Being Your Truest, Highest Self

Posted on February 27, 2023 by daaorg1214

Proverbs 4:7(KJV) says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Wisdom is defined as truthful, right knowledge that aids correct and right believing, and God’s Word is the source of it. He tells us that wisdom is the principal thing, and we need to take a minute and digest this, because the world would have us to believe other things are principal, things like money, fame, or success. These are very nice, but they are byproducts received from believing and trusting God’s Word. They are not the principal things, so our decks must be restacked so that seeking wisdom becomes the major objective for us. And not only are we to seek it preeminently, we are to make sure we get an understanding of the wisdom we seek. This is the part, that if missed, will cause us to approach faith sideways; without the benefit of hitting the target we hope to achieve.

Some of us are about ready to implode, to burst open at the seams because we’ve acquired a tremendous amount of biblical knowledge, but we’ve lost the connection between understanding and the knowledge we’ve gleaned. Another way of looking at this is that we’ve got a lot of knowledge in our heads, but it hasn’t yet trickled down into our hearts in a way that truly makes the knowledge a part of us. We keep acquiring and acquiring—getting and getting, but we’re not applying what we’re learning. More knowledge may make us smart, but it doesn’t increase us spiritually until a spiritual connection is made.

Understanding is the spark that makes wisdom the revelation it needs to be. It is very often the missing link to the blessing we’ve yet to acquire. This is important because our lives will mirror a lack of understanding. Our lives will reflect that something we need is missing. A lot of us are so busy and tapped to the max with everyday life that we can’t even think deeply about what we’re doing. We’re just moving from one thing to the next, and it all just seems like one big glob of transactions and activities. We can’t make sense of what we’re doing or why. Well, your life is supposed to make sense. You may not understand all the moving parts, but at the end of your day, you should have a sense of purpose and pleasing God. This comes from understanding who you are, what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it.

Who are you?
Jesus Christ said in John 1:12 that he has given everyone who has accepted him the right to become children of God. Through him, this is who we are. Because of Christ, we’ve received eternal life, and our faith in him made this possible. Our faith began our eternal journey. Our faith made it possible for us to receive God’s Spirit, and only the increase of our faith will allow us to continue to grow in Christ. From where you stand today, you do not know the end result of what you will become, but God knows. And although mentally you don’t know the ‘you’ that you are becoming, everything you need to transform into this person is in you already. Please don’t let this piece of yumminess slip by you. All that you are destined to become in Christ is already in you!

When we became born again in Christ, the old life we had died. Colossians 3:3(NLT) tells us, “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” Before we accepted Christ, our human-spirit was dead. This was because of Adam’s fall. When he sinned in the Garden of Eden, he died a spiritual death, and every person born after him is born in sin, and therefore, is born with a spirit that is disconnected from God. A human-spirit that is disconnected from God is not alive to Him; it has no light and no life.

Our human-spirits are recreated in Christ through the new birth experience. The totality of who we are becoming is hidden in him, Colossians 3:3 tells us this. Our real spiritual self is in Christ, but our soulish self is the thing that is visible to everyone; interacting and reacting to the environment around us. It’s the part you and I have to work on while we’re on this earth. 1John 3:2(NIV) encourages us to accomplish this work by setting our minds and hearts on our Christ reality, because this is the person God has destined us to become. This verse tells us, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

You and I can’t alter our real lives one bit. They are hidden in Christ for safe keeping. The only thing left for you and me to do is to reveal our gratitude for what is hidden in Christ, by demonstrating outwardly what is hidden inwardly. We are commanded by God to be Christ-like by living, loving, sharing, and being like him more and more each day. This is our destiny! This is how we affirm our truest, highest selves—by making sure our everyday walking-around, soulish-self is mirroring our eternal self that is hidden in Christ! It’s walking in his love! Walking in his love is walking in the truth, for he tells us in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

You are being your true self as you make choices and decisions that line up with your Christ reality and identity. If you make choices and decisions that do not line up with your truest self, you will betray the core of who you really are. When this happens, your life will then mirror this betrayal. You will have given the enemy, the author of confusion and chaos, an opening. We don’t want to do this.

