A Week of Comfort & Peace
Did you know that unrepented, unconfessed sin can literally make you sick? There is no way to experience the abundant life God has promised without walking in the light of truth. Examine yourself before the Lord, when He brings conviction and correction confess your sins and turn from them.
Often times we wrongly believe it is someone else’s sinful attitude and behaviors that are causing the emotional turmoil going on inside us, when in fact, it is our own unrepented and unconfessed sins.
God offers freedom for sins through the cross of Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus was shed for the sins of the whole world. Does the whole world experience the glorious freedom that is offered? No. And neither will we if we continue on in our sin without repentance.
The Bible says that people perish for lack of knowledge. It’s important to know and meditate on all parts of the scriptures, not just those that are easy to swallow. God wants to give us a wonderful, blessed, and joyous life, but if we are still bound by our sins, wallowing in addictions year after year, not growing up in our faith, the enemy will continue to bring destruction and keep us locked in prisons of our own making.
Christ died to set us free!!!!
We will not reach perfection while still in this body, but we must press on and fight to apply the victory of the cross to our lives. I am not suggesting that we have a morbid preoccupation with finding every fault we can find in ourselves and walking in condemnation. I am writing to encourage you to walk daily in the light of His Presence. If God is dealing with you about something, its because He wants to set you free from it. He won’t tell you everything that’s wrong with you all at once, but if you are intimately connected to Him and surrendered to His work in your life, you will get dealt with. REJOICE!
Agree with God. Repent and confess known and unknown sins. Receive forgiveness and cleansing. Receive back the JOY of your salvation that is forfeited by deliberately continuing on in a sinful behavior.
‘If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?’
~Hebrews 10:26-29
You are not powerless. By an act of your will refuse to view yourself and your circumstances as devoid of hope. God is still on the throne.
We aren’t called to be groveling beggars always on the outside looking in on the life we only wish we had.
There is no use waiting for this or that to manifest as if your life will finally be worth celebrating at some later date of dream fulfillment. We have one life and it must be lived passionately and intentionally moment by moment if we are ever going to experience it as God intended.
Whether sitting beside a dying loved one or walking down the isle to marry your long awaited promise, whether in debt up to your eyeballs or jet setting the world on a grand sightseeing adventure, the deepest longings of your heart are for God.
God is.
Whatever your character is now, whether a person that delights to do the will of God or a person that resists Him at every turn, isn’t going to shift just because what you are waiting for God to do in your life comes to pass.
Let God mold your character to fit the vision He has for your life. He knows what He’s doing. Cooperate. Don’t allow your longings to steal the purpose of the day called today.
If you are still focused on what God can do for you and not on God Himself and what He wants to do in and through you, it’s time for a shift. The word says in Mark 8:24,
‘If anyone intends to come after Me, let him deny himself [forget, ignore, disown, and lose sight of himself and his own interests]’
Messages on financial prosperity and prophetic words on dream fulfillment and the Big plans God has for our lives are wonderful and have their place, but until we learn that we are not our own, were bought with a price and that our comfort, needs and desires should not be on the throne of our hearts dictating how we are experiencing God’s love, goodness and beauty, we will never possess true abundance.
Give up trying to make yourself happy. Get yourself off of your mind. Mindfully look for ways to bless others and be a blessing. Good intentions, planned to be acted on when your ship comes in are nothing but illusions of obedience. If you believe yourself poor and pitiful with nothing to give and lamenting all those that aren’t giving to help you, you’re likely to stay stuck right where you are indefinitely.
God’s Word is chucked full of maps on how to have fullness of joy. Read it. Don’t imagine you would be satisfied if others would do what it says. Get real with yourself. You’re the only one that can stand in Gods way of helping Himself to your life.
‘But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.’
-James 1:23-25
Don’t join people in their captivity in the hopes of setting them free. It won’t work!
God does not take pleasure in His children putting their righteousness, peace and joy in jeopardy in a misguided effort to help someone else.
