The Kingdom of God is within those of us who love Jesus. It is a way of thinking which alters our thoughts which then directs how we behave. God's way of thinking is not immediately evident to us. We have to come to recognize it and learn to utilize it. Most of all, we have to see value in God's way of thinking and doing things in order to learn through his Holy Spirit.
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I also pray for the strength to allow the love that God has shed abroad in my heart to flow out to my enemies, to pray always for those who use me and plan spitefully against me. (Matthew 5:44)
I pray daily to be committed to never repaying evil for evil in any way, form or fashion; not through thoughts, words or deeds. I pray to always be of a mind to overcome evil with good, to trust my Dear Father and to walk in his light. (I John 1:7)
Is there something that you're trying to do all alone, as you've always done? Are you taking that step without the guidance that is available to you? Have you forgotten that Our Father is always ready to assist you in your decisions, directions and pursuits?
Do you realize that Jesus wants you to give him the things that concern you and that he is favorably talking to Our Father about you?
Have you learned that the Holy Spirit will comfort you as you face that new plan or goal, if you invite him in and listen to him? Have you learned that he will guide you on the path so that you don't have to worry about the direction in which you are going?
Trust God today.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and learn not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established. Proverbs 16:3
Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5
Trust God Acknowledge God Commit It To God
This plaque, Nothing Is Impossible With God, was made by a young lady who presented it to me, many years ago, when I was moving away to a new start in life. She was apologetic because when she made it some of the glaze that she added ran down the front. I assured her that it was beautiful. I cherish it. No matter where I am, I display it so that I can see it.
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Consider this. Some unwanted events happen in life because we neglect to do things a certain way. Often, we don't understand what we are supposed to do. Sometimes we do know our roles but in ignorance or self-centeredness we choose not to fulfil them. Prayer can heal all of that.
God has provided a way for us to receive the benefits of prayer, even when we don't feel like doing it. It is through asking His Holy Spirit to pray for us when we can't find the words. It's not a crutch. It's a real source of supernatural help when we can't do it ourselves.
The Holy Spirit is faithful. He will utter words for us that we don't know how to say. He will talk to Our Father for us until we can form the words again for ourselves. In this way, we don't have to miss our prayer time with God, even though we may be tired and weary.
~ When your application is not approved or your request is not accepted, you don't have to be angry. You don't have to blame them. You either believe that no one can stop any blessings that God wants you to have, or you don't. ~
Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross fulfilled the Law of Moses, so that we would not have to continue trying to do the Law that we could never fulfill. Doing the Law meant that we were always in a position to die in our sins. No matter how hard we tried to be good and do good, that's just the way that it was.
Do you see how unfair that would have been, for us to die in the sin condition that we were born with because we ourselves could never fulfill the requirements to be forgiven of those sins? God is the Good Father and he provided for those unredeemable sins to be redeemed through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, Our Lord.
You want reading the scriptures to make a difference in your life and you read the Bible everyday in order to be transformed. You are always seeking ways to understand what the ancient scriptures mean to you today and how you can allow them to change and renew you.God's Holy Spirit is always helping you to discern and rightly divide the scriptures so that they make sense to you. This is how paraphrasing can help. We do it everyday when we read scriptures, ponder their meaning and ask God to open our understanding and give us revelation knowledge on the messages.The 32 scripture declarations in this journal are taken from the King James Version of The Holy Bible. I have then included paraphrases of each one. This means that my understanding of each scripture, through my Bible studies and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has been written in simple, modern-day, American language. It is the way that we read and understand the scriptures in order to apply them to our lives in a practical way.As you read the scriptures and their paraphrases, you will find space after them to write your own understanding and prayers. With the prayer prompts that I've included, you can expand your prayers to Our Heavenly Father through writing out your thoughts.Also included are blank, lined pages at the end of the book, under the title My Power Scriptures. The word My means you. This is where you can make a log of 20 of your favorite, most life-changing scriptures. One two-page chapter is set aside for each scripture.
