Let God Fight Your Battles

 

 

God said He would fight your battles. He would restore the years that were stolen from you. What the enemy meant for your evil, He would turn it around for your good. Nowhere in there does it say that you have to sneak-diss or sub-tweet. Nah, you just keep doing you, as excellently as you’ve been doing, and eventually those who conspire against you will trip over themselves to bless you.

 

~From Bamboozled By Jesus: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams by Yvonne Orji, Actress, Author, Comedian

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

Repent And Clear Your Negative Thoughts

 

 

When we feel frustrated or stuck in our ruts of false belief, we can pray that God will change the very neural pathways in our brain. We can ask Him to rewire the innermost parts of our minds on a biological level. He created us. He knit us together in our mothers’ bellies. I believe that He can change the way my brain tangles together and makes connections. Do you believe that too?

Let’s practice together. We can pray this prayer when we’re feeling the effects of our false beliefs:

Lord, You are mighty in me. You made me. You put every cell together and came up with me. You are the Lord of my life, and You are the Lord of my mind. Lord, I have believed things that are not true, and I’m sorry for that. Please forgive me. Lord, because You are good, would You let the ways I used to think die off and then would You blaze a new trail in my mind? Would You stop connections in my brain that are tied to my old way of thinking and form new neural pathways with Your good truth? Thank You, Lord, for Your forgiveness and for the miraculous way You made me. Please remake my mind to be more like Yours.

That is a beautiful moment of repentance — of receiving His grace that comes after we go to Him, humble, needy, unable to heal ourselves.

That is one moment of repentance — repentance for years of being a false preacher in your own head, repentance for overlooking His good news and still preferring the bad news. This is the kind of repenting that happens a thousand times a day. When you go about your day and all is well, you thank God for keeping you on the narrow path. When you catch a bad news loop gearing up, you shush it, preach to yourself, and then get back to the good news. You pray, “Forgive me, God. I want to believe; please help me overcome my unbelief.”

This is the kind of repentance where you skin your knees and get back up. This is the kind of repentance that you commit to, knowing that God is urging you on to good works. His Spirit is mighty in you, and you are renewing your mind!

Don’t get stuck in guilt and shame. The work of turning around is the work of honesty and wholeness. There is a peaceful kind of power that comes when you go God’s way, however imperfectly it might be.

In Romans 12:2, the apostle Paul writes,

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

You renew; God transforms. To “be transformed” means that something outside of you is doing the transforming. You must be faithful to take the thoughts captive, but ultimately, God is the only one who can change our minds.

 

~From Preach to Yourself by Hayley Morgan 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

Are All Your Treasures On Earth?

 

 

Jesus’ words contain the absolute secret of passion in any relationship. He was telling His disciples to invest their lives in the things of God and not to focus on the things of this world. And He concluded with a powerful sentence: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

To understand the importance of that statement, let me help you understand the meaning of two words Jesus used in the original language. In the Greek language that the New Testament was written in, the word for treasure is thesauros. It means treasure or wealth. But it also means a treasury, or the place where we deposit our wealth.

The second important word in Jesus’ statement is heart. It is the Greek word kardia. It means the seat of our emotions and passions. Here is a paraphrase of Jesus’ statement in Matthew 6:21: Wherever you are depositing the treasures of your life, your passion will be there also.

Jesus knew if His disciples were investing their lives in worldly things they would lose their focus and passion for Him. So, He wisely exhorted them to lay up their treasures in Heaven. He did this because He knew an important truth:

You cannot separate your treasures from your passions.

In other words, you will always be most passionate about the people, pursuits, and places where you are investing the best of your life. Your passions will always follow the investments of your time, energy, and strengths.

Here is another way to say it: Your passions are telling on you. If you aren’t passionate about your marriage, what are you passionate about? Car racing, golf, children, work, church, friends, QVC?

Where are you investing the best of your time, energy, and strengths?

 

~From Strengths Based Marriage by Jimmy Evans and Allan Kelsey

 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

Man's Need For God

 

 

In Pensées, Pascal reflects on man’s search for happiness, writing: “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” The same God Who formed us is the God Who knows us and Who wants to be known by us. Just as an artistic masterpiece cannot be fully understood apart from understanding the artist, so we cannot separate our purpose from our Creator—the God Who gave us birth.

