Tag Archives: joy
Finding Peace and Joy in the Chaos
Prophetic Teaching & Prayers
Embracing Risk to Follow Christ. A Conversation with My Husband, Dave.
How to Get Your Joy Back
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
A New Level of Glory
I see that you have been striving to reach perfection. Know this, that in Me, you have already been made perfect. Rest in the perfection imparted to you by the finished work of the cross. I am in you and you are in me and because you are hidden with Christ in heavenly places, you have his sufficiency in all that you do and are. Draw on My perfection and you will see it being made complete through your natural life.
There is no obstacle, no sin, no fear, no doubt, no lack, no trespass, no insufficiency in my life and you have died and my life is being manifested through you. Rise up in my power and in my faith that I have imparted unto you.
Ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find. Know that in all things I am working for your good. Your desire to please me in all things brings joy to my heart. You are my precious child and there is nothing or no one that can snatch you out of my hand. You are not subject to the whims of mere mortals. I am the immortal God and I am still on the throne. Nothing can touch you without first being filtered through my perfect love. Do not tire of hearing me say this. Believe it. Let it sink deep down into the depths of your being. I am perfect love. I love you perfectly. You are mine. You are under my protection and there is nothing that can harm you.
You can’t even begin to imagine the magnitude of the tidal wave of blessing that is rushing towards you as we speak. Do you see the waves crashing towards you? Do not fear the waves! They carry with them an anointing of my power and provision like you have never experience before. You will look back at this season as the launching pad of the best years of your life. You have been tested and tried. You have made yourself pliable in my hands. It is time to be released into greater things; greater measures of abundance; faith, love, joy, peace, provision, relationship and fulfilment of promise are upon you now. You sense it by the very strength you are experiencing in the midst of difficult circumstances. You have entered a new level of glory.
Pause and meditate on my perfect love, and peace will flood your heart and mind. You are perfect in my sight. Enjoy the ways that I am working out my perfection in your natural life.
A Perspective Shift Changes Everything
Do not allow the divide between what your eyes of faith see that I have prepared for you, and what your physical eyes perceive as your reality, cause you to stumble into an ungrateful attitude of heart that refuses to be comforted in the here and now.
It is My desire for you to enjoy the blessing of peace and joy that flow from an attitude of gratitude.
Your dissatisfaction with what was once considered a blessing is blocking your growth.
You are not yet ready to receive what you long for. I need to be able to trust your motives for desiring greater things. As it is now, your pride is evident in that you truly believe that what you have been given for this day is somehow beneath you.
You tell yourself that it is My reputation that is at stake if you do not step into greater levels of glory and provision. Examine yourself more deeply My child.
Are you sure it is My reputation that you seek to protect?
Your viewpoint on some matters has been tainted by the excesses of your life and culture, yes, even by some of the teachings in the church.
Take pride in your low position.
I am pouring out into your life without restraint the true riches of my Kingdom. Oh how my heart longs for you to know and understand that I am giving you My very best for your life, right in this moment and for this moment. I am Your Father, how do you fail to see this? I know that you at times feel that you lack the ability and resources to give freely. Do not limit Me, and what I am doing, by your own limited mindset and view of yourself and the world around you.
Invest what you have been given completely into the lives of those that I bring to you. You will see how quickly the laws of multiplication, which I have set in motion, begin to manifest both spiritually and physically in your life.
The spirit of fear must be fought with a mouth that is continually filled with praise. Open your eyes and see how the forces of darkness have bound you up by convincing you to believe lies about your current circumstances and Me.
Banish all vain thoughts. Leave behind all pretense by abandoning your faulty systems of measurement.
You have tested My Word and found it to be true; pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Walk humbly before me every day and allow Me to lift you up when, where, how and with whom I decide is best.
This will be easy for you now.
Remind yourself daily that My thoughts are Higher than your thoughts and My ways are greater than Your ways. I will reward your longsuffering with deep abiding joy; you’ve tasted it, walked in it for seasons at a time, but a time is soon coming when there will be nothing that can shake you.
I am glad that you have held on in faith to my promises. Your faith will be richly rewarded in My time.
Once again, abandon yourself to the process.
Every day, with each new challenge, abandon yourself to Me. Relax your grip. Rest your troubled thoughts.
Repent for the time and life resource you have wasted in petty distractions trying to make this uncomfortable season more comfortable. Embrace the uncomfortable days with the same open arms you embrace the days of comfort and you will be protected from many needless battles.
-Photo by Bob Eden Copyright 2011 c
And After The Flood, New Life
In some areas of your life you have felt as if you are just drifting along, being carried by the current of circumstances that are beyond your control. In many ways your understanding of your life has been incredibly limited. At times you feel that I have just been allowing you to tread water indefinitely, with no real purpose or end in sight.
What you see as drifting, I see as positioning. I have told you before that your circumstances are not random, and indeed they are not. I am proud of you; you have finally stopped thrashing about as if you were drowning and remembered that I am with you in all things. But you are to grow further, past simply recognizing that I am here and still working behind the scenes, into a place where you recognize that each situation, relationship and trial has been specifically designed to show you something about yourself that you would not have otherwise realized.
Things are beginning to come into focus as you look back and remember how everything that I have walked you through, impurities in your character, and imbalances in your life, were brought into the light and dealt with.
Turn around and see all the dead weight that has been shed throughout the years!
You are not endlessly drifting!
