The Salt in Your Salt-Shaker

Posted on April 24, 2018 by daaorg1214

I remember the first time that I heard Colossians 2:10(NLT), an indescribable feeling came over me. This verse says “So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.” The Holy Spirit did a work in my heart as soon as I heard those words. I have no doubt that it was because I had always felt so incomplete as a person; like no matter what I set out to do, I was doomed to fail. It got to a point where I felt that the safest thing for me to do was to just expect to fail at whatever I attempted. That way the disappointment would not come as such a surprise.

This was no way to live, but it was my reality for longer than I wanted, and my relationships with men followed suit; they were almost always disasters. God’s Word sparked hope in my heart, and I have to say that it was a scary place at first. The hands of my heart had been firmly clinched around a glass-half-empty existence. Part of the problem is that I grew up struggling with an image of God that I didn’t understand. I was trying to believe that He loved me, but couldn’t reconcile it with what others were saying and teaching about Him.

I had extraordinarily loving people in my life that were supportive and nurturing, but I also had individuals that were supposed to love and protect me, but didn’t. I saw and experienced things that no child should, and I always wondered why I was being punished. Why did God allow me to suffer? I could never enjoy my present for the dread of what might happen in the future. This created a dark cloud, and it lingered over my life for the longest time. I didn’t know how to identify it. I thought it was God punishing me, but as I matured spiritually, I came to understand that this dark cloud was the residuals of not knowing who God is, who I am, or why I’m here. It was the entrapment of fear.

God tells us in Hosea 4:6 that His people are destroyed because they lack knowledge. Ignorance destroys. It can destroy the lives of those who never learned to love with Christ in their hearts, and it can also destroy the lives of those under their span of influence and care.

Jesus Christ cleared up my confusion. He said in Matthew 5:13 The Message (MSG), “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.” In the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ, saltiness is the flavor of love, power, and goodness; God’s people should bring this seasoning to the earth. Without knowing that we’ve been empowered by God to bring the salt and to flavor the lives of all who know us, we might start to feel like garbage, but when we know better, we can do and FEEL better!

Understanding God’s love has planted a seed of light in my spirit. It has created a hunger and thirst in me for righteousness. It fed me in a way that fueled hope, despite my pattern of self-punishment. The bond between me and disappointment began to crack. I became confident in this person called Christ, and it led me to speak his truth to the one that had oppressed me. In that moment, I thought to myself, “Where did that come from? Is that my voice? Who said that?” This moment was a building block upon which my new future would rest.

1 John 4:18(NKJV) tells us, “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.” God does not punish. Embracing the truth that He’s on your side, that He will never leave or forsake you, and that He has a wonderful plan for your life; trust, this is the salt in your salt-shaker. Sprinkle it everywhere you go! ■

“Jesus, Take the Wheel”

Posted on April 3, 2018 by daaorg1214

The revelation that Jesus Christ spoke in John 8:32(NLT) is more than revolutionary. It is the foundation upon which our healing and restoration rests. In this verse, Jesus said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” As truth speakers and truth seekers, we cannot let the splendiferous opportunity to dissect and digest this yumminess slip by us. It is my personal belief that throughout humanity’s history, God has been very patient with us as our minds and hearts expand, for they must do so to accommodate the heft of His truth, as well as the infinite treasure of His provision and goodness. He doesn’t force us to accept or assume it all in one fell swoop. We can only handle the truth in small doses.

There can be no question that the knowledge of Jesus Christ expands our minds monumentally, and walking in his example swells the expanse of our hearts exponentially. This increase in our spiritual and internal landscape is what creates a landing strip for blessings. As Ephesians 3:20(NLT) tells us, it allows God’s mighty power to be “at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” It is therefore logical to deduce that if we have a little biddy piece of truth, we cannot live above that which we know.

Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing—perceiving—trusting the Word of God. In order to build our faith—the faith that is necessary to become all that we are meant to be—it is essential that we know more than we know right now. The Word of God is not a little biddy piece of truth. It is THE truth! And God’s truth helps us make leaps in our minds and hearts that we would not otherwise make. God demands that through faith we trust in what we cannot see. And not only this, we must accept the truth that those things that are unseen are more real than those that can be seen. This is most definitely a release-the-wheel way of living.

