Be Strong in the Lord!

Happy Wednesday, Everyone!

And for those of you visiting for the first time I say welcome! I post every Wednesday and my purpose is to nourish your soul that you may live a powerful life on earth.

Over and over again we are taught in the Word to be strong in the Lord. We are told: do not fear, do not be discouraged (in other words, don't let courage get away from you!), do not despair, do not look down.

How do we strengthen ourselves in the Lord?

Let's look at its physical parallel: We strengthen our bodies by putting a demand on them. If we want to increase muscle mass, we lift heavier weights than we are used to. If we want to run faster, we pick up the speed until our lungs are screaming back at us. If we want stronger bones, we do weight-bearing exercises that push us beyond what's comfortable.

To strengthen ourselves in the Lord is to build ourselves up in faith. And to build ourselves up in faith, is to exercise our spiritual muscle, one step at a time; it's to put a demand on our belief system (a Bill Johnson phrase) by stepping out and expecting God to be true.

We cannot sit down on our faith and be strengthen in the Lord at the same time.

Some have dreams and hopes that have fallen by the wayside. For others, a fresh passion for a powerful life seems an impossibility. And for many, expectancy in what God will do each day has decreased instead of increased.

So how do we build ourselves up to a most holy and powerful faith?

SPEAK OUT!

The Bible says that faith comes from hearing, and hearing the Word of God! You have to hear yourself say what Heaven says is true about you! How often do our own words bear testimony against the promises of God! Too often our words gravitate toward insufficiency, imperfection, and being overwhelmed.

Here's a spiritual warm-up for you to begin your day:

Through me, the Word of the Lord spreads widely and increases in power (Acts 19:20).

God has given me all things that pertain to life and godliness and I am well able to possess all that God has provided for me (Numbers 13:30, 2 Peter 1:3-4).

Your law is on my heart and my feet do not slip (Psalm 37:31).

Thank you, God, for promising to guide me along the best pathway for my life. You have promised to bless me and watch over me. I will be quick to listen and quick to respond (Psalm 32:8)!

Through each day, You pour Your unfailing Love upon me, and each night I sing Your Song, praying to You because You give me a full and beautiful Life (Psalm 42:8).

STEP OUT!

What are you believing God for right now? I submit that you should always be exercising your faith; believing God for the next place of promise or a breakthrough for someone in need. Without faith it is impossible to please Him.

This is how we gain spiritual strength, we put a demand on the Promises of God. We shift our hopes and choose a perspective consistent with Heaven's voice over us.

Walk it out! Believe His Word is true! Turn your back on worry, fear, and anxiety.

Decide instead to trust in the Name of the Lord. Speak out His promises so your ears hear them and your heart embraces them. Step out as if you believe them.

Be strong in the Lord because He is strong in you.

Until next week...

Fear of Man...

Greetings, Dear Friends!

And to those visiting for the first time, I say welcome! I post every Wednesday and my purpose is to nourish your soul and inspire you to live a powerful life on earth.



I remember one day, many years ago, when during a time of prayer, the Lord whispered across my heart, "Susie, I want there to be a bigger gap between how people affect you and how I affect you. My opinion should far outweigh the opinions of others."

I realized right then and there how bound I was by other's opinions of me.

In Proverbs it says, "The fear of man brings a snare, but the fear of God brings safety."

When our thoughts are consumed with others' thoughts towards us - we are walking in the fear of man.

When our day goes south because we feel slighted by a comment or a cross look - we are walking in the fear of man.

When we feel the need to get others on our side by speaking ill of another - we are walking in the fear of man.

When our goal is more to impress than to bless - we are walking in the fear of man.

Fear of other's opinions doesn't just show itself through insecurity - it's also revealed through pride (which is another form of insecurity, I suppose).

There's no winning the battle of other's opinions. It's a trap and we will be its slave if we reduce our lives to a series of actions that will please others and give them a momentary favorable opinion of us.

However, when we walk in the fear of the Lord - when we love Him enough to do what He says - we will be safe.

Not that other's won't gossip - they will - but when they do, He will be our defense.

To walk in the fear of the Lord is to say, "Help me not to gossip, Lord. Help me to make choices from a place of fullness, not emptiness. Help me to believe that I all I could ever need or want is found in You."

When we sin and we are quick to repent to both God and man - we are walking in the fear of the Lord.

When we are considerate of other's feelings without giving them the power to decide our value - we are walking in the fear of the Lord.

When we are willing to step out in faith to places that are beyond our reach - regardless of the cynicism of others - we are walking in the fear of the Lord.

When we pursue a holy, obedient life and entrust our reputation to the Lord Almighty - we are walking in the fear of the Lord.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!

