"His Will Be Done"

Day #112 - 'A Woman of Faith' Devotional
Verse: "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven." Matthew 6:9-10 KJV

A piece of the most familiar prayer in the Bible, the Lord's prayer, where He is teaching His disciples how to pray. Prayer is important, but also what you pray for is important. We want the Will of the Father to come forth on earth, so we need to pray that His will be done. Prayer itself isn't just selfishly asking for things you want from the Father. He desires prayer to be a daily, even moment by moment conversation with Him... where we can intimately share our hearts with Him.

God does indeed have BIG plans for our lives, but if we continue to choose our own desires and ways ahead of His, then His plans are altered a little bit... sometimes a lot. He makes His plans clear to those who diligently and intimately seek Him, and His ways. We need to humble ourselves, pray and seek His face, which means we need to turn from our wicked ways. (2 Chronicles 7:14 -- "if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.") When we can do these things, God will hear us, and will answer our requests according to His will. He desires us to be free of sin, and to walk in COMPLETE healing. He does indeed have BIG plans, as it says in Jeremiah 29:11-14, "I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed. God's Decree. I'll turn things around for you. I'll bring you back from all the countries into which I drove you— God's Decree — bring you home to the place from which I sent you off into exile. You can count on it." (The MESSAGE)

So seek Him today, and find out what BIG plans He has for you!!

BE BLESSED & BE A BLESSING!

"His Answer to our Guilt"

DAY #21 - 'A Woman of Faith' Devotional
Verse: "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV

What is 'guilt'? According to dictionary.com guilt is defined as;
–noun

1. the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, esp. against moral or penal law; culpability: He admitted his guilt.
2. a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.
3. conduct involving the commission of such crimes, wrongs, etc.: to live a life of guilt.

When we do something wrong, or sin, which we ALL have done we feel guilty sometimes about committing that sin. Guilt can be an intense feeling that tries to rob us of all the benefits of the Father. We think that the Father doesn't love us anymore, or that He is not going to bless us because of our sin. We can get troubled, and worried and even stressed over our guilt. God doesn't want to see us in bondage to our guilt. There is an easy way to lose guilt... forgiveness!

God wants us to be remorseful or sorry for our sin, and to repent of it. If we confess our sins to Him, He will forgive us thoroughly and unconditionally. He puts our sin away from Him and us as far as the east is from the west. ("...as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Psalm 103:12 NIV) He wants us to live a fulfilled life, holy and pure as He is holy. We cannot be in the presence of God filled with sin in our lives, we cannot fully participate in the blessings that He has with sin in our lives.

All of us have sinned, and we all fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) and the consequence for sin is death. But thankfully, God has made a way for us through His Son Jesus, so that we may live. Jesus died ONCE AND FOR ALL, so that we may live eternally through Him and His Father. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

As today's verse found in 2 Chronicles 7:14 states, IF and when we humble ourselves, pray, seek His face and turn from our wicked ways (or repent and get rid of guilt), THEN He will hear from heaven, and will forgive our sins (and our guilt), and He will heal us! Praise the Lord! Isn't that good news?

So step out in faith today, speak to the Father, and tell Him of your heart. Are you full of guilt or bitterness, or even depression or anger? Leave them all at the feet of Jesus, and He will take your requests to His Father, who will do what He says He will do! You can count on God... others may let you down, but God's Word is true and will remain forever! <3

BE BLESSED & BE A BLESSING!

Happy 2011~~ New year, New blog posts... New fun!

So, this year I am going to try to continue with my devotional thoughts, and try to keep them more up to date. I have a 'A Woman of Faith' Devotional book that I have been reading this past year (again not faithfully), so this year I thought I would read the devotional and then comment on the verse or the thought of the day and share it with you, instead of in a notebook/journal form.

Today's 'DAY 1' entry was rightly called 'A Woman of Faith' and the verse was found in Matthew 21:21 -- "Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done."

Earlier in the book of Matthew in 17:20, Jesus also uses the mountain analogy, "He replied, 'Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.'" The last sentence in this verse is what should be a resounding truth in our hearts and minds, but we somehow cannot let this truth really manifest itself in our lives. That little thing called 'doubt' and one called 'fear' get in the way of us truly believing that 'nothing will be impossible for you'. We try to pray and live with FAITH... and then a little pinch of doubt creeps in, and throws us for a loop. Somehow the promise of 'nothing will be impossible for you' just doesn't hit home with us. Why we can let ourselves get so worked up over sometimes little things, and not truly believe that God can and will do what He promises makes God sad I'm sure. Sometimes we even try to make it work on our own, and try to do things our way, since God is obviously not listening to our prayers and our hearts cries and desires. (Truly He is listening, but we try to make ourselves feel better thinking we can do it for Him.)