 

~From 40 Days of the Names, Titles, and Attributes of God by Gina L. Diorio

 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

Who Jesus Is

 

 

The first chapter of Revelation gives a compact description of the Lord. In verses 4 to 8, John condenses the wonder of Jesus Christ to the bare but beautiful essentials of who He is:

Jesus Christ is the faithful witness. Jesus came to earth to more fully reveal the character and ways of the Father (John 14:9). The miracles He performed validated His claim to be the Son of God.

Jesus Christ is the first-born from the dead. The Savior bore our sins and died on the cross, was buried, and rose again on the third day. His resurrection proved that eternal life is possible for us, too, as Jesus taught in John 11:25: “He who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”

Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth. It is the Lord who raises men to power, just as it is He who removes them (John 19:11; Rom. 13:1). Meanwhile, believers have access to a higher authority. In God’s throne room, we can beseech Him on behalf of our nations and lay claim to His promises.

Jesus Christ loves us and released us from our sins by His blood. Note the change of tense in John’s writing. The Lord’s love is ever-present, but He has freed believers from their past. Both the penalty and power of sin have been broken.

When people ask you about Jesus, introduce Him by guiding them through this mini-biography. In just a few sentences, John describes Christ’s character, divinity, and authority. The disciple was not timid about proclaiming the Lord. We shouldn’t be shy, either, when we serve so great a Savior.

 

~From Pastor Charles Stanley, Intouch Ministries, Intouch.org 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

Live A Life Of Service For Christ

 

 

Jesus shows us how to live a life of service by doing the very same for us. Jesus gave it all up for us (2 Corinthians 5:21, 8:9; Philippians 2:5–8), laid down His life willingly (John 10:18), got into the muck and the mess (Mark 5:25–34, 7:33; John 9:6), and served with love, joy, and compassion (Mark 6:30–44; John 13:1–17). Jesus laid down His life to save us, and He calls us His people saved by His work to lay down our lives (our old ways, our selfish desires, ambitions, agendas, and will) for Him, His will, His kingdom, and His purpose.

It’s such a privilege to be a believer. We get to follow the example of our Savior, to live for and be part of something so much greater than we could imagine. We get to be used by God to bring people into salvation and lead them into the hope of eternity. We get to follow in the footsteps of our King and Lord—and all it takes is us laying down our less than lives for a greater kingdom and purpose! Praise Jesus for this glorious call.
 

~From The Gospel Of Mark Devotional, Part 5 on YouVersion

 

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!

God Is Always Near

 

 

I always used to ask God to be near, but recently I’ve tried to shift my prayers a little. I don’t think it’s wrong to ask Him to be near, and I certainly don’t think He gets annoyed if we do even though He is already close by. What He mostly cares about is that we’re coming to Him, that we’re talking to Him. I’ve also realized that all of Scripture points to a God who can’t not be near.

Think about it: when we’re in Christ, what can keep us from His love? Romans 8 tells us that nothing — nothing — can keep us from the love of God. Not death, not height, not depth. Not angels, not demons. Not our fear. Nothing in creation can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:35–39).

So why would we ask God to be near if He’s promised that He won’t go anywhere? And why, then, do we not feel near to Him all the time?

I’d like to propose that perhaps we’re the variable, not Him. If He’s always available and nothing we can do will keep Him away, then maybe it’s us. Maybe we’re not recognizing Him. Maybe we’re not acknowledging Him. Maybe we’re ignoring Him. And while that sounds heavy and potentially disheartening, it’s actually really great news, and here’s why: you’re enough for Him to draw near. When He sees you, He sees His Son; and when He looks into your soul, He sees the Spirit. There’s nothing you can do to keep Him away, and there’s no place you can run where He won’t go to meet with you. So if you don’t feel near to Him, it cannot possibly be because you’ve done something to displease Him or make Him turn away.

I dare you to change your prayers, not because it will make Him happier with you (nothing can!), but simply because it will remind your heart how faithful and near He always is.

Rather than asking Him to be near, ask Him to give you eyes to see Him. Rather than asking what you can do to make Him come closer, maybe just ask that He helps you see how close He is. Jesus came the distance, He came all the way to the Cross, and nothing can separate you from His love and grace.

~From Always Enough Never Too Much by Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan

Stay Encouraged and Be Blessed!