Faith

 Thank you, Heavenly Father, that our FAITH is not based on the way of the world, which deceives. Our FAITH is based on the truths in your Word.

Joy

 Thank you, Father, that our joy is not based on how we feel, which fluctuates. Our joy is based on the truth in your Word.

Peace

Thank you, Father, that our peace is not based on our circumstances, which change. Our peace is based on the truth in your Word.

Keep Seeking God's Truth About Your Life

It is often easy to feel that our most desired blessings from God will not come until we are dead and gone. It will no longer matter then, but it matters today. I know that you feel discouraged and sometimes hopeless. I can testify to how hard it is for some of us to believe that God loves us, that he really cares. I've endured so much in life, from a child, that my emotions question God's love for me. I sometimes feel hopeless that I'll ever realize some desired things in this life, but I persevere in eating and drinking the Word everyday. 

Each day I persist in having a formal prayer session every morning to commit my way to God. I set my day with Jesus Christ's sacrifice in mind. I know that God has helped me, done things for me, guided me and protected me. I'm rooted and grounded through years of seeking God's face after I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. I love my Heavenly Father with a perfect love in my reborn spirit. 

What makes the most difference for me is choosing to read the Word everyday. One scripture, one chapter, doesn't matter how much how little, just opening it and reading something. And not always going to the 23rd Psalm but going places in the Bible where I've never been. That's where the real power is.

The Word slowly transforms us and helps us to choose to believe. And to believe is a choice that we have to make everyday. As I press on in learning about the things of God, I understand more, and he does reward me for my faithfulness. Even so, it is a constant, spiritual battle to believe and receive. 

The devil and his demons are real and they never cease to try to destroy our relationship with God. They work hard to make us think and feel that God does not love us. Our job is to resist them and call them out everyday as the liars that they really are. Evil spirits have nothing to offer us but lies and desolation and an end equal to what they face. 

Those who believe have no where else to go but to Our Father God, Our Savior Jesus, Our Comforter The Holy Spirit and The Word of Truth. If we're tired and don't feel like praying or reading sometimes, The Holy Spirit knows all about it. God does not condemn us for this fleshly weakness but we always have to go back. There is no where else where we can find comfort, relief and hope. 

If we let him, God will grow us, transform us and strengthen us and also reward us everyday. Keep trusting him and remember that Jesus gave his blood and his body so that you can become whole in everyway, despite how you feel and what you have experienced or are experiencing.

I pray for you that from this point you are healed in heart, mind and emotions and that you are strengthened and that your faith is increased beyond all measure! God loves you and he knows all about you.

How To Accept Jesus Christ As Your Savior

How To Be Saved

Say with your mouth that you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only Savior. Choose to believe in your heart that He is alive because God Our Father raised Him from the dead. Ask him to save you.

Now you are saved because you have accepted and proclaimed that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is The Christ and the only person by which man can be saved.

There is no other, hallelujah!

Romans 10:9–10

Receiving God's Magnificent Blessings

Many of us were raised in the church, got baptized and/or saved but did not understand entirely what we were doing. In addition to that, adults pressed their personal ideas and hangups on us in an attempt to guide us in the name of Christianity. It caused most of us to reject the Christian life, especially during our teen-aged years when we wanted to be appreciated and accepted by our peers. 

In later years, when we began to seek God again, we learned about him for ourselves through personal Bible reading and consistent prayer. In the Bible, we found out things that we never knew were in there. We learned about the never-ending, unqualified love of God and how it can make a difference in our lives.

What Christ did for us began to personally touch us and we learned, and continue to learn today, how to relate to God. The great value  in growing in Christ is to not only read the Bible but to grow in learning how to practically apply what's in it to our everyday lives.

I'm grateful that through daily transformation and the ongoing renewing of our minds we learn how to receive the healing, deliverance and prosperity that God provides for us through his precious Son's sacrifice. The magnificent blessings for accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior are not only for the coming New Heaven and New Earth, but for our lives today. I thank God that we can learn to receive all that he offers.

How To Be Saved

Say with your mouth that you receive that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only Savior. Believe in your heart that He is alive because God Our Father raised Him from the dead. Now you are saved. 

Romans 10:9–10 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God's Will Is Not Offensive

Whatever God allows is for a reason, no matter what pain it causes in the flesh, in the mind, in the heart, in the feelings, in the emotions, in the life of his children. What God allows is for a reason and it is without offense, if we love him.

In other words, as we grow in devotion and understanding of God, we don't see what he allows in our lives as offensive. That does not mean that we don't struggle with enduring it.

It is hard sometimes to acknowledge and accept God's will. Our Heavenly Father, however, is always there to help us as we endure what he allows.

In the reborn spirit of each of us who loves Jesus Christ, there is no pain, no suffering, no offense, no feelings, no problems. It is in the flesh where all of the troubles start. The flesh is not compatible with God. The flesh cannot be reborn. It cannot understand nor accept what God does. Our flesh, in fact, is always against God.

