Just believe

Faith in Jesus seems to go against the human mind. First, you have to recognize that you are inherently not righteous, and in need of a savior. Then you must believe in the goodness of God to believe that He would love us so much He would send His son to die for us! The enemy has worked tirelessly for generations to contradict these truths and make faith harder for people. 

But thank God that it is the power of God that brings salvation and nothing can stop what God has planned! But it does take effort and participation on our part to truly believe the things God has promised us. Whether that be promises from scripture, or promises through intimacy and hearing the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, we must actively walk away from the world, and in the way of the Spirit to be able to trust and believe God. 

So, what does this look like in a believer's life? Well, first off we must be rooted in God’s goodness and love. We must understand that God’s love is so much greater than ours. God’s love is perfect and more than we can express. Secondly, we must understand that there is nothing but goodness in God! This can be so hard for us to understand, because we are living in a fallen world. So we do not know how absolute goodness works or what it looks like. It takes deep faith to trust in this. To believe this truth! 

Once we are rooted in God’s goodness and love, we can then deepen our faith and grow in our trust! Without that ultimate trust in His goodness, we are not willing to take risks or steps of faith that He wants us to. If we are struggling with His goodness and love, one of the best ways to deepen our faith and trust is to spend more time in scripture. God’s word is living and active. It has a beautiful way of speaking to us, teaching us, and guiding us in just the right way, right when we need it. It fills us with the truth and plants it deep within our hearts. It gives us the strength and courage to go deeper in our trust, to take those leaps of faith and hold on to our promises when they look impossible. 

So let’s challenge ourselves and open our hearts to going deeper! Let’s be willing to be bold, to trust God fully, to sit in scripture and let it soak in our hearts, fill our minds with God’s kingdom instead of things of this world and walk in the way of the Spirit, not the flesh!

The calling of unity on the body of Christ

How far away have we gotten from what the church should look like that we need to talk about unity within the body. It is a sad state, the division within the church. The squabbling and petty arguments over doctrines. It is not of the Spirit at all, and we know this does not please our Father in heaven. 

It is very carnal. I do not like that word but it is all that comes to mind. It is very ‘of the flesh’ of us to be bickering and arguing about how often to do communion, spiritual gifts, what to wear to service. Honestly, it makes us look like fools to outsiders and tarnishes the beautiful name of Jesus. 

We must be willing to rise above the differences. We must focus on Jesus himself and the greatest commandments we have been given, and start to move past our doctrinal differences. We are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and we are to love others. That is what our focus should be. If we can focus on these things, then our arguments will fade away. Our bickering will come to an end and we can welcome others in, see the church grow, and watch with excitement as our fellow brothers and sisters grow in maturity.

I believe the root of this issue is selfishness. We are focused on ourselves, our interpretation, and we get frustrated when others do not see things from our point of view. But scripture tells us we are to take the focus off of ourselves, and put it on to God and those around us. Scripture tells us we are to keep our guard up against false doctrines, but not to harden our hearts because of it. Not to turn our backs on individuals because of it. But to always extend love and truth. We need to learn how to have a conversation again.  How to disagree with someone but still talk with them and learn from the conversation. Not go straight to anger. But reason and enjoy our time together despite our differences. Culture has lost its way and this is rare to come by now. But for the church it should be easy. It should come without hesitation or struggle. Why? Because we are called to live by the Spirit. We are called to daily surrender everything, and walk by the Spirit. 

If we all could agree on love for God and others, and to take responsibility for growing in our maturity in Christ, then the church would become what we should be. The church would be more welcoming and we can work together to spread the gospel! 

We can do this. It actually is easier than it seems. There are 3 things all of us can do to ensure we are doing our part in encouraging unity within the body of Christ. 

1. Put the focus on God, not ourselves

2. Commit to personally mature in Christ

3. Pray for others and strength

When we are struggling with disagreeing with someone, we should go to prayer. Prayer should be our first response to pretty much everything in life! If you pray for someone, it literally takes the anger out of your heart. It immediately changes your mindset and moves you back towards love. Prayer is a beautiful tool that we need to be utilizing in this area. God wants to help us in this, but He also wants us to come to Him for help!

Ladies, let’s decide today to stop bickering. To put an end to it. To apologize to that person and decide to love them instead. Agape love is actionable, it is not simply emotional. So make that decision. Put an end to arguments over doctrines, and choose to walk in unity with your brothers and sisters. Pray continually for strength and help in this. Over time, we will see the church rise in beauty and unity, representing Christ and working as His body and displaying His love for all to see!

How to walk towards complete love in motherhood

You know what I have heard more times than I want the past year or so? When witnessing to an unbeliever about Christ and their response being ‘christians are hypocrites, and I don’t want any part of that religion’. This hurts my heart so much. I also have to fight off anger. But unfortunately, it is hard to have a rebuttal because I see it too.

This is why I am always saying we cannot sit in our salvation. We must stop believing that praying a prayer is good enough and then we can move on in our life, with no change.  We need to get in scripture everyday, we need to be pursuing Jesus more than the world, and asking God for revelations and encounters with Him! That is where life change happens. That is where Jesus transforms us, our life and our hearts. And that is when we can be true disciples of Jesus! 
I love 1 John 4:17. It is the verse that this week has been based off of. It is a beautiful truth and an invitation for us to take Jesus’ hand and follow Him, wherever He takes us! Here is the verse…

This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.

Now, first let me say we cannot let this verse intimidate and scare us! The enemy likes to take scripture and twist it and we must be on our guard against that. However, if this verse is convicting, then that's ok! See the beauty in our Father wanting to draw you near and into more intimacy. God loves us so much, He does not want us to sit in our salvation. He wants us to grow closer to Him and have a deep rooted relationship with Him! 

Secondly, this walk looks different for everyone. For example, my husband oozes love and caring for others comes easily for him. He is so rooted in Christ’s love that it seems he does not even have to try. Me, on the other hand, God had to completely intervene in my life, show up in a gigantic way, deliver me and reveal Himself to me in order for my heart of stone to begin to melt. So, we cannot look to others and their walk and expect ours to be similar. Our perfect Father knows us better than we do and He knows exactly what we need! So we simply need to draw near to him, and scripture tells us He will draw near to us.