I believe that God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit are one and separate in the help that they give to us. They never contradict each other and they each can be relied upon for specific things. The love of The Father caused him to choose to restore us to himself. Through the Son, he provided for that to be done through Christ's pure sacrifice. Through his Spirit he helps us to become more like him.You will find me referring to each member of The Godhead in different places throughout this book but if it was not for the love of The Father, we would never be saved. It is he who provided for our eternal salvation. My prayer is that this scripture declaration and prayer prompt journal will aid you as you grow in the Lord. May Our Father bless you richly in every way, through his precious son, Jesus of Nazareth, The Christ, the only Savior of mankind.
Learn more here about I Am Prospering Everyday: Scripture Declarations & Prayer Prompts.
Available in hardcover and paperback.
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We who are growing in Christ are called to suffer with him because we are heirs to the throne and joint heirs with the Savior. What does it mean to suffer with Christ? It is not a concept that our fleshly being readily accepts. The word suffer does not denote fun and pleasure.
To suffer with Christ means that, through the experiences that God allows into our lives, we are able to identify with what Christ felt. Even more important is that we are able to perceive, through difficult experiences, that Christ knows how we are feeling. Why is this important? Because it sets us up for spiritual riches in the New Heaven and the New Earth and for the best rewards.
It sets us up to rule with Christ. Even though this is at the end of time, it is what those who love Christ are living for. No matter how attached we become to this world, no matter how immersed we have to become in it to survive and thrive, we are always living for Christ's return to claim us.
Our Father allows trying experiences into our lives so that we can better relate to what Jesus did for us. You have heard it said that Only what's done for Christ will last. It is not only about accepting Jesus as Savior, but also about being able to relate to his obedience to the Father at his own hurt. Since all that Jesus did was for us at Father God's request, it is the Father's will that we experience a little of what Christ did.
While none of us have been called to be crucified on a cross, God allows symbolic crosses, in the way of highly-challenging experiences, into our lives. These experiences can be somewhat minor or devastating. He wants us to bear the experiences on behalf of his beloved and obedient Son. Through developing a personal perception of what Christ endured, we become one with him. Not only does this please Our Father but it comforts us to know that we are understanding more about what the Lamb of God suffered.
Does your flesh want to fight with someone to show them that they can't do you that way? Let them do it. Jesus had to let the soldiers do him that way. We don't even know the extent of all that he had to suffer, for it was much more than what has been revealed to us in the Bible.
Is someone trying to take something away from you that they are not entitled to and your fleshly spirit rises up to fight for it? Let them take it. Jesus had to let them take his garments from him and divide them, and so much more did he have to allow them to take.
Do you feel alone in your trials, as if the whole world is against you and winning? Accept your feelings and continue on in fellowship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for you are not alone. Jesus felt the hatred of so very many who were against him and he had to endure as Our Father allowed them to continue with their evil plans against him.
You don't want them to feel like they are winning against you so you want to fight them? Let them think they are winning. Jesus had to be unfairly judged and convicted. Every step of the way of his suffering he had to let them all think they were winning. He had to let them think they were winning as he suffered and died on the cross.
You want to speak up for yourself and argue with them? Don't be deceived by your flesh. Don't become enraged and allow sickness to come upon you because of what God is allowing them to do. Jesus did not open his mouth when he was mistreated and unfairly charged, judged and sentenced. He had to allow himself to be quiet. Most of all, he had to suffer allowing them to have their way with him, as if they were in control.
When our spirits rise up in a fleshly attitude against him/her/them, whoever is afflicting and maligning us, we must submit to the circumstances that God has allowed to come upon us. In this way, we choose to crucify the flesh and walk in the spirit, understanding that we are submitting not to them but to Our Heavenly Father. It takes bowing in humiliation, like Christ did. It never feels good but obedience to The Most High God is not founded in the feelings of the flesh. Bowing in humiliation and submitting to God is based in knowledge, acceptance and yielding. It is an informed decision.
We know when God is doing this special work in us because the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and ears to what is happening. The Holy Spirit does not do the work for us however, because we would not learn and grow in that way. We have to do the work of cutting our flesh off from what it wants to do, denying it and crucifying it. This causes us to suffer because we can't have our way, our fleshly way.