What should you be doing?
Understand that God designed the universe to respond positively to our highest self in Christ, because our highest self in Christ is the truth. In 2Peter 1:5-7(NLT), He tells us, “5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.” This is our call to action—the kind of action that backs our faith. We are to respond to God’s goodness with actions that are morally excellent, intelligent, disciplined, patient and persistent, and most importantly, Godly.

Why are you doing it?
The reason we should be responding to God with actions that are morally excellent, intelligent, disciplined, patient and persistent, and Godly, is because these are actions that keep us in fellowship with Heavenly Father. These actions represent the truth of who we are, and who He has made us to be. They speak to our Christ reality, and place us squarely on the path to our destinies. The one thing of which you and I must be absolutely sure is that God has a good plan for our lives. Our destinies are far greater than any of us can imagine, and the purpose to which you have been called fits perfectly in His plan. Everything that God created was designed to be successful. We were created to be successful and blessed, and when we align our wills with God’s Will, His plan for us will beautifully unfold.

We come to earth with deficits, but God’s plan is to help us make sense of our lives, to give us direction, and to do a work in us through the Holy Spirit. We are not perfect, we are being perfected in Christ moment by moment. Hebrews 12:2 (NLT) tells us, “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.” We must walk in the purpose for which we’re called, because it is our destiny to have all that God desires us to have and to be all that He has called us to be. Get wisdom, and get understanding, so you can order your steps in His Word, and walk according your destiny.■

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.

Overcoming the Discomfort of Dissatisfaction

Posted on February 20, 2023 by daaorg1214

Discomfort is often a calling card for change. This is a truism that we need to be reminded of constantly. We’re creatures of habit, and we like being able to count on the familiar. Even individuals we consider to be spontaneous and impulsive have made a habit of not adhering to plans and schedules. Inevitably, we will all come to a place in life where the status quo will no longer work for us. It’s a place where we begin to feel a strong sense of dissatisfaction with the way things are, and we know that something in our lives has to change. For some of us, going into the same building, seeing the same people at work, and doing the same job day in and day out has become very dissatisfying. For others, the dissatisfaction is closer to home, because they’re unhappy and unfulfilled in their relationships. Most of us can put up with agitation on certain fronts, but when we’re totally dissatisfied to the point of feeling feel down about ourselves, something must change, and it must start with our prayer lives.

Prayer should always be our first step
1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to pray without ceasing. Our Heavenly Father is not telling us to pray twenty-four hours a day. He wants us to rest and take care of our obligations and responsibilities. He also knows that we have occasions during the day when we can and should devote quality time to Him. This verse in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 instructs us to be very careful that we don’t neglect these opportunities. We are to use them to pray with discipline and diligence. God wants us to make prayer a habit pattern because prayer is one of the most powerful instruments of change that Heavenly Father has given us. Quite naturally, when we begin to notice that our lives are losing vitality and fulfillment, praying to God in the name of Jesus Christ should be our first step. Ephesians 6:18(NLT) tells us to “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.”

Prayer creates and maintains an open line of communication with Heavenly Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. We talk to Him with an earnest and humble heart, and He speaks to us as well. Often, it’s not hearing the counsel of the Lord that develops a dissatisfaction with life. Heavenly Father doesn’t want us in this state because it opens the door to temptation. We saw this with Adam and Eve. God blessed them beyond measure and provided everything they could ever need. They were tempted by a plan of the devil to manipulate them. They allowed themselves to believe his lies over the truth of God’s Word. Once doubt entered their minds, the devil then landed a one-two punch with temptation, and they fell for it.

Getting to the Root
When the sadness of dissatisfaction with life persists, it can cause even the most mature Christian to abandon good judgment and opt for what they believe is an immediate fix. We can start to view money as the solution, and get ourselves into a debt situation. People have been known to pick up gambling and over-indulgence to put a band-aid on their pain. In marriage, a sense of dissatisfaction with our spouses may give the devil an opening to tempt us to step outside the marriage–to think that the grass is greener on the other side, when in actuality our souls are withering, and our partners are reflecting this decline back to us.

