Let Yourself Be Loved By God

John 8:32 says “If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

When we finally get to the point of ‘Letting ourselves be loved’ by God and believing that He is going to WORK in our lives is the point that we become what God intends in this life! We will NEVER be able to be overcomers on our own. It has to be in God’s Grace and Love that we do this.

In other words, when we really do ‘hold to God’s teachings’ we will be FREE in this life. 

The bible teaches us to “cast all your cares upon me”….

Realistically, how many of us actually do this “without” trying to fix the situation ourselves? .   Learning to “let go” and “let God” is not as easy as it sounds, however, the Bible reassures us to …”Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.” Ps 55:22 and “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

So many people are caught up in the “Worry Syndrome” and ask God without ever giving themselves over to God. God WANTS us to love Him and LET ourselves love Him!

If you’re in constant turmoil and worrying, why do you pray?  Is it just something you do because it’s tradition?  Or, do you truly seek God for peace and understanding?  Forming a “real” relationship with God provides a sense of security, revelation, knowledge and mostly, “a peace that passes all understanding.”

The Bible says to delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart (Ps 37:4) What we should understand mostly from this passage is the fact that there is a process of learning just how to “delight yourself in God.”

Are you willing to go through the process?  Here are some tips to get you started. Pray and sincerely ask the Holy Spirit to order your footsteps as you prepare to read God’s words to you.

©      Clear your mind of all self-thoughts of how you “think” it should be. (As Paul stated to the Corinthians in 1 Corin 14:36; “Do you think that the knowledge of God’s word begins and ends with you Corinthians? Well, you are mistaken!”)

©      Be prepared to push your way through negative temptations of things like, “I don’t understand what I’m reading” or “this doesn’t make any sense” or “I don’t have time to read” or “every time I try to read the bible, I get sleepy” (well, perhaps you do but, understand that the enemy doesn’t want you to read it! Speak boldly and declare the good works of the Lord that you have already conquered the enemy and you’re on your way to a victorious life in Jesus Christ!) and continue to read. (“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Matt 26:41)

©      Make it a point to read at least 3 scriptures per day. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to place these readings in your spirit so that when it’s time for you to use them, He will bring them back to remembrance.

©      Don’t “try” so hard. God knows your heart. A sincere heart towards Him will produce results.

©      STOP stressing. When you find yourself going to a place of stress, having tantrums or rebellious actions – STOP and ask yourself, “what do I look like to God right now?” Did you know that God knows what are needs are long before we do? Let go and let Him do what He promises all throughout His Word. BUT, if you feel you must continue through a tantrum, afterwards, repent (ask for forgiveness), shake the dust and renew your mind to the will of God.

©      Be willing to go through your storm! Pick up your cross and humbly carry it to its destination! God is able to use us for His glory when we’re willing to pursue the purpose He intended for us long ago.

©      Place yourself in environments and with people that are positive and encouraging.

©      With a sincere heart, pray for others.

©      “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding.” Lean on God and be changed by ‘holding to the teaching’ of the Lord in this life!

Doubt and faith cannot exist in the same body.  For example, have you ever found yourself in a conversation saying, “I know I should be stronger than this, oh yes I have faith BUT, I’m human too, and sometimes it just gets too hard.” - The mind can sometimes be our worst weapon against self; however, the fact that we can dismiss negativity by adding positives (believing God and letting Him work in our lives) allows us to be overcomers! It is unwise (and impossible) to seek the Lord through “worldly” eyes. God is a spirit and the Bible informs that we must seek Him in spirit and in truth.

The Bible says in 1 John 5:5; “Who is the one that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” When we LET ourselves BELIEVE and LOVE God – we are the overcomer the Bible speaks of!

The Bible is filled with such reassurance that all we have to do is trust God, know the word for yourself and to “let yourself love God”. It is my prayer that is happening in your life today! LET the Truth set you FREE!

Stay Tuned In To God

Each of us has a choice to stay ‘Tuned In’ or to change the channel at any given moment in our lives. God wants it that way. He desires that our heart stay tuned with His. When that doesn’t happen in our lives it causes problems. God never changes or moves the channel. He WANTS us to be drawn to Him.

In our restlessness in this life we do the changing and moving. It has happened since mankind began. God is patient and loving and calls us back to Himself over and over and over again in the hope that we will come to the place that we DESIRE Him more than anything else we are ‘tuning’ in to!

Jeremiah 31:3 says “I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”

The LOVE is what draws us to God and the LOVE is where we need to stay ‘Tuned In’.

Are we TUNED IN today? Are we focusing on God and letting Him lead our life?

