didn’t hide the reality of trials and tribulations. He told the disciples in 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.” Many believers have not understood the awesome Good News of this scripture. Jesus Christ was tempted by satan, faced unparallel opposition, endured being called names and lied about, and walked with power, love, and strength throughout his ministry in the midst of murderous attempts on his life. He was fearless because he understood who he was. He knew that God was backing him through the power of the Holy Spirit, and you and I are called to walk with this same authority and power.

Romans 8:10(NLT) says, “And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.” The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. It is this same Spirit that was in Christ, working in him to complete God’s mission of saving the world. There is no equal to God’s power and that power is in us through the Holy Spirit!

We underestimate our ability to soar like eagles, to conquer obstacles victoriously, and to overcome any situation because we have not allowed God’s Holy Spirit to be at work in our lives to the extent he can. When we don’t know God’s Word, and we’re ignorant about the Helper, we can be stolen from, killed, and destroyed. Many of our beautiful brothers and sisters have fallen because they didn’t realize that God has given us the Gift of Holy Spirit to protect and keep us, and to help us live powerfully. Not every person will accept what Jesus Christ has made available. Some will continue to live beneath their privilege, but don’t let that be you. God has commanded us to live by the Spirit, because the Spirit will preserve and help us to be strengthened with God’s love and power so that we can be like Christ and live a successful Christian life.■

Where Are You?

Posted on April 15, 2024 by daaorg1214

A very nice lady in her senior years said to me recently that she’s been praying to God a long time to heal her right leg. Her last words to me were, “…And I’m still waiting.” This is a sentiment we no doubt hear expressed from many believers, particularly those over 50 that may be dealing with minor health challenges. We need to look under the hood of this, because the idea of praying and waiting long periods of time for the manifestation of the blessing is one that has become a fixture in our way of thinking. When it comes to meeting our future spouses and being delivered from sickness, ailments, and disease, many of us believe that God has delayed the blessing, when the issue is that we have stalled in our faith.

Some of us have never witnessed God heal someone miraculously, and because we haven’t seen it, we’re challenged to believe it. We may not have heard of sisters in Christ fasting and praying for six months and meeting their destiny partners shortly thereafter. Because we’re not witnessing and hearing about the miraculous in the lives of those close to us, it’s possible that our believing has flatlined, and we need to pump some life into it.

“How did I get here, Lord? My heart has been scarred from years of fractured and broken relationships. I’ve been abandoned, talked down to, relegated to the sidelines in so many ways, and I’m just waiting for the weight of all this to move out my way so I can breathe. I want my life to be light and free, like the air You allow to flow in and out of my nostrils. I no longer want to feel powerless and hopeless, Lord, but these seem like constant companions, like I can’t shake them loose for nothing. How did I get to this place where my dreams, once so relentless in my heart, are now like a mist that flutters about and teases me only every now and again? No one understands my pain. I’m disappointed and sad, and I don’t even know how I got here.” The very nice lady didn’t say these words to me, but ‘I’m still waiting’ painted a portrait of pain way beyond that of her right leg.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, their sinful actions didn’t remain outside the perimeters of their physical bodies. When they bowed to the devil and disobeyed God’s Word, sin entered their bodies and brought death with it. They were not ignorant. They knew better. As Adam and Eve walked together with the Holy Spirit in communion and fellowship, the Spirit taught them many things because this is what he does. The Holy Spirit is our Teacher. Jesus Christ said in John 14:26(NCV), “But the Helper will teach you everything and will cause you to remember all that I told you. This Helper is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.” God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change. Because of this, we can have some idea of Adam’s and Eve’s days. They were learning from the Holy Spirit and working in the garden of Eden, because that is what God told them to do.