Spiritual maturity will always press us to recognize that dissatisfaction with external situations is a calling card to look within. Often, when Jesus Christ healed an individual, he pointed out to them that a mental and emotional adjustment had to occur first. In Mark 9, when a father sought him for the healing of his son, Jesus Christ clearly pointed out that the father had a responsibility to believe, because the son wasn’t in a condition to believe for himself. In Mark 9:22, the father begged Jesus, “Please have mercy on us and help us, if you can.” This word ‘IF’ nullifies faith. Jesus wanted to help them, but the father of the boy created an atmosphere where faith would not move.

Responding to Christ
1Timothy 2:5-6(NLT) are such powerful verses regarding our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This passage tells us, “5 For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.6 He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.” We have a Mediator in the person of Jesus Christ. To mediate is to intervene for the purpose of bringing about a result, reconcilement, and/or agreement. Mediation is what Jesus did for the father of the son that needed deliverance. Jesus Christ knew both the problem and solution. He told the father in Mark 9:23(NLT), “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”

Jesus Christ delivered a straightening rod in the form of a question and an answer. You can be guaranteed beyond certainty that Jesus Christ will respond to you, because this is what Mediators do; they respond, or else how can they mediate? In the world system, a person typically will trust a mediator implicitly. How much do you trust Christ? In the world system, a person would understand that the mediator only wants what is in their best interest; therefore, they would tell the mediator the absolute truth. Have you told Jesus Christ the absolute truth? Have you come to him with every detail of your pain? Are you using a person, situation, or thing to camouflage your doubt in God’s Word?

We should be praying to God in the name of Jesus Christ, asking Him to help our unbelief. Like he did with the father whose son needed deliverance and healing, Jesus Christ will respond to our prayers, and will do so in a way that brings out the thing that is blocking our faith. He will direct the Holy Spirit that indwells us to point out any “IFs” in our mind-and-heart-set. It’s an internal thing, we can be most assured of this. We should then respond to Christ with full surrender, allowing him to guide us through as we leave doubt and dissatisfaction behind us. ■

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.■

Seven Things You Should Never Tolerate in Your Life

Posted on December 19, 2022 by daaorg1214

There is one thing that you can know for sure, and it is the fact that God has empowered you to shape and mold the quality of your existence. This power is extended to us through Jesus Christ, our powerful Lord and Savior. He made it possible for us to be the master builders that the Apostle Paul referred to in 1Corinthians 3:10. God never intended this vehicle called life to be one big, out-of-control mess. He is a God of supreme order, and through His Word and the example of Jesus Christ, we can take authority and begin to fashion our existences through the help of the Holy Spirit that indwells us. Part of doing this is drawing a line in the sand and being firm about the things we will not tolerate and give place in our lives.

#1 Draining Relationships
Jesus Christ taught us the importance of unity and respect in our relationships. He modeled this for us in the way that he interacted with the disciples. Ephesians 2:21(NLT) tells us, “We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.” As the body of Christ, we can see how dependent we should be on one another, but not everyone will see it this way. Rather than adding to our walk in Christ and blessing us to go higher in our walk with him, we may find that some people are very draining. They limit our enjoyment of life, and it doesn’t feel good to be in their presence. If you find that this person’s negativity is bleeding into important aspects of your life and keeping you from living a joyful existence, you are well within your rights to put some distance between you and them.

#2 Negative Conversations
One of the things that we will often dismiss is our responsibility to govern what we listen to and hear. God tells us in Colossians 3:8 to not let filthy communication come out of our mouths, and this should also remind us to steer clear of it all together. Proverbs 17:4 (NLT) tells us, “Wrongdoers eagerly listen to gossip; liars pay close attention to slander.” This is not the person that God wants us to be. It is important for us to remember that participating in negative conversations or listening to them can have a long lasting and negative effect on our lives, because there is most assuredly a price to pay for indulging them.