I think about this as in a radio that we might have. Some days we get up and we feel happy and carefree and we might move the radio station to the Christian station. Some days we get up and we are grumpy and grouchy and we change the radio from the Christian station to hard rock because we don’t care if we hear the words or not; the music drowns our thoughts. On other days we get up and we are neither happy and carefree or grumpy and grouchy – we just don’t care and we change the station again.

We do the same thing in our Believer’s walk. We let our moods and emotions change our belief. The Bible says that we should be ‘steadfast and strong’ in our faith and not be moved. But we move anyway.

I think that this matters. It affects our belief when we are switching stations in our lives over and over again. What happens is that we are not solid in what we DO believe and eventually we fade away from the Lord because we don’t know where or how to stand when problems come.

HOW can we stop this from happening? The Word of God is the answer! Here are some ways that the Word should be saturating our lives!

v Use the POWER that comes through the Word of God! In Psalm 119:97-98 the Bible says: “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.” God INTENDS for us to study His Word. That is why He gave it to us. He WANTS us to use it to defeat the devil in this life. All of the keys for doing that are found in the Word. We MUST stay tuned in to God’s Word to defeat this life! There is POWER found there to make it through the day when we don’t feel like it. There is POWER there to defeat the thoughts that cause us to be weak. God loved us so much that He provided His Word for us to help us on our journey to Him!

v Be ‘BUILT UP’ through the Word of God! Acts 20:32 says: “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” God wants us to be BUILT UP in His Word so that our inheritance is strong in Him. This would be the inheritance of eternity through Salvation. THIS is the reason we should be so excited about learning more and more about God’s Word! We are learning what we need to learn for the eternal. Once we get saved and turn toward the Lord we begin to learn what His Word says and how to use it! What we carry away after death will be what we learn about God and how we use it! It is vital that we understand what our inheritance is!

v God’s Word will make you a WONDER to the darkness of this world! John 1:4-5 says “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Those who place their total trust and love in the Lord and obey His Word are a WONDER to those who don’t understand or walk in darkness. If EVER there was a reason to BELIEVE and LIVE OUT the Word of God – this is it! We MUST reach those in darkness. Those who don’t know don’t understand the Power and it is our responsibility to live it out for them so they will have strength and desire the Lord also! Not only this but we will marvel at the Lord for what he does in our lives! It will make us WONDER at how WONDERFUL He is!

v God’s Word will transform us into the likeness of Christ! We are who or what we behold in this life. Are we beholding Christ and desiring to be more like Him? 2 Corinthians 3:18 says: “And we, who with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” When we begin to spend our time and thought in the Word of God; we are literally transformed to what God intends for us to be – which is MORE LIKE CHRIST! No man can do this. It comes ONLY through the POWER of God! Once we are transformed we do not desire to go back in this life and live empty, defeated ways that lead nowhere! Transformation takes time and is a work in progress; but the Lord promises us that He will never leave us during this transformation process. Wouldn’t you rather be in His Presence than not?

Let’s work together to strengthen our focus on God’s Word and His Promises in this life so that we can defeat Satan and his ways! Let’s believe Him and be a WONDER to the lost; a LIGHT in the darkness for others! Be TRANSFORMED today and changed forever by the POWER of God!

Stay tuned in today to God and never change the channel! His Promises are true and His Way is ultimately the ONLY way. Obey Him and ask forgiveness for sin; so that your fellowship is sweet with the LORD! Nothing in this life compares to that!

There Is A Time For Everything In This Life

Almost always people seek the Bible at a critical ‘CHANGE’ point in their lives. They seek ‘wisdom’ for the situation they are in. The most famous Bible figure concerning ‘wisdom’ is King Solomon. He wrote on the subject of ‘wisdom’. His wisdom came directly from God. It was a gift to him and can be a gift to us!

One of the major things that we learn from the Biblical writings of Solomon is that NOTHING in our lives will EVER stay the same! God wants us, His children, to know that.

If we are on a journey to understand more of what God would have us know about this life we are living and its purpose we would count Solomon’s words of wisdom to be very important.

Do you remember Michael Jackson? Elvis? John Kennedy? Martin Luther King? All of these men were accomplished men in their fields. They had it all. On this earth they had everything they wanted; but did they please God in their lives? Were they believers in Christ? Did they invest in the really important things in this life?

Let’s look at Ecclesiastes 1:1-4 and 11

King Solomon is saying here that everything in this life is meaningless because even though man toils over his work here on Earth, in the end all men die. He goes on to say that man is not remembered for long after he is dead.

