I pause to lift to the throne every man or woman of God who is under attack by the enemy. Whether it be a financial, spiritual, or moral attack, I pray for you, my silent, alienated, wounded physician. May the medicine you have given to others come to your aid and bless you. May you recover all that satan desires to destroy in your life! In Jesus’ name, Amen!
~From God Longs to Heal You: Free Your Body, Mind, and Spirit, by T. D. Jakes
Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!
At times, people are bound by guilt long after the feeling should have been resolved. Some rightly live with it because they refuse to give up the sin that brought it on. Meanwhile, others suffer the weight of false guilt because they harbor shame that doesn't belong to them. Whatever the root cause of your condemnation, the battle plan remains the same.
Victory over guilt begins with understanding that Jesus took our shame to the cross and paid our penalty. There is no way that we can pay for our own sin. But we do need to honestly identify the source of our guilt and confess before God. That means we agree with His perspective on what we've done. In other words, we admit when we're wrong. Repentance goes a step further: we turn away from the wrong and choose to do right.
Confronting guilt in this way replaces the weight of shame in our heart with peace and joy, which are far lighter and more freeing. And an amazing side effect is that we have wisdom to share. Openness about our past mistakes, resulting consequences, guilt burdens, and forgiveness can reveal the Lord to those in our sphere of influence. Through our witness, God may reach others who need their guilt chains broken.
The battle to overcome guilt is one that should not be delayed. The feeling won't just go away. Whether your condemnation is true or false, it needs to be dealt with quickly. Stop running, and face the source of your guilt. It's time to end your captivity and start walking in the joy of God's blessing.
~From Pastor Charles Stanley, Intouch Ministries, intouch.org
Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!
Lеt’ѕ оvеrсоmе fеаr wіth fаіth knowing thаt Gоd wіll mееt uѕ whеrе we аrе and рrоvіdе thе nеxt ріесе оf іnѕtruсtіоn— but уоu must fіrѕt ѕtер out оn fаіth. May thіѕ еnсоurаgе you аnd bless уоu іn Jеѕuѕ name; Amen!
~From The Best Devotionals For Her, by Rebeca Alison
Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!
In the moment, everyone's anger always seems righteous. Anger is a feeling, after all, and it sweeps over us and tells us we're being denied something we should have. It provides its own justification. But an emotion is just an emotion. It's not critical thinking. Anger doesn't pause. We have to stop, and we have to question it.
We humans are experts at casting ourselves as victims and rewriting narratives that put us in the center of injustices. (More on this in a bit.) And we can repaint our anger or hatred of someone — say, anyone who threatens us — into a righteous-looking work of art. And yet, remarkably, in Jesus's teaching, there is no allowance for "Okay, well, if someone really is a jerk, then yeah — you need to be offended." We're flat-our told to forgive, even — especially! — the very stuff that's understandably maddening and legitimately offensive.
That's the whole point:
The thing that you think makes your anger "righteous" is the very thing you are called to forgive.
Grace isn't for the deserving. Forgiving means surrendering your claim to resentment and letting go of anger.
~From Unoffendable by Brant Hansen
Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!
Yоu wеrе nоt created tо ѕіt down оn your gifts, talents аnd рurроѕе. God іѕ саllіng ѕоmе of уоu tо соmе uр hіghеr. It scares уоu bесаuѕе dоіng so requires уоu to step оut оf your соmfоrt zone. It rеԛuіrеѕ a leap оf faith and bеlіеvе іt оr not, thаt’ѕ just where God wаntѕ you! Hе wаntѕ you tоtаllу dереndеnt оn Hіm tо whеrе уоu аrе ѕееkіng Hіѕ fасе fоr thе next move аnd іnѕtruсtіоn. Gоd hаѕ саllеd for uѕ to wаlk bу fаіth аnd nоt bу ѕіght (2 Cоrіnthіаnѕ 5:7). Cаn уоu see whу? Because thаt is the оnlу wау tо truly please the Lоrd.
~From The Best Devotionals For Her, by Rebeca Alison
Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!
How desperate are you for the blessing, the breakthrough, the miracle? Desperate enough to pray through the night? How many times are you willing to circle the promise? Until the day you die? How long will you knock on the door of opportunity? Until your knuckles are raw? Until you knock the door down?
The persistent widow’s methodology was unorthodox. . . . Going to the personal residence of the judge crossed a professional line. I’m almost surprised the judge didn’t file a restraining order against her. But this reveals something about the nature of God. God couldn’t care less about protocol. If He did, Jesus would have chosen the Pharisees as His disciples. But that isn’t who Jesus honored.
Jesus honored the prostitute who crashed a party at a Pharisee’s home to anoint His feet. Jesus honored the tax collector who climbed a tree in his three-piece suit just to get a glimpse of Him. Jesus honored the four friends who cut in line and cut a hole in someone’s ceiling to help their friend. And in this parable, Jesus honored the crazy woman who drove a judge crazy because she wouldn’t stop knocking.
The common denominator in each of these stories is crazy faith. People took desperate measures to get to God, and God honored them for it. Nothing has changed.
God is still honoring spiritual desperadoes who crash parties and climb trees.
God is still honoring those who defy protocol with their bold prayers. God is still honoring those who pray with audacity and tenacity. And the crazy woman is selected as the gold standard when it comes to praying hard. Her unrelenting persistence was the only difference between justice and injustice.
The viability of our prayers is not contingent on scrabbling the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet into the right combinations like abracadabra. God already knows the last punctuation mark before we pronounce the first syllable. The viability of our prayers has more to do with intensity than vocabulary. It has more to do with what we do than what we say.
There is a pattern repeated in Scripture: crazy miracles are the offspring of crazy faith. Normal begets normal.
Crazy begets crazy. If we want to see God do crazy miracles, sometimes we need to pray crazy prayers.
~From Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson
Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!
We saw how three remedies that help us fight temptation are (1) remembering the presence of God, (2) remembering God’s larger plan for our lives, and (3) remembering to rely on God’s power to fight our spiritual battles.
~From Taking God to Work: The Keys to Ultimate Success, by David L Winters, Steve Reynolds
Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!