#3 Defeating Self-talk
We’ve heard it said a number of times, but it really is the truth; we are often our own worst enemies. Never is this more true than in the case of beating ourselves up with thoughts of inadequacy, and feelings of self-doubt and insecurity. David said in Psalm 139:14 (KJV), “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” David knew that he wasn’t a perfect man. He had made some mistakes, but he also knew enough to understand the omnipotence, sovereignty, and omniscience of God. Heavenly Father has predestined each of us according to His divine Will and plan. Having a healthy respect for our individual uniqueness will aid our Godly endeavors. So we can never dismiss or diminish that we are masterful creations in Christ. We don’t have time for defeating or negative self-talk. Instead, we should busy ourselves by honoring our standing in Christ and having confidence in our ability through the Holy Spirit, because this is praise to the Almighty.

#4 Ingratitude
Gratitude is a strong sense of being truly thankful for what has been done for you or on your behalf. Colossians 3:17 (NLT) tells us, “And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” Gratitude is a dominant attribute in the culture of heaven, and it is a legal requirement of operating by faith. Tolerating ingratitude in our Christian walks is not only harmful to our relationships with God, but also to our ability to remain in a state of well-being. Psalm 97:12 (NKJV) tells us to “Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.” Our hearts should be so filled with gratitude that merely thinking about the goodness of God, and all that He has done for us should ignite within us feelings and thoughts of pure thankfulness. So we would do well to put off feelings of entitlement and arrogance, and to make thankfulness a continual and firmly engrained habit pattern for the duration of our lives.

#5 Living without Fun
None of us deserve all of the blessings that we have received, but the truth is that God chose us on which to lavish the fullness of His love, mercy, and grace. Not only that, He has made us worthy to receive these wonderful blessings through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In John 10:10, Our precious Lord told us that he came to this earth to make a more than abundant life available to each of us. It’s true that some of us are living beneath our privilege, but this is something we can change. We can start by having confidence that Heavenly Father wants us to have fun and enjoy life. This is a very meaningful aspect of living an abundant life.

We see so many unhappy Christians, and we should be the happiest of all people because we have the knowledge of what Christ has accomplished for us. Not only is it possible to be happy and have fun as a Christian, but the Spirit will help us to make the most out of every moment. He will help us discover new interests and to develop new talents. We just need to have faith in God’s desire to see us happy, and then make a conscious decision to enjoy our lives.

#6 Ignorance Regarding Your Purpose
Sooner or later, we will all come to a place where we’ll realize that journeying forward will be extremely difficult without knowing ourselves on a deeper level. You were handpicked by Heavenly Father to be His very own, and everything He does is purposeful. When we recognize this, we can then begin to reflect upon our lives more constructively.

So few people know why they are here, and most often it is because their eyes are closed to it. They take life as it comes without using the tools that God has given through His Word, the example of Christ, and the indwelling Holy Spirit to find out the purpose for their existence. God demands that we seek His Will and place it above all else, and we shouldn’t ever tolerate living a life without knowing our purpose and committing ourselves to walk in it.

#7 Living Outside of Your Integrity
Integrity is a deeply embedded allegiance to uphold qualities like being honest and having a strong sense of do-rightness. It is also a state of being whole, complete, and undivided. All of us have a register of integrity that is based upon things that we absolutely will not accept in ourselves and others. It’s a threshold that we understand and compute as a level that is too low to go. As we grow in Christ, our level of integrity should rise; not go lower.

God has created us with a trigger within our souls that automatically goes off when we are about to make choices and decisions that undermine the core of who we’ve been called to be. Some of us have become so accustomed to ignoring this trigger in certain areas of our lives that we don’t even recognize it any more. One of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves is to pause, listen to that inner voice, and examine whether something is well with our souls. In these cases, we need to wait for the ‘all clear’ from the indwelling Holy Spirit. He’ll give us warnings before we head in a direction that violates the integrity of our very beings.

As Christians, the way we move throughout our existences daily should be built upon the mind and heart of Christ. Each of us has the capacity to build up ourselves to extent that we flat-out refuse to accept things that move us away his example. The bottom line is that when we take a stand on the integrity and authority of Christ, we will find that everything in our worlds will follow suit. ■

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.