Lastly, this is a never ending journey! There is no end game. There is no point when we say at last, I made it! We will never fully make it in this life. The vision we need to have is progress and fruit. Are we moving on the spectrum towards Jesus’ character? Are we seeing more fruit in our lives as we mature? Those are the questions we should be asking ourselves to evaluate our growth. For example, I used to be very quick to anger and had little to no patience, actually if it was on a scale I would have been negative in the patience department. But it is so beautiful to look back and see growth over the past couple years! Once I decided to let go and give it all to Jesus and decided to mature and grow in Christ, He began to transform me. And now I see significant fruit in both these departments. It truly is beautiful and I give all the glory to God, I never could have done it myself! However, I am not done. I still have room to grow and will continue to ask the Lord to purify me and chisel away at me throughout my whole life, I am nowhere near where I would like to be! Another way to view it is that we are continuously trying to close the gap between our character and Jesus’ character. 

If we are doing these things, if we are pursuing Jesus and our eyes are on Him, He will be chiseling away at us. He will be molding us into who He desires us to be. He will be teaching us how to love others and to be a light for His kingdom. Ladies, the world is dark right now. Our families need us to be shining brighter than ever for them. They need an example of what following Jesus looks like. They need an example of what perfect love is. They need to see that there truly is a difference with Jesus, and that is love, light, goodness and truth! 

So let’s agree to mature in Christ. Let’s agree to live as much like Jesus as we can. Let’s agree to be true disciples of Christ. Let’s agree to love our families with the complete, perfect love of Christ!

How to thrive in a corrupt & confrontational society

Our daily lives are being affected more and more today by the declining moral standards in our society. For a while there, we could just ignore it and live our life. But now it is pretty much being shoved in our faces. Let alone the fact that God has been waking HIs people up and filling us with courage and boldness to confront these issues instead of ignore them. If we, God’s people, are not willing to confront these issues, then who will? It is up to us to do so!

But, how are we as wives and moms supposed to live in a society that has no regard for God and His commandments? Our nation, for those of us living in America, was founded on God’s principles and truth, but the enemy has been hard at work to tear us down because of that. And unfortunately, it seems as though he has succeeded. If it were not for God and His plans! 

I believe scripture and intimacy with Jesus is all we need to survive these days. And reading 1 Peter chapter 2, we can pull out a significant amount of advice for how we can not only survive, but thrive in these days of mockers and scoffers. The 4 main points that jump out to me when reading this chapter are:

1. We are to mature in our salvation

2. We are to live life differently

3. We are to stand firm when judged and mocked

4. We are to look to Jesus as our rock and example

If we put our whole heart into growing with Jesus and deepening our understanding of scripture, growing in our maturity in Christ, then that will strengthen us in our daily walk. We will be able to stand more firm in our convictions and understanding of how we should behave in all situations. This is also how we live life differently. We must be solid in our beliefs and continually renew our minds in order to live life differently. If not, we will most likely find ourselves slowly turning in the current and eventually following the crowds we had no initial intention of following. 

I hear people often asking the question of how to stand up in groups and how to handle situations with people who have beliefs different from us and how to answer questions appropriately when confronted. I believe the answer comes under our first point, maturing in our salvation. If we have intimacy with Jesus, if we are growing in our relationship with Him, if we are maturing in our hearing and obeying the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, if we are in scripture daily and renewing our minds in the truth, then we are strengthened for those very situations. We are prepared for those situations. We have a backbone of scripture to go off of and can recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding us in what to say. Actively maturing ourselves is critical for every aspect of our life. 

How do we stand firm when judged and mocked? Well, by maturing in our salvation! This truly is the answer to many issues believers are facing today. We are being caught off guard and not prepared because maturity has not been a priority within the church. But thank the Lord He has been raising up His people and now we are catching up and more prepared than before! If you are finding yourself struggling with judgment and mocking, then start everyday with the Lord. Press into Him more than you ever have before. Decide on a fast and do that. Reach out to friends and family for prayer support. Slow down your schedule and add in more time to read scripture. God always gives us a way through our troubles, we just have to be willing to work at it!

Lastly, when facing trials we are to look to Jesus for His example that He has set for us. Did Jesus ever complain? No. Did Jesus ever gossip? No. Did Jesus ever turn away from someone because of mistreatment? No. Go to the scriptures and find a similar example in the gospels and study how Jesus handled the situation. Go to prayer and ask Jesus to open your eyes to see the situation from His perspective. Usually, He sees things entirely different than the way we do! 

Ladies, I think a lot of us (me included) got caught off guard a few years ago when the world went crazy. I thank God everyday for His grace in waking me up and opening my eyes to the ways of the world and bringing scripture to life! Now it is time for us women of God to walk in the authority that God has given us as His daughters. Let’s commit together to mature in our salvation, build ourselves up in the Lord, and refuse to back down to the enemy and his lies trying to take over. We must remember that He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

Worship in the Wilderness

Wilderness seasons. Times of trial. Being refined, cleansed and dying to oneself and taking up your cross. These seasons are critical in the life of a follower of Jesus.

It is human nature to fight wilderness seasons. It goes against what most people desire; comfort, luxury and ease in life. But wilderness seasons are everything but that. They are challenging, exhausting, painful. They squeeze you, purging what God does not desire to be there. Burning out the impurities. Sometimes we don’t even recognize we are in one, they catch us off guard and we cannot recognize it while surviving through it. Sometimes we see them coming, staring us in the face of our short term future. Other times we recognize in the middle of  what is going on. We are trudging through and then all the sudden we have a moment of recognition, or the Holy Spirit reveals to us what is going on…God is cleansing us! God is preparing us for a greater measure or something different that He has planned for our future!

As followers of Christ, we should rejoice when these seasons come. When we see that our heavenly Father loves us deeply and is cleansing us, bringing us closer to the character of His son, our beautiful savior Jesus, and purifying us of the things of this world that don’t belong or that we cannot take with us to the next chapter in life. 

But rejoicing is not always what happens. Especially when it catches us off guard. Sometimes because of the hardship we can harden our hearts, question God’s goodness or even get mad at God. Not understanding that what we are going through is a sign of His great love for us. It is the most beautiful thing our heavenly Father could do for us, refining us, restoring us back to who He created us to be, to walk in greater resemblance of His son and to be the true light of the world. But if we are not in a heavenly mindset, if we are focused on things other than Jesus, if we are consumed with worries or concerns of this world, then we will not be able to recognize the beauty of the season. Instead of the season being a wonderful part of our walk with Christ, it will turn into the season in which we gave up, let go of our faith, and decided it was too hard. 

Ladies, we cannot fall into this trap. We must be rooted in the goodness of God. The agape love of God. We must pursue Him in the good times, give thanks to Him in every circumstance, and be in scripture everyday. These things renew our minds, these things give us a heavenly perspective. They help us sit above the worries and problems of this world and allow us to ride the waves of life. They allow us to endure hardship, to push through persecution, to love through mistreatment and to walk as Christ did. 

