Showing posts with label Pruning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pruning. Show all posts

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Prayer Before Bible Reading

Dear Father: Thank you for your Word which is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I thank you that it will take root in the broken up stony ground of my heart and bear much fruit. I know that it will transform me by the renewing of my mind. Help me to rightly divide your Word of Truth so that I can apply it to my life in a practical way. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen!

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Being A Positive-Minded Christian

Living a successful Christian life and doing things God's way requires a positive mindset. Walking in the Spirit requires a positive mindset. Being transformed by the renewing of our minds through reading the Word daily requires positive mindsets going in. Allowing our faith to be increased by God requires positive mindsets. Make no mistake, for wonderful changes to come about, we have to start with positive mindsets. We have to believe! That is positive-mindedness. 

Have you been negative-minded when coming to God in prayer? Were you raised in a negative-minded family? Have your trials and troubles in life fostered a negative mind in you? Are you so tired of life, so tired of praying, so tired of hoping that your mind is now negative to God's possibilities? Well, the Holy Spirit is our Comforter and Guide and will restore positivity and faith in us if we let Him.

Allowing the Word to sink in as we read it daily will prune us. We are the branches of Jesus Christ and we have to be regularly trimmed in spirit and attitude. This cutting process will convert and transform our negativeness to the positive-minded position that we need to be in to receive from Our Heavenly Father. 

Are you eating and drinking The Word daily? Are you reading around in The Bible rather than reading the same old scriptures that are tired to your mind and heart? Are you ensuring that you are getting a balance of The Word rather than reading The Lord is my shepherd or Our Father, which art in Heaven everyday? Are you becoming familiar with more obscure scriptures? It takes the entire Word, Old and New Testaments, to transform us and round us out to positive thinking, feeling and behaving. 



Saturday, February 20, 2021

Growing Into God's Lessons

 

God carries and supports us through painful training.

God has taught me, through so many stressful lessons, how to not fly off the handle. When we put our training and growth in God, it is painfully endured but he does carry us on each journey. There is something to the quote no pain, no gain. Just read John 15:2 and tell me if you don't think it means some type of pain to be endured. If you persist in thinking that you are ok without any growth pains, then that is probably why you have not grown up in the Lord very much. What is the pain of growth all about? 

Well, it's emotional pain primarily, the pain of being treated unfairly and not jumping to retaliate, the pain of not being allowed to repay evil for evil, the pain of not giving as good as we get, the pain of not seeking justifiable revenge, the pain of not allowing vengeful thoughts to develop, the pain of not correcting others and demanding from them, the pain of being constrained in thought, word and deed, the pain of not vindicating ourselves, the pain of learning to love our enemies (real and imagined), the pain of learning to bow our knees and pray for those who use us in hateful ways, the pain of waiting on God.

We are rewarded on the other side of painful training.

When we choose to put a challenging situation in his hands first instead of acting upon our initial, vehement response, we grow into the lesson that God intends. We are also rewarded on the other side of the pain because we don't suffer for nothing. When we handle a distressing situation on our own, however, we don't get anything everlasting out of it. As it says, we got our reward, in the flesh, and that's all we'll get out of what we did (Matthew 6:5, 21, I Corinthians 3:12-15). That reward is in our flesh. What else does that kind of unrestrained behavior cause?

As a result, we will most likely go on in life feeling resentful about the situation, recounting it and allowing it to replay over and over in our minds. We may have thought what we wanted to, said what we wanted to and did what we wanted to but we end up defeated. We have nothing of significance about our resolution to offer ourselves or anyone else. Most of all, we end up without any hope of spiritual, heavenly rewards for our fleshly effort. 

We end up defeated and without spiritual rewards when we behave any kind of way.

Many times, when I journeyed through with God to the end of the situation, he showed me that my hurt and/or rage was built up through untrue assumptions anyway. I don't think I would ever have found out had I flown off the handle at the onset of the situation. Even if someone or some entity was guilty of what I thought, because of my additional assumptions, they would not have deserved the ballistics that I would have leveled at them had I operated in my flesh. God gets to the root and leaves no stone unturned. A little assumption, a lot of assumptions, it's all the same to him.

Allowing ourselves to be taught and pruned by God quietly detonates the powder kegs of assumptions. Believe me, when we are obedient to God, often he will supernaturally shift things so that the least damage, to us and to them, will be done while he's teaching us. You'll see his right hand work! He's wonderful!

God will supernaturally shift things for damage control.

We don't have to fly off the handle anymore. We can triumph and have peace through every trying event. We can receive rewards for our obedience and endurance, not only here, but most importantly in Heaven.