It is when we are in our reborn spirits, spiritual thinking, that we walk with God and where we do not suffer prolonged mental and emotional hurt nor hate him.

How To Deal With Problems

See Any Problem As Something Good.

This goes for all challenges, setbacks, difficulties, trials, tragedies and tribulations. Even if nothing good seems to be coming from a problem, why go through the additional trauma of seeing it as something bad from which you will never recover?  Seeing it as something bad is the only other alternative to seeing it as something good. It's one or the other and we have the power to choose.

 

I realize that in some disastrous situations, some tragedies, some heartbreaking occurrences, it is next to impossible to stop and think that good will come from it. It would be difficult to do this but not impossible. If we are not able to do it in the midst of trial, we can take control and do it later. Do you realize how powerful the human brain is? Do you know that anything that exists began in the mind, then it was believed, then spoken or written, then it came into being?

At SuccessConsciousness, these important facts about the power of our God-given brains are shared:

 

Mind power is one of the strongest and most useful powers you possess.
This power, together with your imagination, can create success or failure, happiness or unhappiness, opportunities or obstacles. This depends on your mindset.

Your thoughts are the main ingredient of this power, and when you add to them focus and emotions, thoughts become powerful and can affect your reality.
The thoughts that pass through your mind are responsible for almost everything that happens in your life.

 

Not all thoughts are equal. Stray ones that you think once or twice cannot do much, but your predominant thoughts, the ones you repeat often, influence your behavior and attitude, affect your actions and reactions, and shape your reality.

Christians know that God has the upper-hand in all that happens in our lives. It is, however, a fact that God works with us. He does not control us. He helps us with our infirmities but he does not control us. That means that we have authority in our lives and also power through our brains. We can decide how to think. With determination and the divine help of The God of All Hope, we can learn to see problems as something good. Problems are not good but they can be used by a loving Father to generate good in our lives.

 

Those who know God always have hope. Our Heavenly Father promised to turn everything for our good, one way or another. We have to choose to believe. If we don't yet feel it, see it, taste it, hear it or touch this conversion of bad to good, we can insist that God has or will convert it to bless us. We can persist in professing this everyday, throughout the day. Why should we confess such a statement when it is so hard to believe in our circumstance? Because he said it. It's as simple as that.

We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, with those whom he has called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 GNT

Look up, even though your heart is broken.

Look up even though you are oh so discouraged.

Look up, even though it seems impossible.

Look up, even though you can't take it anymore.

Look up, even though nothing has ever worked out for you.

Look up, even though you don't think that God loves you.

Look up, because you are God's by your own choice.

Look up, believe and confess that this issue will work out for your good because your loving Heavenly Father said it would. 

You struggling with a challenge and just don't see how you are going to make it?

See It As Something Good. Start there and the answers and help will come.

 

Scripture Image Credit: Biblia

 

Is It All REALLY Working Together For My Good?

Sometimes, the trials that God turns into good for us we may never discern.

Often, this converting of these tribulations on our behalf moves into the realm of the unseen.

They can be the good that God does for us of which we are unaware.

We have faith that he does these things because the Word tells us so.

We may not always see the outcome of God working all things together for our good but we have testimonies of the times when we experienced proof that he did.

We also know that we live among bountiful blessings from our Heavenly Father every day.

 Any one of those unrecognizable daily blessings could be a conversion of bad to good, just for us.

Romans 8:28

 

How Can I Smile When I'm Not Happy?

Our knowledge of God has the potential to help us to smile in the most distressing of circumstances. Why? There is nothing that can separate us from God's love. He has given us that major promise and he will fulfill it, for he cannot lie. I am able to smile often when I am distressed, sorrowful, depressed or discouraged. If not smile, I can at least feel hopeful, which is a type of joy.

I say "Thank you Lord for joy unspeakable and the peace that surpasses all understanding. I know that the joy of the Lord is my strength and you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon you." I feel better immediately. What about the times when I don't feel like quoting those truths? That's another story but one that is also filled with success. Nothing is too hard for God, no matter what it feels like or looks like.

On the physiological side, which God also owns, he has built into our systems the ability to feel better when we smile. It is good to try smiling when we don't feel like it. I didn't believe it and it really annoyed me when I heard people say this or read it. One day, I decided to try it and I did feel a lift in my spirits begin to happen soon after I tried it.

I think how much of a lift we feel will depend on at what depressed level we're starting. If we've just endured a great tragedy, it would be very difficult to want to try to smile but we can always try. I try to remember that I can do all things through Christ, nothing is too hard for God and when I'm weakest is when God is strongest in me.