Kick Pain to the Curb!

Posted on November 28, 2022 by daaorg1214

Release the pain and anger of past heartaches and embrace the
victory God gives us through Jesus Christ!

The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14(NLT), “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” In order to get the full impact of what God is teaching us through Paul in Philippians 3:13-14, we need to know a little bit about Paul’s background. At one time, his mind was so blinded by satan that he actually authorized the persecution, murders, and imprisonment of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. The things he had been taught were wrong, and because of this, he was going backward instead of forward. He fed his mind and heart lies and misinformation. He became full of arrogance and surprisingly, he thought he knew what God wanted.

Before Paul was converted and gave his life to Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, he made humongous mistakes. Again, in his past, he was notorious for persecuting the very people that God commanded him to preach to after his conversion. So, when he started ministering the Gospel, as we can well imagine, it was an uphill journey. He understood that this was his purpose and destiny in Christ, but people had reservations because of Paul’s murderous history. They knew the things he had done, and it was hard for them to accept that he had been transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Paul became such a devoted and masterful teacher of the Gospel that the people could not deny that God was working through him. This is such a poignant example for us because Paul counted the things that he gained in Christ to be far superior to anything he had possessed or done wrong in his past. In Philippians 3:8(NLT), he proclaimed, “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.”

This is the posture, mindset, and attitude that God expects from us. We have made many mistakes in our past. We didn’t know the Lord as we do today, and we may not have had the desire to please Him as we do today. Some of us have gone through painful divorces. We’ve injured others and we’ve been injured ourselves from broken relationships. The emotional heartache and hurt of this pain can be very challenging to get over, but like the Apostle Paul, none of us can afford to allow our pasts to define our present or our futures.

This is a choice! Each of us must choose to let the past remain in the past. We must do this for our own sake and for the sake of God’s Will and plan for our lives. God tells us in Ephesians 4:31-32(NLT), “31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. 32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” I recently had a conversation with a woman that is still enraged over the infidelity of her ex-husband. She refuses to get over how he treated her and their marriage. He’s moved on and is now in another relationship, but she is stuck in her past. This isn’t what God wants for any of us. He doesn’t want us to be blocked in our hearts and minds by something that occurred a long time ago. And if we’re keeping it real, none of us can change what has already occurred.

We can’t have a redo when it comes to our past. When those situations occurred, they may have impacted us in a very painful way, but instead of allowing them to trap us like quicksand, we should learn from them. We must understand that we can kick pain to the curb and keep it moving by attending to the things of God. We were born with God’s purpose in our DNA, and we will not be satisfied until we begin to walk in the destiny that He has placed us on this earth to achieve. We have victory in Christ! This is the truth! Paul recognized that everything outside of Christ is a lie, and everything in Christ is love, light, liberty, and life!

Everything in Christ is the truth! Our emotions may remind us of the past, but our emotions were never intended by God to govern our lives. Jesus Christ is Lord! He governs our lives, and nothing should ever come before him. We can be very emotional creatures, and as women, a lot of us base our emotional well-being on how the men in our lives respond to us. Instead, we should base our emotional well-being on how WE respond to GOD. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to be committed to our spouses, but He requires us to make Him the center of our universe. This is a space and place that cannot be shared with anyone or anything, because God is love and we can only truly love others because His love fills our hearts to overflowing.

1John 4:11-12(NLT) teaches us, “11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.” This is the goal, to love better through Christ. Don’t hold grudges and resentment and be angry for a lifetime; don’t allow yourself to go there. It’s so destructive to our entire being. Don’t make room for emotions and attitudes that don’t serve you well. Instead, be committed to let God’s love fill you to overflowing. Believe the promises of His Word and repeat them to yourself continually. Pray and ask God to give you a new heart and be confident in His healing and His desire to give you victory in your life.■

Leaving the Past Behind

Posted on November 14, 2022 by daaorg1214

Ecclesiastes 7:9-12(NLT)
“9 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.”