I believe there are few things more beautiful than going through a wilderness season, fully surrendering it all to God, and allowing Him to refine you. Giving Him all your burdens, and watching Him as He takes over and removes the junk within us. Coming out of the season clean and beautiful, ready to walk in the new purity, the new assignments, the greater authority that you have now achieved. Not through your own work, but by surrender and belief and an unwillingness to give up on God!

So let’s rejoice! Let’s refuse to give up on God. Let’s put our focus on Him and what His plans are for us, and let go of our desires as we walk through the easy seasons in life, as well as the wilderness seasons.

Kingdom Motherhood

Motherhood has gotten very twisted in western culture. So much so that women don’t even see the significance of it sometimes. So much so that we watch our families crumble and deteriorate before our eyes, and yet don’t rise up and take responsibility and do something about it. But God is raising up mothers, fathers and families again. He is restoring us back to Him. Back to His ways and His righteousness. Thank you Jesus!

It is imperative at this time that women start to rise up and rebuke the lies that the enemy has planted within motherhood. For decades now, we have been pummeled with rhetoric of “women are just as great as men, you can do anything you want, surely you won’t waste your life and stay home, start a career, climb the ladder and do something great!” Meanwhile, our culture has deteriorated so much so that even the unrighteous see it and can recognize the problem at hand. These lies have wreaked havoc on our society for decades now, and we can put an end to it, if we are willing to call out the narrative for what it is. If we are willing to stand up for truth. If we are willing to stand up for our families.

The root of the lies is that the focus is always on self. It largely comes down to selfishness.The focus is always on us. It is rarely on our families and their needs. This creates a vicious cycle of selfishness that swirls into conflict and wreaks havoc on the family unit. God created families for love, devotion, stability, and fun. He did not create families for us to always focus on our individual needs and wants and leave our families wanting. He did not create families for mothers and fathers to prioritize their personal desires to the detriment of their family. It is time to come back to our roots. Back to the foundation of families, loving and welcoming homes, families who enjoy spending time together.

This starts with us, mom’s. It starts with our husbands. It starts with parents deciding families are a priority again and setting appropriate expectations for the family. We cannot waste anymore time, our kids are not getting any younger. So let’s decide today to say no to lies and start infiltrating culture with the truth of God’s word!

Lie Truth

  Focus on yourself unconditionally love your family

Family & home are not the priority work at home is critical kingdom work

Look to those around you for answers Holy Spirit guides & scripture is backbone

Motherhood is too hard It is incredibly fun & rewarding

Ladies, the tasks involved in supporting our husbands, raising our kids, and taking care of our home are the exact abilities God has filled us with. Why are we such great multi tasker’s and filled with nurturing tendencies? Because God created us to care for our families! He knew exactly what we would need to fulfill these assignments and He did not cut short on preparing us. 

Motherhood is not too hard for us. Our families are not too complicated for us. We don’t need screens and bribes to survive raising our kids. We don’t need wine and time away to survive raising our kids. We need more Jesus. We need more truth. We need to recognize who God made us. We need to accept our role as wife and mom and rise to the challenge before us! Ladies, we got this. There is no doubt in my mind that we are strong enough, gentle enough, smart enough, creative enough to have thriving families. We just need to let go of the lies and start walking in the truth!

Chosen

Ladies, do you understand the epicness of being chosen in Christ? Of being a daughter of the Most High King? Of being loved so much that God, the creator of the universe, desires to have an intimate relationship with you? That He cares so much that He wants to spend time with you, to overflow you with His presence and character of who He is, in order to transform you to His image? God is love, and that immense love that surpasses understanding is for you! He adores you and cares about the details in your life. This is so important for us to not only understand but also to believe it!

Involved in being chosen is understanding that your heavenly Father has plans for you. He didn’t just make you and choose you for nothing. He designed you uniquely to walk in His plans for you. To accomplish certain tasks for Him, to die to yourself and happily be transformed into Christ’s image. Without transformation we cannot walk in the fullness of the plans God has for us. We can either choose frustration and disobedience or we can choose to fully surrender and hand it all to God, and that’s when you start to realize His epic goodness! That His plans for you are actually your greatest desires, you just didn’t know it. That He knows you better than you know yourself, and therefore surrendering to His desires for you actually ends up fulfilling your greatest desires! I think that is one of the greatest realizations I have had of God’s love and kindness. I walked around for a while thinking that if I wanted to do something, it must not have been from God. But as I have grown in intimacy with the Lord I have realized that a lot of the things He asks you to do, you will actually enjoy and have fun doing! Will it always be? Of course not, but then sometimes it is and I just can’t help but be giddy over His epic love and goodness!

So how do you come to know the things He desires for you to do? Scripture gives us the big picture and the overall guidelines for a life following Christ, but I am talking about the details. Who does He want you to marry? Where should you go to school? Should you stay home with the kids? Should you move? Should you start that ministry? The specific things that are in His plans for your unique life. 

The way to know these specifics all comes down to your time in the secret place. Your intimate, personal time with the Lord. When you shut everything out, put your focus on Him, and worship, pray and just be with Him. That is the only way to know His plans for your life! If you are saying to yourself, yeah that’s great, I don’t have time for that. Then I want to ask you, do you receive anything from the other relationships in your life that you don’t have time for? If you do not have time for the Lord, then you cannot expect Him to show up in your life! Scripture makes it clear: when you seek the Lord with all your heart, then you will find Him! Not when you finally remembered to open your bible but then got distracted and ended up on IG instead. We must set ourselves apart, fully devote ourselves to His kingdom, separate ourselves from the world, and put Him first above all! That is when life truly begins! There is absolutely nothing in this world that compares to intimacy with the Lord! I cannot encourage you enough to start this if you do not already. If you do, then continue! Do not let distraction or busyness slip in. Keep it a priority.

Then there are the general guidelines, if you will, for followers of Christ. Being wives and moms, we have guidelines for those roles that are expected of us. Our culture has worked hard to belittle those roles for decades, but we must renew our minds to focus on the truth.The truth of the matter is that our families are very important. Families are a huge part of God’s plan for humankind, a way for Him to strengthen us, nurture us, mold us, provide joy and happiness for us! Families should be one of our highest priorities in our lives, not status, not money, not career. None of that matters in the end. What matters is our relationships, the things we have passed down to our children, the time spent loving and nurturing our families. 

For all of us wives, I can tell you that the Lord desires you to prioritize your husband, to love and respect Him, to support him in his needs and encourage him all his days. For us moms, the Lord desires you to love and nurture your kids. To prioritize their upbringing, to spend time teaching them how to live a righteous life, how to have a relationship with the Lord, how to love others. The Lord has blessed us with our families, they are the greatest blessings! The least we could do is give them our best in return, to prioritize them in our lives and thank God for the blessings that they are!