Regarding things that were forbidden, God gave Adam only one commandment, and Genesis 2:16-17(ESV) lays it out. It says, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “16 You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” From the Word of the Lord, we can understand that once a wrong decision or choice is acted upon, sin enters the body. Without repentance, sin sits, festers, and corrodes us from the inside out. Praise God for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who rescued us from this terrible fate! Through Christ, God handled our sin issue. Our problem is that even though we’ve been rescued from the curse of death and darkness, some of us are still going back to our old ways and picking up old dead things.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they followed the next course on the path that sin lays, which is shame. They hid themselves from God because sin brought an awareness of nakedness, of not being covered by holiness and sacred connection to our Heavenly Father. They were ashamed of their sin, and this was a new and dark development. Shame had not entered the picture until sin came on the scene. Disobedience opened their eyes to sin, and all its cousins. So, they fell. They were out of place and lost their holy positioning, and Genesis 3:9(ESV) tells us, “9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?””

“Where are you” indeed. Of course, God knew the physical location of Adam and Eve, because God knows everything. When we examine the translation of these words in Genesis 3:9, we discover that God is making a statement regarding His relationship with Adam and Eve. Sin caused their disconnect from Heavenly Father, and the catastrophe this set-in motion was conveyed in the Father’s question to them. That vulnerability, innocence, and humble dependence on God was lost, and even though many of us are saved today, we’ve lost it too.

2Corinthians 5:17(ESV) tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Our old nature was crucified with Christ when he sacrificed his life on the cross. The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 2:20 (ESV), “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” This is us! We were with him when he nailed our sins to the cross. The flesh has been crucified, and we are new creations in Christ, but some of us didn’t let some parts die. We’re holding on to them and they are harming us.

The disappointment and nagging heartache are always just beneath our resolve of “I’m okay.” They leave us with just enough hope to make it through the day but not enough to live confidently and boldly in Christ. Pain is not a natural state, and neither is loneliness, but they are the familiar. We see these, pain and loneliness, so often in the eyes of others, and sadly, even after some of us are saved, there’s no difference between the fainting faith of those deeply wounded and us. We’ve acquiesced to the level of their apathy and melded our unbelief with their doubt, and this is mainly because we’ve kept some things, some habits, some wrong thoughts, some errors in our hearts and minds. We didn’t kick doubt and wrong believing out the door. For some of us, the heavies that we should have repented, surrendered to God, and released are still hiding out in our hearts and minds.

Our Heavenly Father does not want us in pain. He does not want us to be lonely. Wherever we are in our life’s journey, we must be completely sold out to these truths. Where are we in our faith? Where are we in the level of intimacy we’ve developed in our relationship with God? Where are we in our heads and hearts, and have we released the bitterness, the jealousy, the envy, doubt, lying, and all the other negativity God commanded us to let die? These, and anything like them, are at the root of all our pain, and if we’re wise, we’ll pray for a revelation to see them, confront them, and let them go so that God’s love can heal up our broken places. ■

New Century Version (NCV)
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All Things Working Together

Posted on April 8, 2024 by daaorg1214

When it’s time for a believer to be at a certain point of spiritual maturity in the Lord Jesus Christ, and this person has no recognition or awareness of this appointed place, it can be said that he or she is asleep as it relates to their spiritual appointment. Many will argue that this isn’t true, but our circumstances will bear it out repeatedly. Even as believers, sometimes our lives come to a standstill. It seems that things just aren’t moving, and we’re not as satisfied or fulfilled as we once were. We have a choice. We can remain at a standstill, or we can accept the reality that we’re late for our spiritual appointment, and we need to seek God with all our hearts and minds, because He has some place for us to be.

Make no mistake, there’s a place where everything for us comes together in an amazing and fulfilling way. Romans 8:28(ESV) says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Be clear that ‘all things working together for good’ is a process of God’s perfect timing. It doesn’t mean that our circumstances and conditions are continually in a state of bliss. We live on earth where people and things are coming against us all the time. Jesus Christ told us in John 16:33 that in the world we will have tribulation, but we can be encouraged because he overcame the world, and through him, we will too.

So ‘all things working together’ is not a drop-off location where things are perfect and pleasing as punch. We don’t get to remain planted there with our hands tucked beneath our laps. But this is the way some of us have trained our minds to think. We forget that this earth experience is grooming ground for our faith, and that our faith will indeed get a workout here. Instead, we have immediacy on the brain. When we’re in a bind or we’re expecting an answer to prayer, we want things working out on the double. Again, ‘All things working together’ is a continual process where we have a starting point and a destination according to our faith. And as soon as we we’ve reached one destination and gained a higher level of faith; another starting point will be revealed.