We suffer as Christ did as we submit to and obey God in these unfair circumstances. This is bearing symbolic crosses for Christ and suffering with him. God has promised to take care of us when we submit to him and let them think that they are having their way.
We can do nothing without Christ.
We can do all things through Christ.
Our lives are hid in God through Christ.
He who does not know Christ does not know the Father.
Christ is the Resurrection and the Life.
Through Christ is the only way that man can come to the Father.
His pure shed blood and his unblemished, broken body restored us to the Father.
God The Father loved us so much that he sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to die for us, so that whoever chooses to believe in him should live forever with him.
Because Jesus lives, those who have accepted him as Savior will be resurrected into life and the resurrection into death, the second death, will have no power over us.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth saves us for God The Father.
God's Holy Spirit draws us to himself.
God forgives us, through Jesus, for what was not our fault.
Even while mankind did not care, could not care and hated the light of truth, because we're all born into this world into darkness, God sent his precious son, Jesus, to be betrayed, unfairly charged, judged, convicted, ridiculed, struck, spit upon, beaten, scourged, burdened, subjected to all manner of insults and degradation of which all of it we were not told, nailed to a criminals' cross and tormented while upon that cross.
Most of all, Jesus was denied a way out when he asked his Father three times as he prayed and sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. He felt intense, paralyzing fear, like you and I feel at times.
Most of all, God, the loving Father, separated himself completely from his dear and precious Son for a period of time while he hung and suffered on that hideous Cross.
Jesus The Christ, the Bright and Morning Star, the Lamb of God, the Beginning and the End, was changed forever...for us.
Is there anything that we cannot do for Christ should our Father ask us?
Let's be obedient to God to our hurt. To the hurt of our flesh. Jesus was obedient to God to his hurt. What he endured for us was hurtful to the human part of him, as well as to the spiritual, divine part. His flesh shrunk from what he had to do. He came here to do it but he experienced dread, just like we do.
He was so distressed that he asked his Father three times if it could be done some other way. Like the obedient Son that he is, he ended his supplication with Nevertheless, not my will but thy will be done.
We are not even being asked to allow our bodies to be abused, scourged and nailed to a cross. We're only being asked to allow our old man to die. Daily.
Ephesians 4:22-24
Romans 6:6-12
II Corinthians 5:17-19
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Jesus Christ, The Lamb of God, The Bright And Morning Star, The Resurrection And The Life, was revealed, personified and embodied to:
We should make sure that we are daily recognizing that his pure, shed blood has covered all of our transgressions, past, present and future. We don't need to feel guilty for mistakes, uninformed choices, inherited weaknesses and any other challenges.
Not only are we covered for all time by Our Savior's sacrifice but God is always with us to help us to manifest a better future and the future is today. Nothing can separate us from his love.
We should also make sure that we are submitting to God daily so that we can work with the Holy Spirit to destroy the efforts of principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places.
In other words, Jesus' sacrifice has made us able to restrict the activities of all beings who are against the Kingdom of God. We can operate daily on the fact that they have no authority in our lives. We can stand on it until the time when they are completely put away by Jesus.
I John 3:5,8
No weapon formed against us shall prosper doesn't mean that the weapon itself will always be stopped from striking. It means that the purpose and plan of the weapon, as designed by whoever the enemy is, will not produce the evil effect that the enemy intended. This is the heritage for those who love God through Jesus Christ by the power of The Holy Spirit, for those who choose to walk in the spirit and not in the flesh.
Isaiah 54:17
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Jesus always pointed to his Father. He never uplifted himself. He only firmly and confidently stated who he is. His words and actions always directed us to God. Our Christian lives are hid in GOD through Christ. It was The Holy Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead, not Jesus himself. It's all about God The Father and his provision to restore us to himself through giving us the sacrifice of his only begotten Son.
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Evil spirits always want to entice us with what we should not have but it's rarely in the form of an outright transgression. It's usually something on the thin line between what is acceptable and what is not, something that our flesh can slip past our reborn spirits.