The last part we touched on this week in relation to being chosen in Christ; is that when you are chosen, you become a target for the enemy. The enemies goal is to weaken the church, sneak lies in that turn us from the truth, turn us from God’s love and goodness. We must recognize that when we are saved by Christ, when we surrender all, we also in that instant join a war. A war in which we are already victorious, but we must anticipate the arrows of the evil one and be on guard against them. One of his greatest tools is planting lies into our thinking. It is so important we are in scripture everyday renewing our minds and filling us with the truth of God’s word. We also must be in communication with God asking Him to reveal any lies that we are believing. Ask Him to show us the truth, to show us who we are in Him. Because when we are believing lies about us that the enemy has snuck in, then that stops us from walking fully into what God has planned for us to do. The truth can only come from God. He is our creator, He is the only one who knows everything about us, truthfully. The only one who knows our full potential. The only one who knows the goodness He has planned for us. So, it is imperative we stay on top of the things we are filling our minds with, and stay in constant communion with God so He can reveal any lies that seep into our thinking. 

Ladies, there is so much beauty in being chosen. So much love. So much potential. It is so epic that it is hard for me to wrap my head around. I encourage you to spend time with our heavenly Father, asking Him what it means to be chosen. What it means to be part of His family. And just sit in that revelation! Sit in the freedom, the beauty, the wonder of what it means. It will be worth every minute!

Faithfulness

Faithfulness is not a common word these days. When I started to research and look into this, a chart popped up that really caught my eye. It showed the usage of the word faithfulness over time. It displayed that in the early 1800s it was a common word, but has steadily declined since the 1900s with a small uptick around the 1980s. Largely, this word is not used much, so much so that many people are not familiar with the definition. Being faithful means being loyal, constant, devoted, dedicated, trustworthy, dependable. I think we all can agree that being faithful is a positive trait that we all should work towards. The question we are asking is: are you being faithful to God?

I believe it is hard to be a faithful follower of Christ in America because the gospel has been weakened down which means this topic is not discussed often. Overall, I believe our general sense of comfort in America has ruined us. We have so much at our fingertips that we have grown weak and lazy. We have every excuse in the book lined up to help keep us comfortable  and only a major move of God in our lives is going to get us to budge. As christians, we should not be pursuing comfort. But comfort is such a common idol in America that it has become the norm, it has become accepted, and excuses are made for it often. If you are struggling believing this, just go through the gospels and read Jesus words. They should pierce your heart on this topic.  I know they do mine.

Ok, but what does this have to do with faithfulness? I believe our laziness and comfort have taken the faithfulness out of us. God needs people fully surrendered to Him so He can work through us and do awesome things on the earth. He likes to partner with us and involve His people in things, why do you think we are called to intimacy with Him? But if we are all comfortable and not willing to get our hands dirty, then He cannot use us. We are not loyal, we are not steadfast, we are not giving firm support and allegiance to God. We are only available when it is convenient and fits in our box of how we expect God to act. Which basically means not available at all.

I fully believe this time for the American church is over though. The time when we can simply go to church once a month and then remain too busy to walk a life set apart the rest of the time. The time when we can use excuses to sit on the sidelines. That time is up. It is time for us to rise up. It is time for us to pick up our bibles, to fill ourselves with Gods truth, to act on our faith, to show the world that Jesus is truly life changing and to do what we are called to do - to love and spread the gospel. 

We understand and expect Gods faithfulness in our lives. And we should be doing what we can on our part to be faithful back to Him. So what does this look like for us wives and moms? I believe the best place to start is thankfulness. 

Have you noticed the weird stigma in motherhood? It is like it is expected for us to be struggling and complaining. When we see friends it is expected for us to have complaints about our husband and kids and then all the moms say oh yeah, me too, can you believe my husband did this?! And it seems like you get mocked if you don't have enough to complain about! Have you ever experienced this? The whole I cant wait till its 4 pm so I can have wine, but what the heck  i will go ahead and have some for lunch because how am i expected to survive without wine, motto? Yeah, that is prevalent in motherhood in America and us as believers need to purposefully set ourselves apart from that. We need to show the world that is not how motherhood should be.

If that is how we treat our families, then we are not being faithful with what God has entrusted to us. Have you ever thought of it like that? God has entrusted your husband and kids to you. When He planned us all, He intricately planned your family and said yes, she is the best wife for him and she will be a great mom for these kids. Is that not wild?! I think it is important to remind ourselves of this often, because this different viewpoint helps us understand how thankful we should be! And I really do believe the way of the family tends to follow the mom. So if we are joyful, thankful and enjoying life then our family is likely to follow. If we are upset, bitter and complaining, our family is likely to follow. 

The next thing we need to be doing to be faithful to God is following His lead. We need to prioritize our relationship with Him, tune our ears to His voice, so we can follow Him. If He is asking us to do something and we are not doing it, that is disobedience. If we are hesitating that is disobedience as well. No condemnation here, but if this is common in our relationship with Him we need to repent and start saying yes! We need to move on from being afraid of following God, He is a good Father! Why are we so afraid? Will He push us outside our comfort zone? Yes, but while He is holding our hand! He never leaves our side. He never asks us to do something we are not ready for. He never leaves us unprepared for an assignment. And I am a firm believer that walking in His plans, saying yes, and being where He wants you to be is the safest place you can be!

One of our fundamental beliefs as christians is the goodness of God, and we need to remember this. If we believe that God is so good and loving to send His son, Jesus, to die for us, then why do we turn around and get scared to go all in saying yes to Him? He is a good Father! He is love. He didn’t just create love, He is love! So let’s get it out of our minds that following Him 100 percent is scary. Let’s just say yes and never look back. If we have hesitancy in our hearts then we cannot be the faithful followers that He needs. I encourage you to sit with Jesus about this. Talk to Him about your hesitancy, and work through it with Him. Let Him take a hold of your hand and walk you through the process of letting go and saying yes. 

Ladies, God is good. God is love. And He needs faithful people who are intimate with Him and fully surrendered for Him to work through on the earth. You don’t need any special abilities. You simply need an open heart and be willing to learn. So, can He trust you? Can He come to you with assignments? Maybe, just maybe, you were born for such a time as this!

How to love

I don’t know about y’all, but the commandment to love as Jesus loves is hard. It is not natural for me. Selfishness is natural. Being lazy is natural. Shutting down my heart is natural. 