To live out our destinies, Jesus Christ must be in the driver’s seat. Why? Because in John 14:6(NLT) he declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

There’s pressure all around us. It feels as if it’s coming from every direction, and some of us are losing it big time. We can’t make sense of things, and we have to ask ourselves if it is because something is missing? Is there some piece of truth that’s not in your arsenal? Is this truth the piece of the puzzle that will bring clarity, purpose, and peace to your life?

Jesus knows the answers to these questions, and they are found in him. In Matthew 7:7(NKJV), he tells us, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” James 4:2 also tells us that we have not because we ask not. Sometimes we don’t ask Jesus for answers because we know on some level that they will take us to places we’ve never been before. They will cause us to have to function on a higher spiritual level, and this scares us. We shouldn’t have fear. We were created for this.

In John 16:12(NLT), Jesus told the disciples, “There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now.” Jesus Christ IS the TRUTH! He could have given the disciples knowledge that would have blown their socks off, but he didn’t, because they had not cultivated the head-and-heart space to deal with it. Let it not be said of us.

We hold so tightly to the familiar and comfortable, because we believe them to anchor the journey we call life. Hebrews 6:19 tells us that our hope in Christ is the strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. When we loosen our grasp, and let Jesus take the wheel of our lives, he will lead us to the place that God has destined us to be. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we can know, handle, and walk in the truth!■

All Day, Every Day Love

Posted on March 27, 2018 by daaorg1214

God has given every person that is living, or that has ever lived, a wealth of good stuff. It comes baked in by virtue of our humanity and habitation on this earth. Although not everyone sees it this way, the truth is that even before our first breath we are blessed beyond what we deserve. We have life, and therefore, we have hope! And not just hope, but the hope of God’s glory! Colossians 1:26-27 The Message (MSG) tells us, “This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple.”

Colossians 1:26-27 beautifully informs us of the awesomeness that God is offering to each person. As His sons and daughters, we are replicas of Christ; therefore, like Christ, part of our purpose for being on earth is to walk by faith. We must learn to call those things that are not, as though they were. In other words, we confess our faith by speaking God’s promises into and over our lives even though our conditions are less than optimum. This means that we cannot allow ourselves to always be sold-out to the things our physical eyes can see. 2Corinthians 4:18 (NIV) puts it best. It says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

As a spiritual being having a human experience, not only must you come to recognize that those things which are unseen are more REAL than the things that are seen, but you must know that SPIRITUAL TREASURES that are unseen to the physical eye are more VALUABLE than those treasures that are tangible and can be seen. A Christ-kind-of-faith demands that we operate from this level of spiritual awareness. This is why Jesus Christ taught us in Matthew 6:19-20 (NIV), “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

We were not there when Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross for our sins, but as Christians, his sacrifice is more than the air we breathe; it is more than life itself. His ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection is the very essence of all that we are and could ever hope to be. It is something we have never seen with physical eyes, but with spiritual eyes we can see it clearly, because the Spirit of Christ within us bears testimony of it. The totality of Christ exceeds whatever we are in this moment. It is more real than the body we live in and the skin that clothes it.

God has made it possible for us to walk in the reality of Christ every moment of every day. It is not a ‘walk by sight’ thing; it’s a ‘walk by faith’ dynamic. Hebrews 11:6 gives us the barometer to measure the importance of this. It tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith.

Not only does faith make it possible for us to respond to God’s goodness, mercy, and grace with gratitude, but faith gives us the bandwidth to express God’s nature. These are the treasures we should be interested in laying up. They are enduring, and not only impact our lives, but the lives of those within the span of our influence.

1John 4:12 (NIV) says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” This is huge! The nature of our God is love, and His love—love from the Creator of all that exists—is made complete in us! Through the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love expands us. It will stretch a person beyond his or her comfort zone, and make them all that God created and intended them to be. Nothing in life is better than this. The question is whether we will actually live and walk in the reality of all God has made us. This is our choice, and if our aim is to honor Him, we’ll choose love all day, every day. ■

The Biggest Break Imaginable

Posted on March 20, 2018 by daaorg1214

We all have distinct and different avenues that we took to establish a relationship with God. Some of us came to the Lord Jesus Christ because a person witnessed the Gospel to us, and we were overcome with his love in that instance. Others were brought up in the church, and it was more of an organic progression. Then, there are those who felt compelled in their souls to embrace the call. No matter how we became reacquainted with Heavenly Father, we should know beyond any uncertainty that it was not by chance or luck. We were destined to be His sons and daughters, even before we were born.