In relationships, especially with people that do not serve God, boundaries need to be established and the secret place where we are called to abide with the Lord should be guarded with all diligence.
Don’t confide in or take counsel from the ungodly if you are not looking to invite confusion. Don’t walk hand in hand with sinners if your not trying to be led astray.
We are called to be in the world and not of it. We will have people God calls us to be in relationship with for His purposes that are not like minded. Use wisdom and discretion. There are many warnings in scripture about being unequally yoked to nonbelievers. We are not to be partners with them. It’s not being judgmental. It is protecting what has been deposited in us.
Be willing to let go of anyone God is removing or that you know is keeping you from moving forward in Him. And to those that He has ordained for this season, keep your perspective, God’s perspective. Jesus was a friend of sinners but He didn’t trust Himself to them and He kept the perspective of Doctor-patient.
If your looking to an unsaved person or a person who is in rebellion to meet your emotional or intimacy needs, you are opening yourself up to be influenced, used or manipulated for evil and it is a sign post that needs to be evaluated for your own spiritual health.
Codependency is not ministry.
‘Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither-whatever they do prospers.’
-Psalm 1:1-3
Have no opinion about what God wants to do or how He wants to do it in your life. Your opinions can cause what the Spirit is speaking to be misunderstood and if your will is not surrendered you can more easily be misled by deceiving spirits. Pray for wisdom. Speak daily out of your mouth that your steps are ordered by the Lord. Pray that God will bind your desires to His desires and make you of one mind with Him, and then learn to make godly decisions and pad those decisions with your faith in God’s desire and ability to come through for you in the most unlikely ways.
Don’t forget God will work all things for your good when you love Him and are called according to His purpose, even your mistakes.
God is pleased with even your fumbling efforts at obedience. He will give grace to the humble. Make decisions and stand in faith about the decisions you have made. God is looking for people to walk boldly forward.
If you’ve missed it big time, God will redirect your path, block you from moving forward, or bring correction if need be.
‘If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.’ -James 1:5-8
The enemy tempts us to do what feels good, puts our needs first, fits our own understanding, requires no faith, brings immediate but shallow acceptance, causes the least resistance, or feels most comfortable now and then laughs and jeers when we get hit with the consequences that inevitably come later: guilt, shame, worry, poverty, embarrassment, lack, bondage, emptiness, rejection and isolation.
God gently directs us to do what may be uncomfortable, difficult, selfless, contradicts our own understanding, gets us rejected temporarily, and requires faith and then delights to bless our socks off with the consequences that inevitably lead to highest hearts fulfillment, purpose, freedom, peace, love, joy, and intimacy.
Don’t fall for it! Do today what you are going to be glad you did long term. Follow Christ’s example at all cost and do not grow weary in doing what is right!!!
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‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.’
-Hebrews 12:1-3
Whatever you are focused on is going to gain power over you. If you are focused on everything that’s going wrong, you magnify those things until they consume your thoughts and affect your moods and emotions.
It solves nothing to keep rehearsing the problems in your mind and leads to discontent and discouragement.
An even more detrimental downturn can happen when you keep talking about the issues that you want to see transformed, removed or upgraded. Check your spirit. If you’re rehearsing the problem to someone that doesn’t have the power to change things or isn’t going to encourage you and point you to Christ, it is going to do you more harm than good. You may convince someone else to feel sorry for you which will only confirm your fears and feelings of powerlessness.
There is a time to seek godly counsel and encouragement, but daily gab sessions with your mom, spouse or children do not count and turning to the ungodly or the person that caused the problem will only add fuel to the fire of adversity your walking through.
Even if its a problem in relationship that needs to be worked through, use caution about what to say, when to say it, and if it even needs to be said at all. Remember, God is at work, and your words can sabotage what He’s trying to do on your behalf.
Our attitudes and emotions have the ability to create, our words even more so, and what we believe has everything to do with how things turn out. Pray, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight Lord.’