But ladies, the commandment to love others is huge. Jesus said that our love for one another will be what shows the world we are His disciples! If we cannot love others, then what sets us apart from the world? Yes, we have power through the Holy Spirit to heal, cast out, and do miracles, but if the basis of those actions is not love, then we have a problem. A big problem. All the miracles and healings Jesus performed were rooted in agape love. He came to set the captives free because of His deep rooted love for all!

Loving God and loving others is the greatest commandment we are given. It needs to be something we are continually working on, and checking our heart about. As wives and moms, the call to love our families is significant. Yes, we are called to love all, but I think sometimes we can minimize the call to love our families because of the underlying tone (lie) that it is not enough, we must go out to our community and love them. And yes, I agree. But only if our family is filled up first. And there are different seasons throughout life as well! We have to learn to ebb and flow with these seasons and simply do our best, but never condemn or run ourselves ragged trying to do more.

I believe we can have a tendency to fall into the trap of doing, doing and doing more to prove ourselves worthwhile, instead of realizing and accepting who we are as God's daughters. We run around exhausting ourselves trying to make sure we are doing well enough, instead of resting in God’s love for us and overflowing from that. I believe the overflow from our time and intimacy with the Lord, is the only sustainable way to continually walk in agape love for our families and those around us. 

I believe there is a secret to being an awesome wife and mom. What confirms it to me is that this is where one of the greatest lies from the enemy has come at us, has come at motherhood. It is a kingdom principle and is truly supernatural. And I believe the Lord desires for all of us women to understand this and walk in it. 

The secret is focusing on your family's needs, not yours. It is removing all selfishness from your thoughts. It is putting your husbands and kids needs above your needs.

( “But what about me time?! I can’t be with my family all day or I go insane! I need breaks!”) Sound familiar? Yeah, I used to say this all the time too. I never doubted I would stay home for my family, but I thought the only way to survive was to have plentiful alone time and girls nights. That is what would refresh me to keep going. Boy, was I wrong! This simply created a vicious circle of selfishness that leaked into my husband and then neither of us could get enough alone time and we were all left wanting. 

The second I was able to put my “needs” aside and focus on my husbands and kids' needs, everything changed. I removed the selfishness from my thinking, filled myself with more Jesus everyday, and then all the sudden everyone in my family was more full. It goes against normal thinking and everything women are told. Yet, it is a beautiful kingdom principle and it is so beautiful to watch in action. It is supernatural and if we all can aim to walk in this everyday, then I truly believe families can be transformed! 

But ladies, this takes renewing our mind everyday. This light bulb moment did not remove my selfishness forever, I have to remind myself of it, renew my mind in scripture, and choose God’s kingdom everyday.  Am I saying that alone time and girls nights are bad? Absolutely not! To me, it comes down to the heart. Enjoy time away, that is healthy! But are you relying on that alone to fill you up? That is where an issue comes in, because our intimacy with Jesus is what fills us up, and I believe He is the only source that can fill us enough, can fill us overflowing to deeply love our families and those around us.

The greatest way to have enough love to pour out on our families is to have intimacy with Jesus. Everyday intimacy that continually grows and matures. Without that, I believe it is impossible to have agape love for our families. Like, continual, long-standing agape love, not just a week or so :) I am telling you from experience, if you are walking hand in hand with Jesus, you will be a much more loving and dedicated wife and mom. Ladies, we gotta prioritize Him! It all comes down to Jesus. He is the perfect example of agape love and He is the only one who can help us love with agape love. He is love after all!

To sum things up, my two fundamental encouragements to be able to agape love your family are: 

1. Intimacy with Jesus, walk hand in hand with Him, all day every day

2. Trust the kingdom principle, put your husband and kids needs first and watch the Lord fill you up in return

Ladies, we got this. Let’s rise to the challenge of agape loving our families. Let’s be the wives and moms that Jesus desires us to be. Let’s allow Him to overflow us with His love so we pour out love on our families!

How to live set apart

It is time to stop accepting a watered down gospel. Largely speaking, there are of course exceptions, but as a whole, here in America, the gospel has been painfully watered down. The deception is high and people do not realize they are following a watered down gospel because there is a lack of personal time with the Lord and reading scripture. I used to be in deception with a watered down gospel, so this is a very hard topic for me. Because now that the Lord has opened my eyes to it, I can recognize it, but when I was in it I had no idea.

The reason I fell into the deception was because I did not read my bible. It was not a priority of mine. The beautiful, living and active word of God, sat on my nightstand, but was not picked up everyday. Maybe once a week to twice a month. And because I was not filling my mind with Gods truth, I was not recognizing that I was being fed a watered down gospel. Thank you Lord for rescuing me!

The gospel is not about praying a prayer and then continuing life as normal. Jesus did not die on the cross for life as normal. The gospel is about recognizing Gods insane love and grace that was poured out and offered to us on the cross, the gospel is about being reconciled to our Father through Jesus and having intimacy, the gospel is about us being transformed by Jesus, day in and day out, and walking in His love and grace, the gospel is about us being so in love with Jesus that we cannot help but go tell others, the gospel is about us recognizing our authority in Christ and nullifying the powers of darkness in our life. The gospel is life changing. 

So my question to you is, are you living a transformed life? Are you pursuing Jesus and allowing Him to transform you into who He desires you to be? Or are you living life as normal? Here is how James wrote it in his letter to Jewish Christians…

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?  Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.  And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”and he was called God’s friend.  You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?  As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

LET”S GET PRACTICAL

So now, how do we do this practically? Well first off you have to know that it is not always easy. You will be shunned, you will lose relationships, you will face awkward situations, but you have to know that Jesus is worth all that plus more! 

I think the two greatest ways to practically live set apart are: to read scripture everyday and to find other friends who live set apart as well. 

If you are reading scripture, then you are filling your mind with Gods kingdom and His ways, so you understand how you should live your life. And then on those hard days or awkward conversations, if you have friends who are living set apart then you can lean on them for support.

For me, the area this is hardest in is with guarding my kids from influences. Our culture bombards our kids with filth at very young ages, forcing them to mature too quickly and exposing them to things they are not mentally, physically or emotionally ready for. It causes havoc on these kids but our society now says that is normal childhood, so yeah. But this is very challenging. This is a reason my husband and I homeschool our kids, however, not the whole reason. I still have a lot to learn (I only have littles still!) but our oldest is 5 and now I am starting to talk to him about things if we are going into a situation where I know he might be caught off guard about something.

I think there are 3 important things we can do for our kids when it comes to this hot topic of influence and raising them to live set apart. 1. Pray, pray and pray some more. As moms we should be praying for our kids every single day! 2. Fill them with Gods kingdom. Read scripture everyday. Listen to worship music every day. Talk to them about the stories your reading in the bible. Answer their questions, do not be too busy when they want to talk about God!! 3. Talk to them going into certain situations. 