‘All things working together for our good’ is God working powerfully behind the scenes. We can’t see all the details of what He’s doing, and this is one of the reasons that so many of us become anxious and worried that things are not going to work out. We lose faith because our timetables lack the patience and endurance that God is requiring of us.

Stamina and momentum are not words we typically hear in Christian vernacular, but we should hear them more often because they are very important to our walk in Christ. Stamina and momentum have everything to do with the endurance and patience that God expects all believers to produce. He tells us in Hebrew 12:1(NLT), “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Notice in this verse that God didn’t tell us that HE would strip off every weight that slows us down. He’s given this responsibility to us, and when we reach a point in life where the weight is barreling down on us, we should know that it’s stripping off time. The longer we wait to strip it off, the more stamina and momentum we lose.

Our blessings are not delayed, we’ve yet to catch up to them. God does not slow the rotation of the earth to catch up with our pace; we must catch up to His pace. This is one of the reasons He is continually reminding us in His Word to put on our new nature which is created to be like Christ. If we do this, we will be prepared for all that God has in store. Some of us have delayed our spiritual growth and maturity to such a degree that our eyes no longer recognize opportunities. They slip right by us. God has designed the universe in such a way that it is continually pouring out the overflow of His blessings, but we’ve not positioned ourselves to be at the right place at the right time.

1Corinthians 14:33 (NKJV) tells us, “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace.” Heavenly Father is a God of order, and one of the greatest disservices we commit against ourselves is to underestimate His nature of peace and His allegiance to structure and order. You and I don’t have the mental and emotional capacity to absorb the true majesty and supremacy of God. It is impossible to even skim the surface of it without the help of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is one of the reasons why God is so patient with us. He doesn’t punish us for not reading and studying His Word. He leaves the level of intimacy in our relationship with Him totally up to us. We can seek Him first, or we can seek other things, but we will always move at a snail’s pace to blessings if we don’t seek God with all our hearts, minds, and strength.

Romans 8:28 reminds us that God has called us to His purpose. The revelation of our purpose in the Will of God must combine with our intelligence and intention to walk it out. Many of us are finding ourselves in a predicament of stagnancy when it comes to blessings, and it is most often due to the failure to soak in the knowledge of God’s Word and connect it to purpose and action. This causes us to lose momentum on this Christian journey, and it decreases our strength and ability to reach out and grab what is rightfully ours.

Blessings come from our knowledge of the Word of God. When we’re in a season in our lives where we’re not seeing the kind of movement we expect, it isn’t a time to be complacent. It’s a season to seek God like never before and draw nearer to Him with the full assurance that He will draw nearer to us. In Revelation 3:2 (NLT), God warned, “Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God.” Everything, and I do mean absolutely everything is spiritual. The Spirit of God is forever and always causing all things to work together for our good. The closer we draw to our Heavenly Father, the more we will see the many blessings He’s placed before us, and we’ll have the spiritual strength to reach out and grab them. ■

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Trying to Get the Man to Change

Posted on April 1, 2024 by daaorg1214

Free-Will is a gift of God that we must become intimately familiar with in our significant relationships. Many women are praying that God will change a man for them, that He will overstep a man’s thought patterns and ways of behaving without the man’s consent. This will never happen. There are pieces of information that we must know so that we remain grounded in wisdom. These will keep our expectations in check when it comes to the significant relationship in our lives. The first is that God will only send you a man that knows Him. This man doesn’t have to be super knowledgeable of the Bible, and he may not be religious, but he knows the reality of God’s sovereignty and righteousness. He desires to do right because he wants to honor God and honor himself. If he doesn’t honor himself, he will not honor you. Secondly, a man must desire to change. He must see the value in it by recognizing the harm that a failure to change will cause. Lastly, a man must love you enough that if something he is doing, thinking, or feeling is causing you distress, he will choose to change.