You have been afloat on the ocean of my love. With each storm you have sought out those things within your spirit that weigh you down and holds you back and have cast them overboard.
Look behind you. Do you see the trail of useless things floating away on the currents of life as you sail into the sun, light and free? The darkest nights of the soul, the fiercest tempest, have made you brave and strong, recognizing that which no longer serves a purpose in your life and casting it aside.
Now, not only do you realize that I am with you, but that I am not asleep in the boat.
All power has been given to me in heaven and earth.
I am not only with you, I am for you. I have been preparing you for something greater than you can even now imagine.
Can you see now why I have commanded you to rejoice in your sufferings? The hope that you now have can not be taken from you!
Now prepare yourself. Brace yourself. Raise your level of expectation higher than you have dared to raise it before, because coming into your life this year is a flood of blessing; a harvest from the seeds of faithfulness that you have planted and cultivated these long years.
Look around you now, whatever lingering habits, relationships, or activities that are pointlessly taking up space and choking out life, toss them overboard. I declare today is the day of power to solidify your will against all that clogs the wells of life from springing up within you.
As in the days of Noah, when I caused a flood to rain out of heaven and water to spring forth from the earth to destroy what had been formerly created so that life could begin again through the righteous man, Noah, and his family, so is the floods that have been allowed into your life.
Only the relationships and provision that I have ordained for you will be carried into the new life I am creating, and as with Noah, I have supernaturally brought to you those things which you need for success and survival.
You have believed my promises and held tight to the dreams and visions that I have placed within your heart, sacrificing many of the comforts and securities that come from relying, not on Me, but on your own understanding.
Your faith will be richly rewarded.
Step out of the boat and onto dry land. Receive unimpeded a new life full of grace, provision, favor, creative power, divine connections and relationships, healing power and fullness of joy.
Enthusiasm And Dream Fulfillment
Enthusiasm is contagious and causes us to take on life with an attitude of wonder. When we focus on God and claim His promises found in the Bible, we can go through life with grateful hearts and enthusiastic attitudes.
No matter what situation we find ourself in we can live passionately.
We are all given endless oppurtunities to glorify God with our lives. Ask God to open your eyes to the ways He wants to use you each day.
If your waiting for the right circumstances, the right people, and the right breaks to start really serving God with your life, your likely to have a long wait.
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” -Luke 16:10
Sometimes we are waiting on God to open doors for us, while He is waiting on us to take steps of obedience right where we are. He knows those steps we need to take that will lead us to the door that is waiting open for us to walk through.
It is the narrow path that leads us to the doors that are open and waiting for us.
Stop waiting for open doors and instead determine to walk in the light, as He is in the light, one step at a time.
Follow Jesus. He is The Door.
God wants to bring our dreams to pass! After all it is He that has placed those dreams in our heart.
Trust in The Lord and do good and He will bring you into your promised land. He will let nothing be wasted in our lives as we bring all that we are and all that we are not and lay ourselves continually at His feet.
If you do not find your delight in The Lord in your present circumstances, its not likely you will delight in The Lord when your circumstances change.
Delight in The Lord now and find that the tight places and lingering trials that test your perseverance to the breaking point time and time again, become open pastures; the tiny spaces where before you had no strength left to stand, becomes spacious places as you rise above on wings of faith, hope and love to soar.
-Photo 2011 Copyright C
I Will Fulfill Your Deepest Desires
Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you. Give me your attention.
Remove your misplaced expectations towards others and place all your expectations on Me. I alone know what it is you need at any given time and I have promised to meet all of your needs.
There is nothing in this world that will fill the void I created in you. I created you for Myself and it is in Me alone that you will find rest. The deepest longing of your heart is to be with Me; in intimate relationship and abiding with Me you will have passionate, lasting satisfaction for your souls.
Come to Me with a thankful heart. Your attitude of gratitude will peel the scales from your eyes and you will see Me in the midst of your trials.
I am near to you always; in all things I never leave your side. I stand beside you watching your fruitless search for life outside of Me. I am with you in all things. I know your inner thoughts and am there with you time and time again as you seek solace and love apart from Me.
It hurts My heart to watch you groping around in the darkness for something to latch onto; something that will relieve the ache of your brokenness.
Time and time again you return to broken cisterns for a drink to quench your endless thirst. Why do you refuse to come to Me and drink? I will give you living water.
Drink the water I will give you and you will never thirst again.
You chase after the best that this world has to offer, seeking excitement and adventure, never comprehending that the path I call you to walk is the ultimate adventure. The story that I am writing is the only story worth spending your life for.
Do you think I don’t know what I created you for? Do you think I have not written a part for you in My story that far surpasses your fumbling efforts to make a life for yourself?
You hold on to your life, and in the process you lose not only your life, but your very self.
Do you not know apart from Me you can do nothing? Give up! Give up seeking solace in worldly pleasures. They are fleeting and bring no lasting satisfaction. Each compromise draws you further from yourself; further away from me.
I promise to provide pleasures and to satisfy your souls with good things from my overflowing storehouse of blessings. My supply never runs dry. I created you. I placed specific desires within your heart. I alone am the way to fulfill those deep desires.
Follow me and I will lead you. Drop your defenses. Abandon your pointless plans; they will only lead to your destruction. Pray for an increase of faith and for healing from the misconceptions you have held for far too long about Me.
I am good. I am love. I have your best interests at heart. Believe My words, obey My words, and you will find the life you long for.