Going to families where their kids have phones or tablets and can watch anything? Tell your kid and set the expectation before hand. Halloween coming up and you choose not to celebrate? Talk to them about it! (FYI, I talked to my kids last year about why we don’t do halloween and now our 3 year old goes around and tells everyone “my mom does not like magic bc it is mean to God, and she does not like ana and elsa”) So yeah, be prepared for everyone to potentially know about these conversations :) 

Don’t let there be an elephant in the room though. Prepare your kids as much as you can for their age and also know that they are watching you. Remember it is probably awkward for them too, so guide them through it and help them.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to say no. If you have been invited to a gathering and you are on the fence about the situation, then you should probably decline the invitation. Don’t feel bad about that either, please! Have confidence in living set apart for the kingdom of God!

I will finish with this. Living set apart inspires others. Living set apart opens eyes. Living set apart shows people that there is something better out there, Jesus! So let’s be the bride He is desiring to come back to. Let’s all work on our individual selves, and watch the body of Christ rise in beauty and testimony as we prepare for our King!

Daughters of God

It is so hard to wrap your head around being a daughter of God. I mean wrap your head around the full revelation of what that means. I know I have not come close to the depth of it. I long for the Lord to reveal that to me. But I do know that once you start to sit in this truth. Meditate on it. Talk to the Lord about it, it very well may become the most significant revelation of your life, next to who Jesus is of course.

You are a daughter of God. Let me say that again, you are a daughter of God! If you are a daughter, then that means you are loved dearly, you are always welcome, you are provided for, you are wanted. Ladies, we gotta begin to wrap our heads around this.

In our culture, really in the entire world, but I will focus on America, women are lied to on such a massive scale it makes my head spin. The enemy has created a false freedom called feminism that looks pretty, but is simply bondage disguised as equality. This so called equality has seeped it’s way in to everything. It is such a significant part of our culture that separating it from the truth can be very challenging. The level of deception is so significant, it can seem impossible to reach women with the truth of who we are, but of course with God all things are possible! 

I used to be heavily deceived by this. Not surprisingly, this came about during my time in college. I was pursuing a master’s degree and just about to say yes to being accepting in to the program, when God threw a huge curve ball my way and I accepted a job instead. At the time I did not understand it. But now I know it was God pulling me out of that culture, starting the process of removing the lies and filling me with who He says I am, not culture.

In order to walk in the fullness of what God has planned for us, we have to walk through the process of renewing our minds on who women are. We must take the time to meditate on scripture, really let it soak in, we must sit with Jesus and talk with Him about this. I am determined that if women would start to understand who we are in God, as His daughters, our culture would start to come together. It would stop falling apart day after day to unrighteousness, sin and complete deception, and start to return to its former glory. 

So you might say, what you are saying sounds like feminism. RIse up, women! Come on, you are just as great as men if not greater. Yeah, yeah, but the root of who we are must be in God. We must know why we were created in the first place, stop believing the lie of what submission is, and start walking in the authority we have as daughters of God. You see, the fundamental root of feminism is that we are all equal, women can do whatever men can. But God created us differently for a reason. And our culture has turned its back on those reasons, and how would you say we are doing these days as a whole? I think we all can agree on the fact that we have never been worse off. Which in itself proves the worthy work of women, right?

So, the question is, what does being a daughter of God mean? What does that look like in everyday life? The specifics of this answer are different for everyone. I think most women naturally think of working outside the home vs staying home first. I do not think this is a black and white issue. I mean, read Proverbs 31, she clearly took after her family and provided also! So this varies family by family. However, I do think for women our family should come first. So if our work takes up all of our mental and physical energy and leaves our family wanting, then I think that should be prayed about. Is this a season that you simply have to do what you have to do? Are you being selfish and prioritizing your job over your family? Are you listening to the lies of culture and believing your job is more important? Do you think you ‘could never stay home”? Spend time in prayer about it and ask the Lord for guidance on this. 

Secondly, we must come to understand the importance of our families! It is becoming clearer to the masses that family is important, focusing on raising our kids does have an impact on their overall well being, and that someone has to do this. I cannot count anymore how many times the lack seen in young adults has come up in conversations the past couple years. It is no secret that a generation was largely raised by school and tv and now our culture sees the implications of this. And that it does not work. However, we still have a significant gap for us realizing this as a culture, and women rising to the challenge and taking responsibility. If we can largely now recognize the importance of this, why can we still not recognize the value and importance of the work of moms and women? Is it because we are scared to go against the grain? (Really not against anymore, the tide is shifting!) What I hear most often is, “I could never stay home, I have to get a break from my kids!”. Oh my word, this is deception on its greatest level but we wrap it up in half truths and paint it truth and carry on in life. Never understanding the implications this lie has on our family.

Ladies, you were created to care for your family. God gave women the mind blowing abilities it takes to keep a family going. It goes so much deeper than making the 5th pb & j of your day and cleaning the toilet again because your son cannot aim and refuses to sit (not my life at all ;) ) What women do at home is of prime importance! It makes for a fully functioning society, which would be nice right about now, right?!, and it allows us to teach our kids. Can we please stop believing the lie that we could never stay home and be with our kids? Let me say something that will cut deep, your kids hear you say that you could never stay home with them, and how does that make your kids feel? If we do not want to be with our kids, then who does? And kids hearing this day in and day out, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it has negative implications on how they see themselves, how they see family, how they view the world.

Ladies, I say this a lot but we need to grasp it, God created YOU to be the mom of YOUR KIDS. That means when God created your kid as a touchy feely person and gifted that kid to you, who does not like being touched (not my life at all :) )He saw beauty in that! He saw love in that! He saw growth and maturity in that! He did not plan for us to dine and dash and pay someone else to raise our kids. He would never do that. So, yes you can stay home and be with your kids. Trust me when I say it is not my personality to do what I do everyday :) But I know how God designed my family and even though my days are so much more challenging than they were before kids, I see God’s beauty working in my life and in my family. Nothing worthwhile is easy, right? Yes, staying home is hard. But I would not trade a moment. Time with them is priceless, and we will never get it back, once its gone its gone. Ok, I rest my case.

So ladies, let’s begin the process of renewing our minds in who God says we are. Let’s begin the process of shedding deception, and walking in who God made us. Let’s start to look at family the way God designed it to be. Let’s pursue the Lord with everything asking how He sees us, why He created us the way He did, why He planned our family the way He did, and what He desires for us and our family. We all need to hear God’s unique guidance for our families ourselves. This can only come with spending time with the Lord, so get to it! Sit with Him, worship Him, ask Him the specific questions you have about your family and situation. And don’t give up, He will answer, in His time.

