1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. ~Romans 12:1-2 (The Message Translation)
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)10 and find out what pleases the Lord.
11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible,14 for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
15 Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ~Ephesians 5: 8-20
Linked up with the Sunday Community today over at Jumping Tandem for a Sunday of encouragement through the word of God. Check it out.
It’s Wednesday so that means we get to tune in to Life Today and hear what the Lord is speaking to us through Mrs. Beth Moore. If you watch the program regularly and have done so for a time, you may have already seen this one before. I have seen this one and the story she tells in it has been referenced by others who have seen it. But this video still came right on time for me.
God’s sovereignty and providence is sure.
I had an experience just last week that just seemed so weird but, in the moment, I was so sure that I was being prompted by the Holy Spirit to be obedient to the things He was speaking to my heart. I wrestled with myself and the personal cost of my obedience all the way up until Monday for sure and then finally, I just decided to let it go and trust God to confirm for me if I had indeed heard Him or if I was just a loon. And with just the seed planted in my mind that I had misheard and was wrong, acting crazy and unable to hear from the Lord, satan had a field day and really put in work to discourage me. But God is so faithful, Frans!!! I know that I have some readers who are not Christian and to them all of this talk compels them to think, “No ma’am, you actually are quite loony.” But something happens when we engage God through His holy spirit, allow His words to abide in us and we respond to the call. . . We get to participate in the divine.
I’ve been doing the Esther study written by my Fran, Beth Moore. ;0) In the week three video session, she says this:
“One of the most important parts of fulfilling your destiny will be your transparency.”
Now, I loves me some Beth Moore, but I was quite irritated when I heard her say this. In a room full of other women eager to hear the word of God, I wanted to shout, “Hey Siesta, mind your own business!” :0/ I was just so frustrated that the Lord would be using her to, once again, make me uncomfortable with the covering I had afforded myself adapted by and from shame. ugh.
Has anybody out there ever struggled with being ashamed of themselves other than me?
Those of you nodding your head yes, know the things that we do to try to make ourselves feel better and look better. But it never works. God is authentic and He came that we may have life and have it to the full (see John 10:10). Operating under illegitimate shame cannot work in tandem with His work for us to have an abundant life.
But hold on! Help is on the way!
There are two kinds of shame: legitimate shame and illegitimate shame.
“Legitimate shame is the same inner experience as biblical humbling. It is the recognition of our state as desperate and our response to our rebellious condition as deplorable, deserving condemnation and death. . . Legitimate shame, in other words, always leads to a sense of being lifted up by God to possess what is surprising, unnerving, and undeserved. . .Shame is experienced before the one I’ve entitled or given the right to judge me. Ultimately, that is the prerogative of God alone. To give that privilege–in essence, the opportunity to bestow or retract life–to anyone other than God is idolatry. This concept helps clarify further the difference between legitimate and illegitimate shame.“~Dr. Dan B. Allender
If you have sinned, repent, receive God’s forgiveness, and move toward Him. Do not take direction from our great ancestors, Adam and Eve, who sought cover through fig leaves and hid from Him (Genesis 3:7-8). Satan knows what he’s doing. When he can convince you to walk around with a lowered head, feeling less than who God says you are, and living beneath what God has for you, not operating in your destiny nor getting any closer to it, he’s won.
We serve such a loving God. Even after Adam and Eve sinned, God was there to correct and deal with the sin but He was also there to provide. He got rid of those pitiful fig leaves and “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)” Every attempt we make to act independently of God will render us pitiful. Whatever your fig leaves are, drop ’em. Let Him clothe you in His love.
So. We’ve finished The Law of Kindness and now Beth wants us to see the Lord as our rescuer who will pluck us Out of the Net. Is there anybody out there who needs to know the Lord as her rescuer as much as I do?! She started this series about a week ago and I can’t wait to see what else she has in store. Check it out!
Recently I started to feel strong negative feelings about someone who I dearly love and is very close to me. I didn’t understand where the feelings were coming from or altogether what was going on because there had been no distinct event occur to trigger such a staunch and growing disdain. I went from being excited to share company with this person every time I got the chance, to dreading our next encounter days before it would even come to pass.
So, I started to explore what was going on with me. I talked to Huni about it and told him how I was feeling. He, being just as baffled as I was by the sudden onslaught of negativity, was very concerned and discouraged. He worried about me and what was going on in my often troubled mind that would make me feel the way I was feeling. So he listened. And he prayed.
Weeks passed, months, but with each moment, I confessed the way that I was feeling. I talked about it with Huni when it would come up in me, and I fully felt all that was going on in my mind, giving it flesh with my words. I had something of a trinity moment as I spun myself out into three; my thoughts, myself and me, and we sent this mysterious presence out to live among people, representing us and allowed it to become the force by which we interpreted the world. From one simple thought, I created a living, breathing, form that I took with me everywhere I went and I greeted it, cared for it, confirmed and addressed it every time I noticed it. The more I talked about it, the bigger it grew. The more I nurtured it with, “I just don’t like her.” “But did you hear the way that was said?” “What do you think was meant by that?” “I can tell that she can feel it too.” “She made me feel so terrible when . . .” “She doesn’t like me just as much as I don’t like her” and soon that baby thought was fully grown, with a mind of its own, no longer controlled by my thoughts and actions but controlling my thoughts and actions by its mere existence. I had talked myself into a mess. I left no room to reverse the way I felt or consider another viewpoint because of all of that talking and processing.