Romans 12:2(NLT) says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” In this verse, God tells us exactly what we should not do, and exactly what we should do. We should not copy the behaviors and customs of society or the world, because those are contrary to the Word and Will of God. Instead, He directs us to allow Him to transform us, and we give Him permission to do this when we change the way we think.

God is telling us what to do here, but He will not force us to do it. He has given us free-will, and we have the great privilege to follow what He says. We decide whether we will change the way we think and receive the reward of His blessings. The choice to renew our minds to God’s truth is ours to make. Whether we choose to accept it or not, the reality is that: #1 God only sends a woman a man that respects His sovereignty and righteousness, #2 the desire to change according to what is right is a person’s free-will choice, and #3 truly loving someone will motivate a person to change. These are true for all human beings, both men and women. However, as women, we must be especially attentive to remind ourselves of these jewels of wisdom so that we do not punish ourselves continually with wrong actions, bad decisions, and false expectations.

Often, we expect an unattainable outcome in a significant relationship because our expectations are outside the boundaries of right believing. Some of us get into relationships with men that might have peripheral qualities we’re attracted to, but after some time is spent in their company, we find that they are far from being a match for our level of spiritual, emotional, and mental maturity. We may not articulate this, but when we pull back the layers, it’s the reality we must face. Even when there are many good qualities that we appreciate in the man we’re involved with; he can still have non-dominant negative behaviors that sneak out at the most irritating and inappropriate times. These are not insignificant and can ultimately ruin a relationship if we’re not walking in faith.

There’s a place in every woman
Amos 3:3(NKJV) asks, “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” This agreement between two individuals that intend to commit to one another is one that is more than verbal. As it relates to marriage, it is a spiritual agreement that is made at the deepest level. Some of us are praying for the man we’re involved with to change. If after many arguments and disagreements, he does not seem to alter his behavior, we’re at our wits end. We’re not being heard, valued, and respected in the way we feel we deserve. It makes us feel helpless in the relationship because the agreement that two committed individuals should have with one another is not working both ways.

Within every woman, God has created a place at her very core, and her destiny partner is a man that will respond to that place within her. It’s a deep place that we may not be aware of and we cannot define, but we will know definitively when that place has made contact with the right man. We must trust with every fiber of our being that there is something about the right man’s manhood that will come into agreement with that place in order for us to have confidence in his fidelity, loyalty, and commitment. Many of us try to force this with the wrong man, but that is an unfruitful move on our parts. It will not yield the results we seek, and history has taught us this.

Many of us choose a man, give ourselves to him, and make future plans for marriage with him when his manhood has not connected with the very core of us. Often, this is why we are exasperated, because we are expecting something he cannot give. We lose so much stamina and momentum on this journey of life when we do this.

You must be led by God
We cannot make a man change. No words of a mere human have caused another human being to truly change. Only God and His Word can do this. He has commanded us to seek His Will in all that we do. We need to hear from Heavenly Father that His blessing is upon our relationships. We can never get ahead of God, and if we do this, we must seek the Lord’s forgiveness and ask for His help and wisdom.

It isn’t God’s Will that we are involved in relationships that are rollercoasters of ups and downs. We must be spiritually prepared for significant relationships because the wrong one can mess us up. We must be sharp in recognizing the Spirit’s directives, and we should have proven that we are humbled in total surrender and submission to his direction and guidance. If you have not made a habit pattern of walking by the Spirit, you will not perceive the warnings, information, and guidance necessary to preserve a union.

Know that he’s for you
If you are of the Lord, and the Lord is not in him, do not risk your life. Seek God with your whole heart! The man that is the one God has sent will not think it is a burden to change the things that jeopardize your relationship, because he will have confidence in the love of Christ in you. No longer will you allow yourself to be concerned with attributes and small things that irritated you in the past. This man will humble himself before God, and because of this, he will move you at your core. The Holy Spirit will testify in you that he is indeed the one that God has sent. Then you can have confidence that no matter what comes your way, the two of you will walk together in agreement as the love of God in Christ works within you both.■

Pay Attention When Something Feels Wrong

Posted on February 5, 2024 by daaorg1214

When we give our lives to Christ and become born-again, the Holy Spirit, God’s seed, comes to live inside us. Jesus Christ said 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 helps us to pray and to grow closer to God. He is the One who establishes the intimacy between us and our Heavenly Father that we desire so much. The Holy Spirit also communes with us spiritually, and when the enemy has plotted against us and we’re about to step into a trap, the Spirit is the One who warns us. This is why, more than any other time in history, it is crucial that we pay attention when something doesn’t feel quite right.