Sometimes God promises us something, but we have to wait for it, but we don't desire to wait any longer and patience and endurance are not gifts that we want to utilize. Like Abram and Sarai, when God told them He would make Abram (Abraham) the Father of many nations. How was he supposed to be a father of many nations, when he didn't have any children to call his own. He was getting older, and so was Sarai, and so they took their 'promise fulfillment' into their own hands and allowed Abram to sleep with Hagar, and she bore a son, Ishmael. Later Sarah and Abraham did conceive the 'promised' son, yet Ishmael was there as 'thorn in his side'. Isaac was conceived in 'due time'... every promise in the Bible belonged to those in the Bible, and also to each of us. We just need to read, meditate and claim the promises... However, in most cases it says "God will..." and that's what we as readers of the Bible dwell on. Different people (not just Christians) can quote different promises of God from the Bible. They then question why God isn't granting them that promise. If you look closer at the Scriptures, there are two little words usually in front of the promise (or just after)... "If you..." We have to do our part too. I can't just walk through life expecting God to bless each and every thing I do, I need to do my part too. For example, one of the well-known Scriptures in the church is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14, "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

What does it take to be a 'woman of faith' (or a man of Faith)... technically it's easy for me and other members of my church, as our church is called Faith Tabernacle. So being of that church makes me a woman of Faith... LOL! However, it takes much more than that! Believing and not doubting... not letting fear or guilt get in the way of receiving the full blessings of God. We need to LIVE out our FAITH. The Bible also says that Faith without works is dead... (James 2:17)


This day is a NEW BEGINNING... a FRESH start at living a life of FAITH. Come join the journey with me...

I've heard it said that FAITH can be described as...
Forsaking
All
I
Trust in
Him

So trust Him today, and lean not on your OWN understanding (stop trying to do things your own way), and He will direct your paths (He will bring you to where you are to be!)

BE BLESSED, and BE A BLESSING!

TAG! You're it! ~~ The CHASE is on!

I have been reading "The God Chasers" by Tommy Tenney, and through new revelation (as I had started reading it before, but put it aside and never finished it), I am sooooo excited to know that God is making a move in the world again today. If only we are found faithful in our pursuit of Him, it is Him who actually pursues and gets a hold of us.

Because I work with children, and love children I know that one of the games we love to play, especially now that Spring is coming is TAG. The children love to run and be chased. However, when it comes to them being the 'chaser' or in this case, "It", some don't seem to like it as much. They love when I (or other teachers) are "It", as we chase them we grab them and tickle them, and love them. When they are "it", they love to pursue us, and the game continues. It is the same with God. We are called to pursue Him and to love Him with our whole body, soul and spirit. (The tri-parts of man are another lesson altogether - coming soon). When we pursue Him, and 'chase' after Him (as the book says, become "God-chasers"), He in fact becomes the pursuer, and we are the ones being caught. He grabs hold of us, and we have an intimate relationship with Him.

The last days are approaching us, whether you believe in God, or not. I am not one to believe in the 2012 end of the World thing, but the last days are coming... and we have to be ready. We need Him and Holy Spirit more now than ever. We cannot just be satisfied knowing 'about Him', we need to fully 'know Him', and to know Him intimately. There is a scripture in the Bible (Hebrews 8:11) that says that we are to stop telling people to 'know God', and others are using this verse unwisely. The verse itself says, "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear." (Hebrews 8:10-13 NIV)

 For ALL the world needs to hear about God before we can STOP telling people about Him. There is a verse in the Bible that also says, "But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?" Romans 10:14-15. Continuing the Scripture also says, "But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: 'Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?' The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ's Word is preached, there's nothing to listen to." Romans 10:16-17 (The Message)

There are people (even Christians) in the world today, who are blaming God for all the trouble. If you want to blame someone, and let it be truly fair, blame the devil. (Or even Adam and Eve) The devil is in control of our troubles, diseases and sicknesses. Too many people (I have even said it in the past), are quick to say "God doesn't care, or else He would be helping and preventing this..." However some of our troubles are because of choices we have made, or that others have made, and we are involved in the consequences. WOW... what an eye-opener this is when you allow Holy Spirit to reveal this to you.

Speaking of which, Holy Spirit is able to reveal more to you when you have that intimate relationship we spoke of earlier. We want His power and annointing in our lives, so that we can live as Jesus did. But it isn't just the annointing we are aiming for. Too many people are following after signs and wonders and the annointing. We need to become annointed through the annointing so that our flesh can truly enter into an intimate relationship with the manifest presence of God!

I pray that as I write these words not only for YOU, but for myself as well, we will truly become GOD-CHASERS along with so many others in the past and present (and in the future). We will become the people spoke of in 2 Chronicles 7:14-16, "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there."

Have faith to birth new things, and make room for God, His presence, His Holy Spirit and all the things He wants to do in, for and through you. "satan cannot steal what God has birthed, but God will only birth things to PEOPLE WHO MAKE ROOM FOR THE MIRACULOUS by faith!" (T. Tenney- God Chasers)

Be blessed as you CHASE and get caught in the process!

Check out some more books by Tommy Tenney that you might be interested in... (I read the "Prayers of a God Chaser" before reading "The God Chasers", it's really good!)

Check out TOMMY TENNEY'S AMAZON PAGE

*The God Catchers
*Prayers of a God Chaser
*How to Be a God Chaser and a Kid Chaser
...and more!