Solomon had everything that could be offered to man and yet he says that all things under the sun are meaningless – a chasing after the wind.  (Eccl. 1:12-14)

In other words we can chase after the wind all we want; but we will NEVER catch it. It is unattainable. Why waste time doing that when we can chase after God and believe Him?

Solomon says that no matter how much we chase the things of this world, even if we caught some of them, it won’t matter because we will die anyway. The ONLY thing worthy of ‘chasing’ is God! He is the ONLY thing that will last!

Ecclesiastes 2:1-10 begins to show us that Solomon searched for something meaningful in life. Did he find it? Do we find it when we search for something meaningful? We always come up short or after the ‘chase’ is over; we are not happy and go on to search for something else.

In Ecclesiastes 2:11 Solomon even goes on to say that he personally searched what he had done and could find no meaning. He put a magnifying glass on his life to see what he had done that had purpose and found his life to be lacking purpose and meaning by the world’s standards. God’s standards are what count!

We find that Solomon went on in his search until he came to the point that he UNDERSTOOD! Solomon understood that he needed to have JOY in doing what he did and that his life must be pleasing to God! Those that are found pleasing God find wisdom, knowledge and joy! (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26)

Solomon went on to write Ecclesiastes Chapter 3. He wrote that chapter because God opened his mind to wisdom, knowledge and joy. Solomon chose those things. He changed the way that he was thinking!

If we are looking to God, no matter the season of our lives, then God will make sure our mind is open to wisdom, knowledge and joy in whatever we are doing! It is pleasing to Him! There is HOPE and PROMISE in that! When we are pleasing God even IF we don’t understand the ‘why’ of the situation, we are bringing Him glory and He will give us wisdom, knowledge and joy in the current situation.

There really IS a time for everything! This is what Solomon says in Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes. It is TRUE!

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 teaches us that there is a time for everything. Life has different seasons. Whatever the season is in your life right now, whether good or bad, there is another season coming! We must spend the time we are in this season PLEASING GOD no matter what!

God will judge the world. Those who have wronged the Believer will be punished by God. Our world may not punish that wrong…but we must rest assured that God will! There should be hope and joy in that thought.

The wickedness of mankind will be punished. Those things that we see happen that go beyond our understanding belong to God. We MUST BELIEVE that! (Deuteronomy 29:29) This verse tells us that we are not meant to ‘KNOW’ everything about life.

What we can learn from Solomon:

v Solomon reminds us that death comes to all. Our daily striving sometimes is not all that important. What we should count as important is doing what will please God. Will the decisions I make today please God? Will talking to my family and loving my family please God? Will honoring my employer please God? Will the thoughts I think and the things I do please God? These are the things that we should be putting our thoughts and time into.

v We should evaluate our lives to see if we could be wasting time in life by chasing things that don’t really matter. Do I really need that new item that will put us in debt? Should I be staying home when I could be at church? Could I tithe instead of eat out 10 times this month? Should I serve in some capacity instead of saying I can’t? The way we question in our minds is what needs to change. When we are seeking to please God in our thoughts and mind; we see things differently!

v There are ‘life cycles’ in this life. In our walk with the Lord we should learn to accept this fact. It is clearly laid out in the Bible and explained here by a Solomon to us! We should be able to accept the good in those seasons and the bad in other seasons. Nothing will ever stay the same. Life is a changing process preparing us for eternity! Living in a desire to please God and letting God wash over us wisdom, knowledge and joy will change the way that we view this life that is ever changing.

v While we are here on Earth, we need to exhibit the Believer’s Life by living out pleasing God in ALL THINGS! When we do this we are blessed with even MORE wisdom, knowledge and joy to make it in this world! God’s economy is so much different from ours! When we begin to really BELIEVE Him and change our thought process; some of the things that we struggle with on a daily basis just fade away and in their place we get to experience what Solomon found on his quest in this life! Solomon gained wisdom, knowledge and joy in a BIG way. We as believers, by pleasing God in our life, find the same thing! The gift is for everyone!

God calls us to be more than a conqueror in this life. He WANTS us to overcome defeat with victory. Try today to change your thinking on what really matters in this life because there REALLY is a time for everything when we are pleasing God!

10 Ways To Find Joy In Life

Finding ‘joy in life’ comes in many different ways. Everything about us helps us to find that joy if we are seeking it from a ‘God Perspective’. God will take every expectation, life experience and even our personality to contribute to our JOY if we let Him!

Included here are 10 ways to ‘find joy’ in this life. The paradox of that sentence is that the JOY is there already; we just have to be able to identify it and BELIEVE it!