Angela was mandated by the courts to enter an anger management program. She physically assaulted her husband in a domestic dispute, and the incident resulted in her being taken away in handcuffs by the authorities. She received a restraining order with no contact with her husband. At the time, she thought this was one of his sneakiest and most damaging manipulations. He would never entertain physical violence, although had he chosen, he might have easily overpowered her physically. A very intelligent man, Angela’s husband was masterful with mental and emotional manipulation. He held a grudge and wanted to put Angela in her place. When she slapped him because of his affair, he called the police.

It was one of the lowest points in Angela’s life. She knew better and was embarrassed and ashamed. She also thought that he should have been the one in anger management, but she discovered a lot about herself in these mandated classes. Self-discipline and patience are required for Godly living and learning to control outbursts of anger can go a long way towards our own personal healing and spiritual growth. Angela learned to let go of old negative patterns, and to stop looking back to the past and allowing it to define her present and future reality.

Many people look back at their lives and think about the good old days, before they faced adversity and before they made catastrophic mistakes. We don’t think about the reality that God covered us in a tremendous amount of grace, because even in the good old days, we had behaviors and attitudes that might have created the environment for the adversities and mistakes we later encountered.

We want to go back to those good old days, but the truth is that we can’t bring anything from our past into the present and future, and if we try, we’ll be stuck, and this isn’t what God wants. Ecclesiastes 7:10(NLT) tells us, “Don’t long for “the good old days.” This is not wise.” With this wisdom, our Heavenly Father is warning us about our attitude towards His goodness and grace. When we put God first in all we do, and we seek Him first before any other person or thing, He will reward us. There isn’t anything better than living in Christ. With him, life gets better and better, from faith to greater faith. Our attitude of gratitude must indicate we understand this.

The reality of where He has brought us and what He has brought us through is greater than anything in our pasts. The events and situations of the past will never be again. This is a very challenging truth for humans to accept but accept it we must if fulfillment and joy in life are our goals. We must stop ourselves from focusing on the past, because it slows us down, and it can keep us from moving forward.

In the Book of Genesis, we learn about the record of Lot, Abraham’s nephew. He and his family moved to Sodom and Gomorrah, and this was a dastardly wicked place. So much so, that the Lord destroyed it, but God spared Lot, because this was Abraham’s request. An angel of the Lord had given Lot and his family firm instructions and told them that as they escaped, they were not to look back. Lot’s wife didn’t follow this instruction. Genesis 19:26(ESV) states, “But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Some say she met with such a tragic end because of her disobedience, but we can’t stop there. The directive from the angel was purposeful. Looking back is often a signal that we’re not prepared to embrace the newness ahead. Looking back demonstrates that our hearts are clinging to what has passed. It means we’re stuck, and sometimes tragically so, like a pillar of salt.

The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:13(NLT), “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” This is the mentality and attitude we must have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. God doesn’t want the problems, regrets, and situations of the past to keep us stuck in things like anger, shame, and resentment. When we are stuck and haven’t healed to the point where the past no longer impedes us, we might bring bad habits and behaviors of the past into the new life that Christ has made available to us. This is what Angela did.

She was emotionally and mentally exhausted. She was spiritually malnourished, and her faith in God was not where it is today. Angela was shocked at her actions, but when there’s deep and unresolved anger, the only solution is to allow the love of God in those deep places. There was no excuse for Angela’s use of physical violence. She knows now that her husband’s infidelity and disregard triggered a level of anger that she had seen playout in her own parent’s marriage. She needed to break this cycle through the love of God in Christ.

We might fantasize about what it would have been like to not have the pain and heartache we’ve experienced, but this doesn’t alter the reality of our past. We can’t change our pasts. They are gone forever. We can only change our right now so that our futures look brighter and clearer with the help of the love of Christ.

When we know better, we have the tools to do and live better. We need to know that it’s not only possible to leave the past behind, God requires it. He has given us a new life in Jesus Christ, and this means we have a new nature of love within. God will not force us to choose His love. He will not force us to leave rage, anger, resentment, and hurt in the past, and embrace the love of Christ which makes us stronger. But He wants us to know that He created us out of His love to live in His love. He created us to walk in the light and liberty of Christ. If we will humble ourselves before Him and trust in His love, He will help us to transform from the inside out. We’ll get to a place where the mistakes of the past will pale in comparison to the person we’ve become through His love. ■

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

When We Lose Our Balance

Posted on November 7, 2022 by daaorg1214

1Corinthians 4:20; For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power. 21; Which do you choose?