Ephesians 1:7 The Message (MSG) tells us, “Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!” In most instances, it isn’t until you’re out of the frenzy that you can really grasp the freedom that it talks about in this verse. An abusive environment is chaotic; sometimes managed chaos, but chaotic nonetheless. An atmosphere that lacks the peace of God is one where there’s a heighten level of alert all the time. Any minute the script could flip from reasonable to unreasonable, from quiet to crazy, and from calm to fear. Anyone that deals with this for an extended period will have a mindset that is very different from the peaceful mind of Christ that God desires for us.

We were destined to be free from the oppression of fear, and we are called to live through God’s love. There are certain truths that we simply must trust in order to do this, because we cannot build our relationship with God on fear. He sets the terms, and His terms are such that He wants us free in our hearts and minds, because that’s how love moves—it moves freely.

One of the truths we must trust is that God accomplished through Jesus Christ what we could not accomplish for ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, God’s Word declares that He thinks we’re pretty awesome. In Ephesians 2:10, He calls us His masterpieces, and He has great things in store for all of us, but we tend to let sin and fear rule at times, so we don’t always cooperate with His plan. Another important piece of truth that you and I have to know and trust is that God indeed has a plan, and we’re a big part of it. Ephesians 1:8 The Message (MSG) says, “He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.”

Cooperating with God’s plan is how we cut ourselves the biggest break imaginable. That brings me to another juicy hulk of truth that we must trust to build our relationship with God; He knows best. This is huge, because most of us either think we got it all figured out or that we have to carry the load ourselves. Jesus Christ invites us in Matthew 11:28 to give him our burdens. He knows how to handle them. He wants to help us, and we need to cut ourselves a break and let him.

A whole lot of us struggle with this. We really do think we got it going on, and that we can somehow make all the pieces of our lives come together. I found out the hard way that it ain’t so. I was one of those people that felt the pulling in my soul. It came at a time when I was pretty low, and emotionally numb from dealing with situations that I lacked the maturity, wisdom, and strength to handle. It was during this time that my soul cried the loudest. I heard it, and knew that nothing in the earth would satisfy what I needed. It was the utmost imperative that I experience something real. It had to be something that would scoop me up from the muck and mire of a gloom that was thicker than molasses. God’s supernatural power is larger than life, but at that time I could only provide the tiniest opening for it to come through. It’s amazing to me even today that this was all it took, because with that smaller-than-a-pin-head opening, God’s love wedged through and transformed my life.

Heavenly Father tells us in Romans 8:28 (NKJV) that “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” This is His promise and we can trust it with every fiber of our beings. Jesus Christ invited us to this life of freedom—free to love him, free to love others, and free to love ourselves. It’s not a ‘hot one minute cold the next’ kind of love. It’s the glue that holds everything in our lives together! If you’ll surrender to it and let the Spirit have his way, God’s love will nurture your soul and work with you until you’re all grown up in Christ, walking tall and strong in faith. Cut yourself a break and let the love of Christ do this for you.■

My Heart Hurts, But My Soul Feels Good

Posted on March 6, 2018 by daaorg1214

God has created us to be three-part beings; spirit, soul, and body. People often wrongly identify the parts, but 1Thessalonians 5:23 clarifies it quite nicely. There are three parts that make us humans, and our soul is the part of us that we must constantly keep in check. It’s governed by our will, and God won’t violate our free-will choice. We can do whatever we want to do. We’ll pay the consequences of our wrong actions, but the choice is squarely ours to make. The soul has a couple of gates. Stuff goes in and stuff goes out. That’s an over-simplified statement, but true nonetheless. The mind is the thinking center, and the heart is the feeling center. Both have storage capacity, and sometimes they hold on to the wrong things, and this causes us major problems down the road.

In Proverbs 4:23, God tells us to guard our hearts, and to let this be one of our chief occupations in life. If Heavenly Father has told us to make guarding our hearts a priority, then it means that the heart is pretty important, and not guarding it will cause some serious malfunctions. To guard something is to be careful about what goes in it and what comes out of it. In other words, we must be extremely discriminating about what we let through the gate. This places us in a position of discernment, and sometimes we’re not so good at it. We can’t predict the future, things don’t work out as we expect, and the people we choose to have relationships with are not always who they purport to be. These are just a few of the reasons why we desperately need the help and guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit. He’ll help us discern what is true and righteous.