Paul, in Galatians 5:7-8, says, "You were doing well in your faith." He then asks, "Who persuaded you to not continue in the truth? It was not God the Father who called you to follow his Son Jesus." He goes on to share that he believes that through the Lord they will understand and remember the truth about the leaven of lies and seduction.
We may think that little, questionable indulgences are not that bad but a little leaven will eventually leaven the whole attitude and direction of the person. It will cripple our walks in Christ. (Galatians 5:9) Succumbing to those minor fleshly desires will wreak havoc in our spiritual lives over time.
Temptation and enticement to subtle, ungodly things are not insignificant. Evil spirits are not out to play with us. They are out to destroy us in as many ways and from as many directions as they can. The more that we brush off accepting small allurements and discount receiving little inducements the more destruction that rulers of the darkness of this world can do. Just as we eat and drink the Word of God everyday, they eat and drink plans for our destruction every day.
When we work with God as he shows us the little issues, we allow our spiritual eyes to be opened so that we can see what the enemy is doing. We can perceive evil influence and control in our lives. We can obtain the answers that we need and information on directions to take regarding issues in our lives. Leavening takes over. That's what it's designed to do. Depending on what the leaven is, it can also be beneficial.
Adding the leaven of the Word by reading and studying it everyday will transform us. The Holy Word is living, like leaven, and will cause us to become more like Christ and draw closer to God. We don't have to be overcome by all of the Christian practices and traditions that we are judged for not being able to keep. When we focus upon putting the Word inside of us, we will please God and grow in him. A little leaven leavens the whole person, for bad or for good.
Satan wants to destroy your happiness and your hope. Don't allow him to do it! He will use every little thing that he can find. The big attacks are obvious. The little attacks are not. Recognize how much he hates you because you love God and have acknowledged and accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. His commitment to devastate you never ends. He never rests in his malevolent goals.
It's not the people who are attacking you and making your life difficult. It's evil influence from the fallen Lucifer, who was once an angel in Our Father's kingdom. He is the father of lies who was cast out of Heaven with his fallen angels followers who kept not their first estate. You believe and want help from God's angels but you find it difficult to believe in a devil and demons?
Our daily battles are not against flesh and blood, the people that we encounter. The battle is in the spiritual world. We are spiritual now, no longer choosing to live in the flesh, though we are still here in this world and in the flesh. Our Heavenly Father helps us in his spiritual ways. We are not alone. We are not without battle weapons but the weapons that we must use are not carnal through fleshly fighting.
Our weapons are mighty to defeat the devil's plans, though it may seem like he wins at times. Our weapons of power are not of this physical world. They are Godly weapons that establish God's plans and purposes in our lives. It's not about stopping people and getting back at them. It's all about triumphing through God's good, expectable and perfect will.
Learn about the weapons of warfare that we can successfully use (Ephesians 6:10-18) against the very real principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. Every little evil thing matters to the very real devil. Every little holy and righteous thing should matter to us! Ask our Father to sharpen your spiritual eyes so that you can detect the wicked works of the devil against you. Ask him also to make the weapons of his warfare real and practical to you!
6 Powerful Spiritual Weapons Of Warfare
Our loins girded about with truth.
Having on the breastplate of righteousness.
Having our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
The shield of faith with which we can quench the enemy's fiery darts.
The helmet of salvation.
The sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.
It is with God's love only that we can love our enemies because it is his love that covers a multitude of sins. When we try to love with our own, fleshly love, we can't, especially when we have been offended, disappointed or hurt. God's love, however, triumphs over all of that. It is through God's love in us flowing out towards the unlovable, that we are able to make Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the Cross valid.
If we can't come to love those whom we insist that it is impossible to love, then Our Savior's sacrifice has no power in our lives. If we are working with God to love ourselves then we can, through the help of his Holy Spirit, come to truly love those who have offended us.
Ask God to fill your heart with love and expand it within you so that you can love the unlovable in the way that pleases him.
HAPPY FRIDAY!
Happy New Year!
May you begin 2023 with a renewed spirit,
ready to become recommitted to
God Our Father's plan for your life
and to casting all of your cares
on Jesus Our Lord and Savior.