Neurologists have proven that smiling can trick your brain into happiness — and boost your health. A smile spurs a powerful chemical reaction in the brain that can make you feel happier. Science has shown that the mere act of smiling can lift your mood, lower stress, boost your immune system and possibly even prolong your life. 

So just try it and tell God what's going on. Tell him several times, if you have to, what it is that is making it so difficult to impossible for you to smile. Just remember to ask once for help, healing, blessings, etc., whatever it is that you need. After that, thank him for it until a change occurs. You can have confidence that he heard you the first time if you asked according to his will.

If you believe that he heard you then you know you have what you've asked, one way or another (1 John 5:14-15). You don't have to ask anymore or beg and plead. Since you know you already have it just thank him until his answer manifests. So remember, try to SMILE and always tell God.

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary V

Tired of praying?

Have you been distressed lately, even to the point of weeping inconsolably? Have you gone off to yourself, where no one could see, and just let all of the tears flow? I know how it is to cry your heart out because you don't have an answer. You just don't see a way in or out. The worst part is that your prayers don't seem to be working.

My prayers are not working.

In a way, it is a relief to weep, but it also feels like we are defeated and it is oh so exhausting. We never want to do that again and vow that we will never again break down. We feel guilty about this necessary human function, but God  has experienced it along with us. By coming in human flesh to experience what only humans can feel and dying for our human frailties, he acknowledges the importance of our feelings. He shed tears too.

Tired of asking God for help.

Guilt over feeling hopeless and weeping is useless, and comes from the devil. If we ARE guilty of anything, there is always the answer that we are washed whiter than snow through faith in Jesus' sacrifice. All we need to do is ask God to help us, but we already did that, right? What if we are tired and weary of praying? What if our prayers really are not working?

Please help me God.

To get a grip on hope, sometimes it helps to change up how we pray, the words and scriptures that we use, the times of day, the subjects; while continuing to thank God for specific things that we have asked for. Once we ask him for something, we don't have to keep asking him for that same thing. Ask him once, and then always THANK him for it when the desire to beg and plead for it comes over you again.

As one of my readers shared, once you ask for an answer, pray that God's will be done. Once you realize that is best and come to terms with that fact, your outlook will change.

I know it's hard to manage prayers like this, asking for new needs, and then sending those prayers into the que to be thanked for the next time. It seems like a revolving door of asking and thanking, asking and thanking. It may help to keep a prayer journal or list. You can add the things that you pray for and check them off to thank God for.

How to not give up on praying.

Sometimes we just have to hold on, again. Sometimes that is the only immediate answer. We have to do the cliche, determine to hold on to God's unchanging hand. We have to dig our feet in again and hold on for dear life. If we hold on with a thread of our minds and hearts, God will reward us! We have to choose to believe that, again, and thank him.

The revolving door of asking and thanking is better than continuing on in hopelessness and losing your power in the Kingdom of God. It takes extra effort to manage our prayer lives like this, whether mental or on paper. God, however, has given us power. Why lose it? Do what it takes to push through and make your prayers work. 

"For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

Hebrews 13:5 (NKJV)

"For the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you." 

Deuteronomy 31:6 (NKJV)

Tired Of Praying & Weary Series

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary II

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary III

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary IV

 

 

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary IV

Tired, discouraged and weary of praying?

Have you ever wondered why God allows you to feel that way, tired, discouraged and weary of praying? To paraphrase one of my readers, it's enough that while we are living on this Earth we can't see, touch and be physically hugged by him. So when we keep faithfully praying for something, with no tangible sign that we are being heard and no perceived change in our circumstances, that's where the tiredness comes from. It's exhausting and frustrating! It's hard to keep going on, to believe in the power of prayer, to trust God.

But that's just it, I do believe that often he is speaking to us, but we don't yet see or hear it. For one thing, I truly do believe that if we change our prayer from asking/begging for a thing to thanking him for it once we ask the first time, we will see changes.

I've also learned that when we pray, we often do so with a preconceived notion of how and when the prayer will be answered. We are looking for the answer in a certain way. When we open up to God and choose to accept how ever he may work it out, we stop looking for OUR answer and open up to receive HIS answer.

God never answers our prayers without it also blessing the inner person.

"So when we keep faithfully praying for something, with no tangible sign we are being heard and no change in our circumstances, that's where the tiredness comes from." Yes, I feel this entirely, and just because I share insight into this doesn't mean that I no longer suffer. I still sometimes am reduced to begging God, because of my trial, but I'm doing much better and have grown much more than when I wrote the first Tired Of Praying message.

A lot of my prayer answers were preceded by an inner change in me. God never answers our prayers without it also blessing the inner person with growth and strength. Sometimes, we just simply keep praying the wrong things, or ineffective things. As we grow in God, we learn how to dissect and evaluate our prayer habits and improve them. Without growth in God, our prayer lives never improve.