Are you able to find JOY today in your life? Some would say, ‘seriously’? ‘I can’t even find the bathroom on certain days’….

Maybe we are not looking in the right places to see and experience the JOY IN OUR LIVES! God gives us all the tools to find and keep the JOY in us. We just have to examine ourselves to see it all clearly!

Psalm 19:7-11 “The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the LORD are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.”

Where do you find JOY in your life? This is the beginning place to see where it is or isn’t coming from.

Here are some points to consider when searching for the JOY OF THE LORD:

©      NOTICE WHAT IS RIGHT ~ Some see the glass as half full while others see it as half empty. We have to train ourselves to actually notice what is right in our life. Because of our sinful nature, we automatically turn to what can potentially happen that will be bad; the awful consequences or list out the negative! God intends that we ‘Notice What Is Right’ in our lives. Not the next door neighbor’s life; not our employer’s life; not even our spouse’s life. What is ‘Right’ in our own lives. Too much of our time is taken up with examining others lives. Let’s spend the next month recognizing what is right in our lives!

©      BE GRATEFUL ~ When was the last time you said ‘thank you’ and meant it? Was it today? Yesterday? Last week? If we change our perspective on life and become a ‘grateful’ person that is thankful to just wake up, we can begin to TRAIN ourselves to be grateful. Be THANKFUL and GRATEFUL to God first of all. We each have so much to be thankful and grateful for. Keep your attention focused on being grateful.

©      REMEMBER THE KID YOU WERE ~ Do you remember how to have fun and play? When was the last time you played? Everything in this life was not designed by God to be solemn. PLAY for Heaven’s Sake! Play with your children; play with your spouse; play with your family; other church members. Everyone needs to have some fun in their lives.

©      BE KIND ~ It is one thing to watch and hear of others being kind and the softness it brings to our hearts; but ACTUALLY doing an act of kindness brings you to a whole different level in the Lord! Our kindness should be contagious to one another. It strengthens us as a group of believers too. Joy comes when we have done something selfless for another. When was the last time that we were kind just to be kind?

©      SPEND TIME WITH FRIENDS ~ If you do not have friends that are yours; find some! Having friends that we can go to and talk to elevates our level of joy that much closer to the Lord. Find someone that you can talk about your life to that is outside of your home. Christian friends are part of God’s economy. They help us see truths about us that we may not see clearly without.

©      SAVOR EVERY MOMENT ~ Part of our problems in this life is that we are always looking to the ‘next moment or the next event or next circumstance’. God calls us to live in the HERE AND NOW and learn to savor the moments of this life. That is part of experiencing JOY UNSPEAKABLE and FULL OF GLORY! When we are enjoying the moment; no matter what it may be; we are closer to JOY than we can possibly understand! So many times we are looking right past the JOY to see the next….

©      REST ~ There are times when we just simply need to ‘rest’. This is so difficult because of the society that we live in. Everything around us screams for us to keep running or we may miss something! God says that to have JOY in us that NOTHING can press down – means we need to be rested to sense it. Take time to breath deep and enjoy some much needed rest. Do not feel guilty for resting. If our soul is in the LORD as it should be; He is aware that we need rest.

©      PURSUE YOUR GOALS ~ EVERYONE needs to have goals. Set a goal and achieve it! You will gain a sense of purpose and desire. If we do not have personal goals then we are defeated and ineffective in our Believer’s walk. God always intends for us to move forward and grow in Him…how can we grow if we are not pursuing goals in Him?

©      BELIEVE IN YOUR STRENGTHS ~ God gives each of us an ability to do something that others can’t do. What is that for you? Are you asking God to reveal your strengths to you? God has something in store for you that no one else can do for Him. BELIEVE that today and pursue it to the best of your ability. JOY is in finding that thing that you do for God that no one else can do!

©      BEND IN THE LORD ~ To experience JOY in ways that we haven’t before; we MUST be willing to ‘bend in the Lord’. This means that we are willing to experience something that we have not before and believe that God is in it. This could mean a new ministry opportunity that you haven’t pursued before; attending a Christian concert; reading a book; etc. Do something that makes you a little uncomfortable in God’s Kingdom. Stretch out for Him. You may find that it will help you see JOY in a new way! We are so set in our ways that sometimes we miss the joy because of it! DON’T BE AFRAID TO BEND IN THE LORD!

JOY comes from the heart! Where is your heart today? Are we so set in stone that our heart cannot feel JOY or are we willing to pursue the very Heart of God to find it? Make your JOY complete today in the Lord by experiencing Him in some of the ways above!