With the heart, a situation might make us feel really good, but be bad for us. On the flip side, a situation that is for our overall well-being might break our hearts. That’s the tricky part, because oddly enough, what’s best for the soul doesn’t always feel good to the heart at first. But here’s the whopper piece of information that none of us can afford to miss, whenever we do what is best for the soul, we increase spiritually. God tells us in 3John 1:2 that He desires that we prosper, be in good health, and that our souls will flourish in His goodness. This is why the adversary blinds the minds and hearts of people through his tactics of bombardment and chaos.

Distraction is his game, and so often we fall for it. We become so consumed with the heart business that we neglect the soul, and end up missing the blessing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed this in the lives of others. They feel as if they can’t catch a break. It’s one problem right after the other for them, and it’s because a pivotal blessing is coming their way. Causing them to miss it by distracting them is the name of the devil’s game.

We have to open our eyes and begin to see these distractions for what they are. They are sent our way to keep us from making the very decision that’s going to usher in what we’ve been praying to receive. Our choices can be doors to opportunities that will advance us in Kingdom pursuits. These are the choices that are before us every day; choices to nourish our souls with God’s Word, so that it will cause all aspects of our lives to thrive.

You have to face the reality that when it comes right down to it, it’s YOUR soul on the line. When you stand before the judgment seat of God’s throne, you can’t take anyone with you. This should motivate us to move everything in our lives aside so that we can get quiet and spend some quality time with God in His Word. This is a very important way that we can hear from Him.

Looking at romantic movies or reading novels, you might have come across the advice, “Just listen to your heart.” This sounds like the right thing to do, but it isn’t always wise counsel. Jeremiah 17:9 warns that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and Proverbs 26:23 cosigns this. It warns that smooth words sometimes hide a wicked heart. So, when it comes to someone else’s heart, as well as our own, we need the Lord’s help to discern the right choices so that we can make good, solid decisions.

God has a treasure waiting for you, and He doesn’t want you to miss it. Don’t let chaos and bombardment confuse you. Isaiah 26:3 tells us that God will keep us in perfect peace when we trust in Him and keep our thoughts fixed on Him. Your heart may want what it wants, but let God take control, because only He knows what’s best for your soul.■

“I Cry to You, But You Don’t Answer”

Posted on February 27, 2018 by daaorg1214

My friend, Maxine, ran into a rough spot when she got sober about nine years ago. Her personality is bubbly and infectious; she never had a problem landing a job, just couldn’t keep it. With her prior arrests, background checks always caught up with her. It made her employment history sketchy at best. Maxine’s dad worked in maintenance and janitorial service most of his life, and she had picked up a few skills here and there. She decided she’d try her hand at cleaning homes. When she told her friends about the idea, everyone was on board, and she was off to a good start.

Maxine was introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ in rehab, and her relationship with God continued to grow. She began to meet new people, and her housecleaning jobs increased. She decided to specialize in cleaning floors, rugs, and carpets, and make a go of a small business. Things really began to take-off from there. Her friends continued to be very supportive and gave her lots of encouragement and referrals. Maxine gained a reputation for good, reliable service at a good price. It wasn’t until six years later, when she started to take on larger clients, that her business hit a snag.

She enjoyed the initial building stage, but things took on a much different tone as the business grew, and her faith took a hit as well. As the money stream tightened, Maxine became anxious. She felt as if the Lord was letting her down. Many of us have been in this place, where our backs are against the wall and we don’t know quite what to do. The things that used to work for us are no longer working. We cry out to the Lord, but it seems that He isn’t hearing us.

In the Book of Job in the Old Testament, Job said as much. He said to the Lord in Job 30:20 (NLT), “I cry to you, O God, but you don’t answer. I stand before you, but you don’t even look.” These moments, when it seems that God isn’t responding, His mercy is speaking loud and clear, and we have the distinct privilege to press upon our spiritual hearing to receive what His mercy is saying. Heavenly Father is incredibly patient with us. 1John 5:14 tells us that He always hears our prayers. He’s interested in every detail of our lives, but we must also remember that God’s number one priority is our spiritual growth in Christ.