Sometimes, we pray for things that are never going to happen, especially regarding other people. We may pray and pray and beg and beg for someone to live, but they weren't meant to. It was their time, and even if it wasn't their time to us, God saw fit to allow them to leave. No amount of pleading, fervent prayer or prayer tweaking would have made a difference. 

Growing in the Lord helps us to continuously adjust our prayers.

The key is growing in Christ. What is that? Being assured from within that we are changing from the effects of reading the Bible regularly, praying faithfully the best way that we know how, and being obedient when we feel that pricking about anything from the Holy Spirit. Growing in the Lord helps us to continuously adjust our prayers, so that they can become more effective and not hurt us. 

Prayers are supposed to strengthen and refresh. Prayers are supposed to give hope, not pain. Prayers are supposed to be a refuge from any and everything, whether inner or outer. Prayers are supposed to be that coveted time with a dear friend and Heavenly Father, who will talk with us on our level. We are not supposed to be subjected to prayer, to feel that it is not working. Prayer is supposed to be subject to us, to bring about the desired effect. Prayer is the greatest resource that the Christian has. 

Prayer is the greatest resource that the Christian has!

The next step is to crush the fear that things will not work out, that nothing will ever change, that you will never be happy. When the desire to beg and plead for that same old thing tries to rule you again, stop the thought and thank God for what you originally prayed for. Thank him that it has been done, according to his will. Your faith in his will is what will bring about change. Move on and petition or ask God for the next thing, leaving the old thing at the Cross. From then on, thank him for that old thing until you recognize an answer, however and whenever it shall come.  

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary II

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary III

You Are Here: Tired Of Praying & Weary V

Dear Lord Help Us

A prayer and reminder for when you are feeling anxiety, distress, depression, hopelessness or unhappiness.

DEAR LORD:

Help us to keep our minds on you.

We thank you for the peace that passes all understanding and for joy unspeakable in the midst of struggle, fear and disappointment. We know that our joy in you is where our strength will always lie, and that YOU will keep us in perfect peace, because we choose to bring our minds back to you always.

AMEN.

A Well-Watered Garden Is Yours

The  Lord will guide you always,

He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land,

And will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

Like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:11 NIV

The Bible tells us the truth about God and what he thinks about us. All you have to do in order for your life to become a well-watered garden is to receive, speak and believe the Word. God makes many promises to us in his Word, and he does not lie. He is a faithful God, one in whose word we can trust. He causes everything dead to live again.

If you will allow him to, he will bring back to glowing life your dead dreams, hopes, abilities, beliefs, possibilities and faith. It is never God's will that you should live in a dead, barren and parched life. He is the life-giver, through his precious Son, who is The Way, The Truth and The Life. 

Watch the sprigs of luscious growth begin to form

as you open to God's way,

receive his word

and believe his promises.

Remarkable Faith Before Christ Sacrificed For Us

"Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego." Daniel 3:22

What amazes me is the faith of the Believers who lived before Christ. I am reading Daniel, which I haven't been reading in the Old Testament for awhile. It is an amazing book of great faith displayed by young people. I wish I could learn what led these young men (maybe even late teenagers in age because they are fondly called The Hebrew Children) to possess such a strong, sustaining faith in God. I wish I could follow their lives from childhood. Sometimes, the faith of those who lived B.C. seems to be stronger than what we have today, even though we are indwelt by the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

I think that the peoples of the ancient Bible Lands saw more miracles than we do today. Miracles were easier to experience back then. Today it is harder to believe in true miracles. Our lives are so complicated with technology, marketing, material possessions and burgeoning societal issues that miracles are hard to experience. It is not that they don't happen, because we have the same God today that Daniel had back then. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is just that the miracles of today get lost in the mix of modern living. 

"Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, anad cast him into the den of lions." Daniel 6:16

The stories of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Daniel always bring tears to my eyes. Why? Because it is very touching to me that anyone's faith would be so great that he/she would profess that God can deliver from a violent, excruciating, prolonged death, and that the person would declare in the same breath that if he doesn't, they will still not turn their back on him. Poignant, profound and powerful (Daniel 3:17-18).

What is even more remarkable is that the king, who stood on his word and enforced the casting of Daniel into the den of lions, would say to him beforehand that Daniel's God would deliver him (Daniel 6:16). Astounding. Many people who did not walk with God in the ancient Middle East believed in his presence and power simply from the witness and experiences of those who did. Oh, what a wonderful life we would live if we walked in that type of faith today. 

Today we have Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who points to God The Father in his admonitions, to thank for restoring our connections to God. As the many great Old Testament stories of faith show though, God is truly the author and finisher of our faith. Without God, we would not have the Blood-bought saving grace of Jesus' sacrifice. Our precious heavenly Father delivered The Hebrew Children, and he is still delivering today. When he doesn't, however, the strong in Christ, though hurting, still do not turn their backs on him, just as those faith-filled children did not.