Watch what you say
Your confessions are a powerful instrument towards your wholeness and happiness in life. Some people hear this and think it is too radical to believe. They think that way because for a while now, believers have been taught certain things about faith, and it causes people to try to treat the goodness of God like a kid in a candy store. That’s not faith, that’s fantasy, and it leads to disappointment.

The reality is that we can’t please God without faith. Hebrews 11:6 tells us this. Faith is a fully persuaded, sold out belief in what God has promised in His Word. All blessings come from God and abide in the realm where He lives. Faith requires the full faculty of our minds and the words of our confession. Both must work together to transfer blessings in the spiritual realm into our natural realm. This is the way God set things up.

Without our confession and believing, we could not be saved. Romans 10:9(NLT) affirms, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 1John 4:15(NLT) declares, “All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.” Our salvation is received by the confession of our believing, and God’s forgiveness is received by the confession of our sins. Proverbs 18:21 declares that death and life are in the power of the tongue. We must open our mouths and speak words of life.

God created us in His image. He designed us in such a way that our minds and hearts must be aligned with His thoughts in order to bring His bounty from the spiritual realm into our physical realm. We do this through prayer, by the confession of truth, and by continuing to renew our minds to what God has said in His Word. Many of us don’t do this. We have made a habit pattern of speaking words that are against what God says. Just in the span of a casual conversation with a friend, we can nullify the blessings that were slated to come our way because we failed to confess the truth. Instead, we gave into negative and unfruitful talk because this is what our friends are used to hearing and it’s how they are used to speaking. We have got to change this if we want to step into greater levels of blessing.

Out of bounds
The standard of faith set by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is extraordinary, and God expects us to utilize the faith we’ve been given. Jesus Christ said 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’re so used to listening to what society says and doing what society does that for many of us, this phenomenal truth that Jesus spoke seems radical. Some of us simply don’t believe what he’s telling us about having faith and speaking to our circumstances through the confession of our faith.

Jesus said in Mark 11:24(NLT), “I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” Believing and trusting God when we pray is the appropriate mindset for the believer. Nothing less will do, but most people simply do not believe they can have what God says they can have by the power of their confession. We need to get it into our minds and hearts that faith is the norm. Doubt and fear are abnormal, because 2Timothy 1:7 tells us that God didn’t give us doubt and fear; He gave us a spirit of love, power, and sound mind.

It’s our responsibility to exercise faith, and if we don’t, our lives will not be as blessed as they could be. Our lack of faith positions us further away from God. It moves us out of bounds, and this is where we experience feelings that tell us something is wrong. Often, we don’t realize it, but these are warnings that we are too far outside the boundaries of where God says we should be. We’re confessing and thinking the wrong things, and they are taking up too much space in our hearts. Our lives are heading in the wrong direction. We feel it, but because of all the noise in the background, we can’t hear the message that was spoken to our spirits.

That feeling is telling us that something is going to happen as a result of what we’ve been saying and believing, and it isn’t going to be well with us. Know that the Holy Spirit is speaking to your spirit and warning you to begin to renew your mind and change the way you think and speak. Do not allow this warning to fall on deaf ears. Often when something feels wrong, it is wrong, and we need to pay attention. Through our faith, prayers, and confession, the Holy Spirit will help us turn things around. Then, the only thing we will feel is incredible gratitude to God because He warns us when we’re out of bounds, and He is always willing to help us find our way back to Him.