We will be blessed with wonderful relationships along the way. We will be hurt by divisive people along the way. No matter. We love people and we hope in God.

Have a blessed week~

Conviction...

Greetings, Dear Friends!

To those visiting for the first time, I say welcome!

I post every Wednesday and my purpose is to nourish your soul, encourage your faith, and hopefully inspire you to give God a great return on His investment in you!

I was thinking this week about the power of conviction. It's one thing to have a strong set of moral values which is as important in our day as it has ever been. We are called by God to become more and more like Christ in every way. We cannot become like Christ without spending extended amounts of time with Him. A good way to know if we are on track is to pay attention to our moral compass. Are we more compelled toward honesty and integrity now than we were last year? Moral values are the framework of a godly life. Something else happens though, when we spend much time in the presence of God. We begin to care about the things He does. Our hearts break for the things that break His heart. We cannot be long in God's presence without acquiring a conviction to make a difference in our world.

To me, morals speak of boundaries in our personal lives while convictions speak of a firm belief that we have a responsibility to do something about the needs God puts before us.

Of course we can't meet every need that comes our way, nor are we supposed to. But each of us has a capacity to use our influence in order to make an impact.

We all have varying spheres of influence - people who love us, look to us, and want to hear what we have to say.

If a news reporter approached the people in your circle and asked them, "What does he/she care about? What moves her? To what need does he sacrificially give?" What would they say?

This is not to say that we jump in to a "cause" all at once without first being led by the Lord. I think God works continually, shaping our thinking and preparing us for His purposes. He takes us by the hand and leads us gradually into the water. But soon we find ourselves swimming in the depths with Him where without His faithfulness we would surely drown!

I am there, and I've never been more alive in my faith than I am now!

In his compelling book, "Terrify No More" author and IJM President Gary Haugen writes,

"I grew up with a great love for reading history, and I used to wonder, How would I have fared in the great moral struggles of the past? Would I have been on the right side? Would I have acted with courage? Would I have made my grandchildren proud?"



He later quotes Edmund Burke who wrote this powerful statement about two hundred years ago,

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

If I could quote Gary one more time, he asks the question why good men and good women do nothing when the need in our world is so great? He answers this way:

"As I consider this question, I find three deep sources of poverty that conspire to keep me and my good neighbors on the sidelines in the great struggle against evil: a poverty of compassion, a poverty of purpose, and a poverty of hope."

Have we become inoculated from caring about the struggles that exist in our world today?

May there be a revival of compassion, of purpose, and of hope in our own hearts!

Each year one million girls are shipped across international borders in the human trafficking ring. They are violated anywhere from ten to fifty times every day - with the youngest being five years old!

Once every three minutes a brother or sister in Christ is tortured and/or executed for their faith.

One in five people live on less than a dollar a day. Millions are starving and millions are infected by HIV/AIDS.

Look again at the gospels. Jesus gravitated toward the poor, the homeless, the orphan, and those considered to be the world's throw-aways.

Jesus said that to the extent we minister to the needs of the least-of-these, is the extent that we minister to Him.

We have the privilege of ministering to Jesus in our day!

I am convinced that the Lord has deposited within us great gifts - some ready made to use - others in need of honing and crafting - but gifts nonetheless. And if you read the Scripture, you'll notice that God is intent on a great return on His investment (I recently Blogged about this subject).

We are given gifts to affect our sphere of influence. We are given influence that we might make a powerful impact.

And as you know, we cannot out-give God.

What about you?

To what cause are you called to sacrificially sow into? Is it hunger, AIDS, life, human trafficking, the widow, the prisoner, the fatherless?

We are blessed to be a blessing.

We cannot carry a portion of the burden on God's heart, without Him faithfully and lovingly carrying us.

May God richly bless you as you tend to the needs in your world!

Until next week...

A Jealous God...

Greeting, Precious Friends!

To those visiting for the first time, I say welcome!

I post every Wednesday and my purpose is to bless and nourish your soul that you may life a deep and powerful life.

When I was a young adult, I wanted to find the man of my dreams. I wanted to meet him, marry him, and begin our life together.

I added this request to my already growing prayer list. I prayed for his heart, his soul, his work ethic, and his sense of humor. I asked God to make me the kind of woman I should be, and to make him the man he should be.

Above all, I began living as one who was spoken for.

It didn't matter that I had not yet met him, I knew he existed and he deserved my faithfulness no matter what.

Of course, the questions arose in my mind, "Well if you're acting like your taken, won't you miss him when you meet him? How will you know if you've found him?"

I didn't know the answers to those questions but I decided to leave those things up to God.

It's pretty natural for a twenty year old to look, to flirt, and to draw attention to herself.

But my heart was taken, both by God and the man He had for me.