The Great I Am

This week we have simply been resting in who God is. In the busyness of life, the chaos of our days, raising kids, managing our home, supporting and loving our husbands, it can be hard to remember who our God is. Just how mighty He is. How amazing He is. And how loving He is! 

There is proof of His love all around us. The problem is we often cannot see it because of lies and deception we have believed, or because of sheer busyness. Our culture frowns upon a lack of busyness. If you are not busy then you are not important. If you are not overwhelmed, well then you are just lazy. I think we all know by now that this lie has come on us purposefully from the enemy. Because he knows that if we have time to think, if we have time to rest, if we have time to ponder on who God is, then we will come to know the truth. We will come to know the truth that our families are indeed the most important thing in life, not money nor status. We will come to know God’s greatness through His creation. I mean, just stop and think about pregnancy and childbirth for a moment. It is astoundingly beautiful! And don’t focus on the pain, we obviously know that was not God’s desire. But come on, the details involved in God creating a human within another human are mind blowing. And then what about creation to begin with? Scientists call the moment that God said ‘Let there be light” the big bang theory. That is the best they can come up with! God creating the universe was amazing, and beyond our comprehension! 

We cannot fully understand Him either. His ways are most certainly not ours. But He is absolute goodness. He IS love! Yes, we live in a fallen world infiltrated with sin. But lets get back to the basics. Back to the basics of why God created us, and why He sent Jesus. 

Ladies, it blows my mind that God created us for relationship. Living in this fallen world, it is such a fight to get past the lies and truly understand the implications of this. But we gotta try. It is huge to me to understand the why behind God creating humans. What was His purpose? I mean, He obviously knew we were going to fall into sin and He still created us, why go through the trouble? Talk to God about this. Ask Him about why He created us. About why He created you!

And then Jesus. Our beautiful savior. I think the time period in history we live in sometimes distorts our understanding of things. My husband has been going deep into Genesis lately and we have had a lot of discussions about how reading the Old Testament helps us understand at a greater level why Jesus had to come. We have been living in the age of grace for about 2,000 years now and I think sometimes that time frame can put a damper on the message. It can lose it’s salt, can lose its significance. But humanity has no hope except for the hope found in Jesus. Without Him we are nothing. We are broken people, more broken than we tend to realize. And there is nothing that can cleanse us but the blood of Jesus. Nothing that can redeem us, but the blood of Jesus! Nothing that can bring us into righteousness, but the blood of Jesus!

Without Jesus, we have no reconciliation to our heavenly Father. And He was only going to live with that for so long. He could not have intimacy with us while we were stained with our sin. He literally sent His son to die to reconcile us all to His intended purpose…relationship! You cannot get more beautiful than that. 

As we close out our week, I want to encourage you to talk to God about what is on your heart. Maybe it is your husband, something going on in your marriage. Maybe it is your community. Maybe it is one of your kids and the decisions they are making. Ask Him to show you His greatness in the situation. Ask Him to reveal His love through the situation. Ask Him to show you His heart for the situation. Because His perspective changes things. It is so much greater. So much higher than our ways. And no matter how hard the situation is, I guarantee He is in it and He has something to show you about it. 

John 4:26

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

John 6:35

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

John 8:23

And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.

John 8:58

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”

John 9:5

While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”

John 10:7

So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,

John 13;13

You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.

John 14:6

Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

John 15:1

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

Revelation 1:8

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Exchanging your chains

This week we have talked about the decision to hand your chains in to the enemy (or better yet just throw them at him and never look back) and picking up your chains, or bond, to Christ. I love this discussion so much because I have walked this journey out personally and see how life changing it is to exchange your chains, to start the process of healing and discipling and maturing into the meat of the word of God, and this needs to be talked about more! After salvation should begin a beautiful process of healing, discipleship and growing intimacy with Jesus. It breaks my heart that in America the church has someone pray a prayer and then largely leaves them. Says yay! you made it into heaven, you should come back next week, bye! Not only is this detrimental to the individual, but it ruins the testimony of the gospel and leads to a very weak church. BUT, praise the Lord He is lifting up His people, raising up His remnant, and strengthening His church to fight back and bring in the harvest! Hallelujah!

Ok, but really, why is this necessary? Why can’t I just chill in my salvation and live life? Why does my life have to change and I go through this refining process? The short answer to this question is, Jesus won’t let you stay where you are :) The longer answer is because it is what we are called to do as His disciples. When you read the New Testament, it is all in there. Verse after verse telling us that we have to shed the old, and put on the new. That we have to let go of our life of sin, and begin to walk in righteousness. You will never live life to the full without being refined. You will never walk in the fullness of your gifts without being refined. And you will never understand the true joy and peace that God has for you, without being refined. Let’s read some verses about this topic:

Hebrews 12:6

because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.

Psalm 94:12

Blessed is the one you discipline, Lord,

    the one you teach from your law;

2 Timothy 3:16

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness

There are many more if you want to search through scripture for more examples. To me the greatest part of this journey is the intimacy with Jesus. There is a song I hear regularly and it says “I finally found where I belong, and it's to be with you”. These lyrics wreck me. I understand the depth of them. You see, God created us to have relationship with Him. God created YOU to have relationship with HIM. I like to say it this way…there is an unavoidable void in your life that can only be filled by God. Absolutely nothing else can fill that void, except for Jesus. And every single person has that void, because we were all created to have that intimacy with Him. So, until you are walking in relationship with Him, that void is there. My void was not filled until I opened my heart to Jesus, and said ok, let's do this. Let's start the healing process. Let’s get out the junk that life has put in me, and I ask you to refine me, to begin to restore me to who you want me to be! And guess what? That was about 10 years after my salvation. So, yes, you can receive salvation, and still have a gaping void. 

We like comfort. It is a natural desire to search for comfort. So I get why so many avoid the refining process, and do not want to heal. But the best part about going through this process with Jesus is that there is no one more gentle than He is. Yes, you will go through some correction, but ladies, there is no one, and I mean no one, more gentle than Jesus! His correction is so beautiful because there is no judgment, there is no frustration, simply a diversion and correction in the deepest love you can imagine! So don’t be afraid of it. Trust me, it’s beautiful.