Heavenly Father wants us to succeed in life, but sometimes a subtle shift slips in. It’s one that causes us to lean less on the Lord Jesus and lean more on the flesh. We begin to walk more by sight than by faith. We forget that the goal is that our view of who God is and what He is willing to do for us grows, as our reliance on self-effort and ability diminishes. Hebrews 13:5 (NIV) gives us some extremely good counsel when this happens. It tells us, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Everything happens for a reason, and although you may not understand it, the lesson learned will inevitably be that God didn’t bring you this far to leave you. He’s working in you to will and do of His good pleasure through the Holy Spirit. He’s helping you to grow into the person that He desires you to be.

Romans 8:28(NKJV) tells us, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Maxine had a dry spell, but things got better. She learned many spiritual lessons during that season, like how to wait on God before making big decisions. Her eyes were also opened to being more thankful to the Lord for having people in her life that were willing to support her the way that they did. But the greatest lesson she learned was how quickly doubt can slip into our hearts when situations in our lives change. Doubt is not a part of God’s Kingdom. It doesn’t come from Him, and it takes up space that only trust and love for God should occupy. So yes, dry seasons will sometimes occur in life, but our commitment to hold to God’s unchanging hands will ensure they are only temporary. He promises that ultimately, everything will work together for our good.■

Pants too Tight, Mouth too Loose

Posted on February 20, 2018 by daaorg1214

My grandmother would say to me, “Your mouth is going to get you in trouble.” She accused me of talking way too much for a youngin barely able to make up a bed. In her day, kids were to occupy themselves with quiet play, and never to be so brassy as to interject in grown folk’s business. As with every new generation, mine was viewed as a new opinionated breed. This, coupled with an insatiable curiosity, presented a sassiness that often shocked my grandmother. By the time I was a skin-tight jeans wearing teenager, she was utterly stunned by the antics she witnessed on TV and saw reflected in me and my siblings. We were completely outside the box, and nowhere in the contextual framing of her thought process was she able to connect the wires that made us act the way we did.

The combination of pants too tight and a mouth too loose never diminished my grandmother’s love and care, but it earmarked the differences between us. Of course, compared to today, the antics of my generation were mild to say the least. Talk about jeans too tight, today they’re a little more than stockings. Some of the things that bothered my grandmother about my generation are championed in today’s society, and perhaps necessary for progression and freedom of expression. But as with most generations, ours lacked the patience to weed out the less useful, while cherishing many of the priceless jewels from those before us.

My grandparents, and foreparents before them, had a boatload of what many people lack today, common sense and wisdom. Proverbs 4:7(NIV) tells us, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” Plenty of people have knowledge, but few seek the wisdom and understanding that comes from God’s Word.

2 Peter 1:3 tells us that through His divine Word, God has given us everything that we need for living a Godly life. His Word teaches us that restraint and modesty contribute to the foundation of moral character, and moral character pleases Him. It keeps us from being arrogant, which is something that God strongly dislikes.

Proverbs 18:21(NKJV) tells us, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.” Words are incredibly important. What we do, think, and say are the defining characteristics of our personhood. Heavenly Father warns us that talking too much is dangerous business, and He assures us in His Word that if we don’t use wisdom, we will have to eat the consequences that tag along with a lack of consciousness about what we say. And not only this, once we release our intentions verbally, the enemy gains information better left inside our heads, between us and God. Saying the wrong things at the wrong time allows the enemy greater leverage to undermine our good efforts.

1John 2:6 (ESV) tells us, “whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” God has shared much instruction in His Word that is designed to keep us safe, fulfilled, and thriving; part of this instruction teaches us to be disciplined in our words and actions, because being disciplined is a part of His nature, and as Christians we’re to be like Him.

My grandmother was endeavoring to teach her grandchildren to be people with good moral character, and rightly so. Her approach was one of instilling the notion of an economy of words, and now that I’m much older, I wish I had paid more attention to her wisdom. As a teenager, my pants were too tight and my mouth too loose for my grandmother’s taste. She loved me to pieces any way, but I learned to watch what I say the hard way; after many embarrassing situations, lost friendships, and troublesome circumstances. The best approach is to seek the wisdom of God’s Word and walk in it. This way our words will be seasoned with wisdom, and skin-tight will be the defining characteristic of our relationship with God. ■

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