“Ok God, you have my attention now, what in the world did I do wrong?”

A few years ago, I fell and broke my elbow. At that time, I had enough spiritual knowledge to recognize that my fall was not an ordinary oops but a severe wake-up call. Although falls are common, we have to always go back to God’s natural order. As God’s children, we’re covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. God doesn’t want us to be hurt in any way, for any reason. Life happens, but we are called by God to pay attention to the consequences of all missteps, mishaps, and mistakes, because we can learn from them.

Psalms 37:23-24 (NLT) tells us, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. 24 Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.” Both literally and figuratively, a fall symbolizes that balance has been lost. Something is out of alignment and it’s our responsibility as spiritually mature individuals to examine what has caused us to become out of balance and why.

Falling can sometimes be a signal that we’re getting close to going off the path of God’s righteousness in some way. It can also be a wake-up call to the reality that we are veering too far away from the purpose God has for our lives. We’re not paying attention to the things that matter most to Him, and we need to slow down, take a pause, and think about what we’re doing.

John 4:24(NLT) tells us, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Our Heavenly Father is a Spirit, and everything He has created is spiritual. Genesis 1:26 tells us that He has created us, human beings, in His own image. He has created this extraordinary universe, and He’s created this planet, earth, for our habitation. We are like Him! He created us in His own image so He can relate to us. We are human spirit and human soul housed in a human body. Everything about us was perfectly designed by our Heavenly Father to love Him, have a relationship with Him, and relate to others through Him.

Romans 8:29-30 informs us that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, His one and only begotten Son. This passage also tells us that He called, justified, and qualified us to snuggly fit into the purpose for which we were called. Our lives are not random. They are ordered by God. Jeremiah 29:11 affirms that God has a good plan for our lives, a plan to give us a future and a hope. There’s no falling or hiccups in His plan for us. He’s a God of peace and everything God does is in order. So, when we fall in any way, it’s a spiritual occurrence of which we can derive spiritual information regarding where we are in the things of God.

Again, everything, and I do mean E V E R Y T H I N G, is spiritual. There will never be a way to extract ourselves from this truth. Those with a prideful mindset may have difficulty with it because they want to live according to the flesh, but that’s not the way children of God live. We walk by faith and not by sight. When we depend solely on our physical eyes and not on our spiritual eyes, we’re not actually seeing what’s in front of us. In this state, a person can fall several times before he or she recognizes they need to pay attention to our Almighty God.

A fall may show up in the form of a failed relationship, a lost job or losing your home. Loss can very often symbolize imbalance, and this isn’t God punishing us. He doesn’t want us to feel bad about ourselves or to be tripped up in life. He wants us to wake up and draw closer to Him so He can help us. The Apostle Paul said in 1Corinthians 13:11(NLT), “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” Immature or childlike behavior as an adult will always lead to situations that provide an opportunity to mature in the Lord.

Whenever or however we fall, we can rest assured that our ground can never be too shaky for God to make our crooked paths straight. He is always here for us if we would just humble ourselves and ask for His help. As adults, we will often try and take matters into our own hands. We get ahead of God and this is never a workable strategy. We must take heed to God’s signal, correct our courses, and begin to allow Him to lead, guide, and direct us. He knows where we should be, when we should be there, and He knows how to get us there.

Humility is where it’s at! Humility expresses our love for God, and it activates us in His purpose. It’s necessary to surrender to God through humility because this is what aligns our actions and behaviors with the move of God’s Spirit.