If you are thinking, I am fine. I don’t have a crazy anger problem, I feel happy, I have had a simple life with no overt trauma. Then let me encourage you to do this for your family. There are always things in us that do not belong. We live in a sinful world and need healing from our savior to walk in wholeness. No one is free from the effects of sin. Levels of healing will be different, yes. But healing will happen nonetheless! And trust me, your husband and kids will thank you! You will be a better wife, you will be a better mom. You will walk in more strength that you can give to your family. You will walk in abundant love and grace that you can give to your family. And those things are worth the process. It is all worth exchanging your chains. 

So lastly, I want to touch on how to do this. It really is the simplest thing ever, yet can be so hard for us to do. All you have to do is let go. Surrender your control (or really perceived control, no one has control over their life!) and ask Jesus to come. Ask him to come and search you, search every part of you, and He will begin to reveal things that don’t belong in you. That He did not put in there, and that He desires to remove and replace with what only He can fill you with. He won’t move too fast for you, He won’t overwhelm you, He will give you time to process. He will be gentle. And He will do all the work for you! All you have to do is surrender and come to Him.

This takes time though. If you only give Him 5 minutes and get frustrated that nothing happened, well then let’s adjust those expectations some! For example, I have my time with the Lord every morning. It generally lasts from 1-2 hours and is a mixture of praying, worshiping, listening, journaling and reading scripture. This is my time in the secret place and I would not trade it for anything. I do not allow things to stop it from happening, it is the most protected time in my day. If I have to adjust then I simply wake up earlier. No excuses. This is the time that gives me life. This is the time where I find joy, peace, grace and life to the full. This is where I belong, in His presence. To go further, some mornings it seems as though nothing happens. It's very ‘normal’ if you will, I can get sleepy and I do not necessarily hear from the Lord. Other mornings I find myself overwhelmed by His grace or love. Some mornings I find myself so filled with joy I barely can contain it. Some mornings I hear straight from the throne room of God it seems and receive beautiful revelations, strong guidance and physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence. 

Everyone’s experience varies because everyone’s relationship with the Lord is different. Just like all of our relationships with each other vary. But sometimes I think getting that practical and open about things can really benefit others. I am a very practical person, so if you are too I know you will appreciate the details! And this time. This intimate, quiet time, your time in the secret place, is where He heals you. It is where He reveals to you the things that need to go, the truth of what is in your heart, His perspective of situations, His love and grace for you, His plans for you! So go to the secret place. Set aside time everyday. For us moms it is usually early morning or late night when the kids are asleep. Find time where you can set aside all distractions and worries, and just sit with Him. Talk to Him. Worship Him. And in His timing, He will show up. Don’t give up. Don’t get impatient. Learn His voice, lean in to hearing His voice and quieting your voice. Distractions will come, just fight them off. When I notice my thoughts wandering I say out loud for them to go, and physically brush it away with my hand (sounds weird, but for some reason that really helps!) I also ask the Holy Spirit to remind me of things I need to remember when we are done, and He always does :) 

So, as Paul says in Ephesians 4:17 “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.“ That is my plea. I encourage you to pursue healing with Jesus. Pursue Jesus in the secret place. Make the final decision to exchange your chains, give the enemy his back and to receive your chains for Christ!

Forgiveness

Forgiveness. It can be an uncomfortable topic. It can make you squirm in your seat. It can bring up anger, resentment, frustration at the drop of a hat. But we usually talk about forgiveness in the context of Christ’s forgiveness, how He forgave us. 

Not as often do we talk about the need for us to forgive others. The fact that we can’t accept Christ’s forgiveness, unless we forgive others. The fact that unforgiveness is like a festering wound, infected and agitating and relentless, until you confront it and decide to heal it. Forgiveness can be so hard for us that we often push it so far down that we have no conscious awareness of it anymore. We push it so far down that we can forget it ever existed, and we think we move on with our life. And when it creeps up, we are able to disguise it as something else to avoid it again. 

But as followers of Christ, forgiveness should be one of the easiest things for us to do. Even the deep wounds, from those closest to us, pail in comparison to the sacrifice Christ made for us on the cross. Pail in comparison to Him taking on our nasty sin, while we were still sinners. You see, if we truly rest in His grace, if we constantly are aware of His grace and His perfect blood washing us clean, and are continually asking Him to cleanse us, then we stay in a healthy place. We have a healthy heart. We walk in grace, therefore we can extend unending grace to those around us. We can be the witness we are called to be. We can set ourselves aside, our motives and desires, and love those around us despite the cold world we are living in. 

Forgiveness is such a big deal, ladies. It is the foundation of our faith, our forgiveness of sins through Christ’s death and resurrection! How dare we attempt to accept His forgiveness, while avoiding the unforgiveness in our own hearts. We cannot do that anymore. We must sit down, ask the Lord to search us, give Him permission to search your heart, so He can reveal any unforgiveness in our hearts. And then when He reveals it, we must surrender it to Him, we must ask for His power to help us walk through the process of truly forgiving, of truly letting go, and choosing to love that person or group again. 

These deep festering wounds, these hurtful experiences, when they go deep & are super hurtful, we need His power to work through it. We need His presence to transform us, to give us the strength to get through the situation. His presence brings the supernatural . So if you are thinking, ‘yeah she has no idea what he/she did, that is unforgivable’. I’m sorry, but it’s not. Nothing is impossible for God. And actually, what a beautiful opportunity to grow in intimacy with the Lord, and grow in your character and carrying His heart to those around you! In the cold world we are living in, what a beautiful testimony forgiveness and grace is of the love of God in our lives!

I do my best to love hard situations. Sometimes i can moan and complain a bit when going through it, but James 1:2-4 are some of my favorite verses that i quote regularly, especially when I am in a valley. Read these verses:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Let perseverance finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Sit in that for a moment… Don’t let the familiarity take away the depth.

Now for the hard part, do you live these verses out? When that person hurt you, was your response joy because you now had an opportunity to persevere through a hard situation, to lean on Jesus, and to extend His grace to that person? Or did you allow the hurt to penetrate your heart, not guarding your heart, and then maybe go gossip about it?

Ladies, it is so hard to walk the walk! If you are guilty of this, just like me, its ok. The worst thing to do is to condemn yourself and allow the enemy to seep lies in about who you are, so stop that. But change your ways! Repent, sit with the Lord, and ask Him to replace your heart of stone with a heart of flesh and to hold your hand and walk you through the forgiveness process.

Is it easy? Absolutely not. But its a narrow gate, ladies. If it would be easy it would be a wide open gate and we would not need the love, grace & power of God in our lives. But thank the Lord He knows exactly what we need! And He has given us everything we need to live a godly life, a righteous life. A life worthy of the call. 

So, let’s do it. Get in the secret place, prioritize your quiet time with the Lord, and get vulnerable. And get forgiving!