Making Right Decisions

Posted on January 2, 2023 by daaorg1214

If we are honest, we all have to admit that sometimes we get a little ahead of ourselves. God blesses us to achieve success, and when it comes to important decisions, we might begin to think that we do not have to lean on His intervention and guidance as heavily as we once did. This is an area where we have to be extremely attentive, and not slip back into old habit patterns. We have to remember the many sticky situations that God has delivered us from in the past, because the truth is that life is becoming more complex. More is at stake now than ever before, and even small decisions and choices can change the course of your life. So trusting God in the area of decision making is extremely important for us.

Most of us get it. We know that we need to hear from God before we make important decisions, but sometimes we lose sight of our spiritual status; more to the point, we fail to remember that God is a Spirit (John 4:24). He communicates with us in spiritual ways. This puts the responsibility on us to make sure that we are spiritually able to hear Him speak as He tells us which path to choose and what decisions to make. There are some practices that we can put in place that will help us to do this.

Ponder your past
Sometimes we forget how costly our past mistakes were, especially the decisions we made when we were maybe too impatient to wait upon the Lord. I know a very talented lady that prayed about whether or not to start her own business, or to continue working for a large corporation. She and her husband had saved a nice retirement nest egg. They were hard working, Christian people with a passion. Her husband loved her dearly and supported her in the decision to leave her job. She felt she received a definitive ‘yes’ from the Lord, simply because she had not received a definitive ‘no’. As it turned out, this was not the best decision for her or her family. They forced the timing, lost much of their nest egg, and it ultimately broke up their marriage.

Really the only times that God wants us to focus on our pasts are those times when we seriously need a reality check. It’s true what they say; sometimes we need to remember where we’ve come from in order to help us get to where we’re going. Proverbs 4:26 (NKJV) tells us, “Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established.” We should do this not just for the path we are about to take, but in some cases, we should also think about those we’ve taken in years gone by.

It’s true for all of us that some of the paths we’ve chosen in the past have landed us in a lot of hot water. Maybe we chose to continue in a toxic relationship or maybe we left it too early. Some of us have taken jobs that were not optimum for our personal growth, and some of us have stayed at the jobs we are currently in far too long. Mistakes that were made in the past have long-lasting repercussions, and some of us are where we are because we didn’t use the wisdom of God’s Word. Heavenly Father blesses us of course, but it is always good practice to ponder the instances of our poor choices, so that we become more established in patience, faith, and better judgment.

Trust that God Will Guide You
If we will look back over the times when we’ve walked according to God’s Will, we’ll have a good basis to recognize that it is indeed His Word and His way that establishes us. It gives us a solid foundation that we can depend on, especially during the times we are unsure.

Psalm 25:12 tells us, “Who are those who fear the LORD? He will show them the path they should choose.” Talk about the Lord’s willingness to guide His people, you don’t get any better than this!!! The word ‘fear’ in this verse doesn’t mean that we are to be afraid of God. It means to honor and reverence Him. He promises to guide those that reverence Him, and show them the right path. So we can’t ever say at any point that we trusted Heavenly Father to guide us in our decisions, and He did not do so. When we are honoring Him the way that we should, He will steer us in the right direction every time.

Make sure you have the right motives
Things like selfishness, pride, and arrogance can block our way. Sometimes when we go to God, we consider only the outcome we desire for ourselves without any compassion and thoughtfulness for others that may be affected by our decisions. I have prayed for blessings that I thought initially would benefit my entire family, but these were things that had been my life long dreams, and not theirs. In these instances, I prayed for God to help me make the right decisions as to whether or not I should proceed, but I didn’t feel as though I received a definitive answer. I wondered why, and began to get upset. I thought that I was deserving. This is a harmful mindset of entitlement that many of us have without realizing it.

Upon deeper reflection I discovered that the things I wanted and prayed to receive would have made things more challenging than helpful for my family. I had to repent for being selfish and prideful. We have a responsibility to clear our hearts of any such heavies prior to going before the Lord.

Be willing to yield your preferences for His
God has a plan for our lives. Ephesians 1:4(NLT) tells us “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” God handpicked us long before we were born. This doesn’t mean that our whole lives are prearranged. It means that God has already laid a path and made a plan for us that is based on His Word. It’s up to us whether or not we will follow it.

In Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT), He tells us, ““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.”” The path for our lives has already been chosen. It is a narrow path, and it is a good one. God would not have us to be confused, not knowing the difference between left or right—right or wrong. He is an on-purpose God, and everything He does is purposeful. You and I should be extremely interested in knowing what God has planned for us, and we should be very committed to following it.

The fantastic news is that Heavenly Father knows what is best for us always, and if we’ll lean on Him and trust in His guidance, He’ll show us the way to go. Proverbs 3:5-6(KJV) tells us, “5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Often we have different motivations for wanting to make one decision over another, but we do not know the future, God does. We must acknowledge the sovereignty and omniscience of God. He knows the plans He has for us.

Sometimes He speaks to us inwardly, through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Other times He speaks to us through His Word, other people, and even our circumstances. The important thing to know is that we don’t have to look to the left, nor to the right when it comes to making decisions that please God and are the best for us and our circumstances. If we’ll just be willing to offer up our own our preferences and opinions, have patience, and continue to be prayerful, He will continually direct us to make the right decisions for our lives.■

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.

Praying for the Right Person to Talk to

Posted on August 1, 2022 by daaorg1214

Proverbs 27:17 NLT
“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”

My good friend, Nina, has gone through some troubled waters. Like most of us, she’s had her fair share of the ‘not so good side’ of life. As a child, initially she grew up with both parents in the home, but not long after their divorce, she decided that her mother was too strict and overprotective. Her father, on the other hand, was laid back and allowed her the freedom she wanted. When she was 14, she decided to live with him, and that’s when the first hard lesson about choices and consequences opened her eyes.

After a year of living with her dad, Nina became pregnant. In the words of her father, at 15 she went from being “daddy’s little girl” to “a daughter that made him a grandfather”, and he wasn’t happy. His treatment of her broke her heart. He had been abusive to her mother, and for the first time she understood why her mother had been so protective of her. She didn’t want Nina to deal with what she had gone through.

The father of Nina’s baby provided no support, meanwhile her own father’s behavior became even more hurtful, and she was ashamed to tell her mother any of this. She felt like she was in prison, with no one to help her through a hopeless situation. All she could do was bottle her feelings, and this eventually turned to deep resentment towards her father and insecurity in her own decision making.

Emotionally drained and afraid of what might happen to her and her child, one night she turned to God for help. She prayed that He would send her a friend that would be a confidant, someone that would give her a “safe place” to open up and GET IT OUT!

I have been this friend to Nina, and to others as well. We can all be a compassionate listener that will not be judgmental, but kind and caring. Everyone needs someone that will sit down and listen, and most importantly someone that will pray for those that are dealing with emotional pain. Our Heavenly Father tells us in Proverbs 27:17 that friends can sharpen one another. Again, we do this by giving the encouragement of God’s Word, by lending a discreet and compassionate ear, and by praying for those we know are in need.

Tell God what you need

Philippians 4:6(NLT) says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” No matter what we’re going through or attempting to do, telling God what we need and what is on our hearts should always be our first step. He has all power in His hands, and He is both willing and able to bless us. He will direct our paths and take care of our needs, and we must trust Him with our whole hearts.

Pray for the right person

Jesus Christ commands us in Matthew 6:33 to, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” This wisdom is crucial when we are dealing with a challenging situation and we don’t know what to do. Before we seek the advice of any other person, we must seek God first. We need to hear His truth, and He is the only One that knows the words that will help us move in the direction that He desires for us. We must pray that He will send someone who knows the truth. The right person will deliver a Word from the Lord that will make all the difference in our situations. It will put us on the path to be healed and to grow in Christ.

Pass it on

James 2:14(NLT) tells us, “What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? 17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.”

Being a blessing positions us to receive a blessing. We should always be willing to do for others what we hope someone would do for us when we are in need. 1John 4:19 reminds us that we love because the Lord first loved us. We are ambassadors for Jesus Christ, and he has commanded us to let our lights shine in this dark world so that others may see his love in us. When you pray and ask the Father to help you and to send you a compassionate listener and Godly friend, also pray that He will help you to become one yourself. Pray that you can one day help someone to get it out and let go of their pain. None of us are perfect, but we are being perfected in Christ. All we ever need to do is to make ourselves available to God to be a blessing, He will do the rest! ■

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.