Ever been there?
I’m in no way suggesting that we shouldn’t decompress, explore, vent!!! Lord knows, we need to vent. We need to purge and get the gook out of us, so that it doesn’t fester and blister sore hurting us and others around us. But be careful how you do it and your motivation behind it. What would have been better for me to do with all that I was feeling, is to speak it, vent it, YES!! and then cover it with prayer and scripture. These two elements together have a way of exposing what’s truth and what’s lies. And I can truly say, with my 20/20 hindsight vision, that what was I was feeling was a LIE!!! (thank you, Rey. you were right. it was a LIE!!!!–and no, for all of you inquiring minds, she isn’t the one I’m referring to in this post!)
Satan is so crafty and he uses us against ourselves more than we realize. Of course, we give him lots of material to work with, which is all the more reason for us to abandon our way of coping and existing and have our minds and hearts renewed and refreshed daily by the Father.
Woooooo! It’s crazy out here Frans. But take heart!
Loves me some William Matthews (thanks Huni.) And this song flows well with what Beth is talking about in her series about Loving Kindness (because it takes a whole lotta heart and strength to be kind in a mean world) and what I’m speaking about here in this post which is a bit of a transparent view of some of my mental struggles. There is much more to come, but in the meantime, take a listen to my Fran (not really, but in my mind we’re Frans) William Matthews.
“In death by love. . .He wears the scars of our freedom . . .In His name all our fears are swept away, He never fails, So take heart . . .All our failure and all our fear, God our love . . .He has overcome!!!!
If any of you have ever struggled with your mind, I’m praying you’ll experience Him through worship with this song.
xoxo
photo found on google, linked to naturalremedyfordepression.org
Pulling from one of my favorite authors/Christ followers/women of God today: Ann Voskamp.
Abide. Because it’s never about your capabilities. When you’re in covenant with Christ, it’s His responsibility to cover your cracks, to be all your competency and completeness. Inabilities, in Christ are made all sufficient, just right abilities. Abandon worries–wholly abide. ~Ann Voskamp
This woman is amazing. For reals. She is using her writing as ministry and has delivered me right into the hands of the Father where I can receive true and ultimate deliverance. Her writing is a ministry that gets result for God, drawing people to God. She has written a book called One Thousand Gifts, a book that I read from cover to cover and am looking forward to reading again and it is the inspiration for my “My One Thousand” page on this here little blog. She blogs at http://www.aholyexperience.com/ daily and if by chance you do not get a new post, the archives are enough to keep you for a few weeks! When I click away from that site, I am encouraged, challenged and excited. When you have a moment, drop by. It will not be a waste of time.
So. How do you abide? This week I am choosing to abide through scripture memory. Huni and I have a huge decision in front of us, a decision to follow Christ wholeheartedly with true abandon in a way that we have never done before. While I know that there is no way that we can turn and look the other way, it is still quite a decision to face because with it comes all of the ways that I am still challenged in the level of trust I have in God and how much I believe Him, not just believe in Him, but actually believe Him. So I’m abiding by meditating on Scripture. This one:
“Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs. (Jonah 2:8 NIV)
This verse may not strike your fancy but in my space of abiding, every time I look at it (I have it taped to my microwave because I spend most of my day in the kitchen) I’m stilled and my mind is checked and renewed and I move deeper into that trust place. And when the hum of the day provides the soundtrack to my busy-ness and eases my mind back into self-reliance and self-trust, I walk past that verse again and again my mind has to submit to the truth of the word of God, another opportunity to believe Him. Another chance to ditch my comfort idol and thrust myself into the will of God knowing that what He offers is so much greater than this pithy comfort I cling onto. And bit by bit, this HUGE, CrAzY idea is becoming more and more right and necessary.
37-38Right at the crest, where Mount Olives begins its descent, the whole crowd of disciples burst into enthusiastic praise over all the mighty works they had witnessed:
Blessed is he who comes,
the king in God’s name!
All’s well in heaven!
Glory in the high places!
39Some Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, get your disciples under control!”
40But he said, “If they kept quiet, the stones would do it for them, shouting praise.” (Luke 19:37-40, The Message)
Move over rocks!! I got this one! :0)
171. Kool Moe Va
172. biggest cheeeeeeeeeese from the littlest
173. penny wishes
174. granddaddies
175. birthday cupcakes . . .scrumdillyum!!
176. DQ surprise!
177. TBP intern class of 2012 . . . love, love, love those girls
178. my first trip to the crepe truck courtesy of Precious, accompanied by Jamaica Swagu
179. all gone :0)
180. excitedly watching Grandma and Granddaddy unload their car
Chuckled to myself about those “fights” I have with people in my mind. I prepare or replay the whole conversation and all the things I’d say to get somebody right, “Aunt Esther style” . . . giving little thought to how, most often, I’m so wrong. . .
pamelluce.com 