We were never meant to do this thing called life alone. Galatians 5:1 tells us that now that we have been freed from the bondage of slavery by Jesus Christ, we must never again allow anyone or anything to saddle us with bondage again. We can’t have a double standard where we yield to God in certain areas but not at all in others. He commands us Galatians 5:25 to live in His Spirit and to walk by His Spirit. Then, instead of falling because of the circumstances of life, we will fall more in love with God through the Lord Jesus Christ and allow His Word, plan, and purpose to always keep us standing stable and strong. ■

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.■

He Had Two Families and She Didn’t Know It

Posted on May 8, 2022 by daaorg1214

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Refuse a Life of Regrets

Posted on September 20, 2021 by daaorg1214

‘Destiny’ is probably one of the most significant words in human vocabulary. Destiny is coded in our spiritual DNA, and long before we actually arrived on the scene, God wove it in the bloodline that made our very existence possible. At this moment, the search to fulfill our destiny is either driving our aspiration to expand into the person we are meant to be, or the neglect of it is fueling a level of ambivalence that frustrates our every move. Fulfilling one’s God-inspired destiny is the measuring stick by which the umph of life is gauged. Without it, we don’t understand what we’re doing or why we’re doing it. The epiphany that many realize sometimes very late in life is that everything about them was destined for a purpose, and it didn’t become clear until so much had been wasted. When we talk about regrets, this is often a doozy.

The psalmist wrote about the Lord in Psalm 16:11(NKJV), “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Who better to show us the path of life than the Creator of it? He will reveal what He has in mind for us IF we’re interested in following it, but there are a few other things that we must know as well. One of them is about how the Father reveals this path of destiny to us. He’s a God of the exceedingly abundant, but the golden rule of abundance is that it doesn’t support wastefulness. God has structured the laws of the universe in such a way that ignorance and poor stewardship are not rewarded. So, if we have no interest in fulfilling our destiny or gaining knowledge of it, it is doubtful we’ll recognize the path to its treasure; for we will not position ourselves anywhere near its proximity.

Very often, Heavenly Father reveals our purpose in pieces. Once we’ve shown ourselves interested in following the path He’s placed before us, He reveals a nugget and then waits on our response. What should this response be? Primarily, it should be one of gratitude, for this is the key that opens the door to a blessed life. In Old Testament times, people worshipped God by offering the sacrifice of animals, but God made it clear to them in Psalm 50:10 that everything they offered belonged to Him anyway. In Psalm 50:14(NLT), He gives us a directional cue that leads to the path and tells us, “Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High.”

The sadness of regret is often caused by believing we are worse in the present because of something that happened or didn’t happen in the past. It’s something we perceived as a missed opportunity. We should never become emotionally distraught or vexed over one or two missed opportunities. Our God is a Redeeming God. Nothing is lost to us when His love is the driving force of our lives. Heavenly Father has seen to it that opportunities are strategically positioned all around us, but when our hearts are closed to gratitude, we are blind to opportunities we might otherwise see. This is another very important truth for us to nibble on. Colossians 4:2 encourages us to devote ourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart, because the more thankful we are to God for His blessings, the more opened our eyes will be to what He has in store for us.

In our everyday dealings, we cast serious shade on an individual that walks around like they deserve the best but does nothing to earn it. There’s some biblical basis for this, because Jesus Christ tells us in Luke 6:43-44 The Message (MSG), “You don’t get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree. The health of the apple tells the health of the tree. You must begin with your own life-giving lives. It’s who you are, not what you say and do, that counts. Your true being brims over into true words and deeds.” A tree is known by the fruit it produces. In other words, we know the treasury of a person’s heart by their deeds and actions. Our Heavenly Father has shown us who He is, and proved it, through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son.

Our God deserves the highest form of praise and worship. He deserves the greatest of all we have to give, because this is exactly what He has poured into us. Our well of gratitude to Him for what He’s done through Christ enlightens our understanding in ways we can never articulate. Ephesians 3:17 tells us that as our gratitude deepens, our roots grow down into God’s love and keep us strong. This is how we refuse a life of regrets, by clinging to the One who loves us more than we can fathom. The sacrifice and resurrection of Christ shows us how wide, how long, how high, and how deep God’s love is. And when we experience this overwhelming love through Christ, Ephesians 3:19 tells us we will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from our God.■

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

“Refuse a Life of Regrets” written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2018. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

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