LOVE is a Decision

Posted on July 11, 2022 by daaorg1214

1John 4:7-11(NLT)
“7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Do you believe God loves you? Do you feel His love for you in your heart, or are you not too sure about this? There are lots of people in our lives, and most of us interact with them almost every day. Whether its family, friends, coworkers, colleagues, or pets, many of us allow ourselves to care for others and this feels very natural to us, sometimes we do it without giving it much thought. The truth is that the only reason any of us can love others is because God has made it possible through His love for us. 1John 4:8 tells us that God is LOVE!

We are able to feel the emotions of love and put it into practice through our feelings, sharing, and kindness because God created us this way. He wove His love into us, and if we choose to, we can love everyone. But here is the truth that we all must accept; love is a choice. It is a decision that we each must make. As it relates to romantic relationships, there’s a saying that people can’t help who they love. This saying or sentiment sounds very dreamy, and many of us buy into it. We long to be swept off our feet by someone that pulls these emotions from us. Although this attraction can come with very strong urges for both people, these feelings are not uncontrollable. We very definitely can and should control them.

How do we know that we can and should control these emotions? We know it because 2Timothy 1:7(NLT) tells us, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” Self-discipline is required for a successful life in Christ, especially when it comes to our emotions. Romantic love is a beautiful aspect of God’s love, but we must never forget that it is birthed out of our relationship with Him. It comes from HIS love. His desire is that we love like Him. Loving through Christ should be our primary concern, and it is always and forever the goal.

Romantic love is composed of affections that are carved out of physical attraction. Our flesh is very much engaged, and we place all kinds of limitations and restrictions on this kind of love. We don’t just love anyone or everyone romantically. There are all kinds of conditions that we set ourselves. Most of these have nothing to do with the way God loves us, they are based on our five senses. The person has to look or act a certain way, have a certain amount of money, or have a certain profession or job. We allow ourselves to love someone romantically based on criteria like these, and whether or not our senses are heightened or stimulated.

God’s love isn’t concerned with those conditions. He loves without discrimination. 1John 4:9-10(NLT) declares, “He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be a sin offering for the entire world. He did this when we were at our absolute worst. By this, we clearly know that God’s love is unconditional and without limits. He loves us through and through, and He is fully committed to love us continually. He goes on to tell us that since He’s demonstrated His overwhelming love for us through Christ, we must then love one another with this same unconditional, limitless love.

Because of God’s love, we can love others. We didn’t come up with love, and we don’t define what love is or how it operates. God has done this. We are to love through Him. Emotions and feelings are only a small part of it. Love is so much more than emotions. It’s a commitment and it’s also a decision. And God’s love will take us beyond our comfort zones. It will stretch us to express love through faith and not through any conditions or circumstances that we might bring to the table.

The confidence to love through the love of Jesus Christ takes fear out of the equation. 1John 4:18(NKJV) says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” Making the decision to love includes the little things that we do for one another, even when we don’t feel especially loving. It is more about your choice to demonstrate love than about having a motivation to receive love. God takes care of our needs, so He will always have our backs when it comes to what we do or don’t deserve. Our responsibility as His children is to not get entangled with how a person looks, how they dress, or how much they love us back. We are to do as 1Peter 3:8-9(NLT) instructs, “8 Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. 9 Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will bless you for it.”

God is looking for our commitment to love through the love of Christ. This is what He wants to see in our hearts, because learning to love through the example of Jesus Christ is the only way to be prepared for marriage or to be prepared for anything else in life. We love God by being obedient to His Word. Our Heavenly Father has given us this capacity, and it begins when we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. Colossians 2:10 tells us that it is because of our union with Jesus Christ that we are complete. If we are committed to him and his example in the way God requires, we will have all that we need to walk in God’s love and love others the way He has commanded us to.■

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. ■

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