Taking all of my affections and giving them wholly to God, and trusting Him with the desires of my heart, made my single-ness one of the sweetest seasons in my life.

Eventually I met my husband and married him and after that year of prayer and single-minded devotion, I appreciated his presence in my life all the more.

Jesus longs for our single-minded devotion as well.

He is jealous for our affections and He desires that we live, breathe, and act as one who is spoken for.

How often do we tuck our "Christianity" in our back pocket because it doesn't fit in with certain crowds?

Or maybe we are not that blatant. Maybe we just care too much about other's opinions of us. And by doing so, we chase after their affections in hopes that we will be understood or appreciated.

Maybe our gift set elevates us in a certain walk of life and people put us on a pedestal. Now we can't control what other people do, but how about our own response? Have we used the gifts God has given us to stroke our own egos?

God is a jealous God.

He poured gifts into us that we might bring glory to HIS Name. He set His affections upon us that we might enjoy times in His presence, accept His forgiveness for our sin, and be empowered to make a difference in a desperate world.

God jealously longs for us - that when we speak, the world will know that we are loved because we love in a way that's out of this world.

God jealously longs for us - that the choices we make will reflect a heart that is set on bringing Heaven to earth (may Your Kingdom come to earth, as it is in Heaven...)

God jealously longs for us - that when we pray, we pray from a place that reflects our knowledge of what we posses in Him.

Jesus says this to us, "Abide in Me. Love Me. Walk with Me. Listen to My heart. Tend to the things I care about. Speak up for those who have no voice. Love those who are difficult to love. When people think you're better than you are...humble yourself. When people knock you down, trust Me to lift you up. Set your affections on Me and I will give you the desires of your heart. You will have an open heaven over you and the world will know that I belong to you and you belong to Me."

Have a blessed week, all.

Please pray for me. I have a big speaking event this weekend.

Peace!

No Condemnation...

Greetings, Dear Friends!

For those of you visiting I say welcome! I post every Wednesday.

My goal is simply this: to nourish your soul so that you may have a deeper life in Christ and a more powerful life on earth.

I love this picture. My sisters, my sisters-in-law, my mom, my niece and I sat down where the current was the strongest. We laughed, giggled, and sang songs. It was a great time.

The river of God flows with power and forgiveness and provision.

We will never enjoy the fullness of what God has for us until we jump in the river with full assurance that He owns the river and He wants us free; free from fear, self-hatred, and doubt; free to take hold of all He has offered us.

What keeps most of us from taking hold of the powerful life God promised us?

Unbelief, to be sure. But a close second has to be condemnation.

Many of us have a hard time letting ourselves off the hook.

We recount, rehash, and rehearse our mistakes and they re-injure us all over again.

How do we get past our mistakes? How do we get to the place in our faith when after we've blown it and repented, we are able to sit down where the current is the strongest and laugh, and giggle, and sing?

It's to this, we were called!

Currently I am reading Bill Johnson's book, "The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind" and he made a point that confirmed something I've always pondered.

First he describes the scene in Genesis where Sarah laughed at the thought of bearing a child in her old age. Johnson wrote,

"She didn't just give an embarrassed giggle. The Hebrew word for laugh tells us she was mocking what God has said. Not only that, she lied about it when God confronted her. But Hebrews 11:11 says of this same woman:

By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.

Wow! The record sure sounds different than the reality! This tells us something precious; the book of remembrance doesn't have record of our mistakes. Genesis 18 was recorded for human benefit, so you and I could identify with those who followed God in the past. But Hebrews 11 is how it's recorded in the book of remembrance. Once the blood has been applied, there is no record of sin anymore. God brags all over heaven about Sarah, and He does the same about you and me. Maybe you had a bad week, but you stirred yourself to worship God anyway. That was recorded in the book of remembrance."

Isn't this a powerful thought?

I know I feel that way in regards to my own sons. I know them inside and out. I am aware of the weak spots in their character and I understand their strengths. I know when they try hard, and I know when they just do enough to get by.

When they stumble and fall and their hearts are broken, mine is broken too. But when they brush themselves off and look to heaven once again, I am overwhelmed with love, admiration, and gratefulness that they belong to me.

How much more is God's capacity to feel this way towards us?

To refuse forgiveness, fresh mercies, and a chance to begin again, is to refuse the message of the Cross.

It takes great humility and faith to jump in the river, and to sing, and laugh and play. In spite of where you've been or what you've done, if you've confessed your sin and accepted His forgiveness, you have no reason for condemnation, only praise.

Daily proclaim, "Because of Jesus' work on the Cross, I refuse condemnation. I embrace forgiveness and I will live out the number of my days in freedom! Jesus died that I might be free!"

Until next week...