Prayer

Jesus, I need you!
You are my Lord, my God, my King. You are worthy of all of my worship. Help me, by your grace, to know you and love you so deeply and dearly that the things of this world fade away and grow strangely dim. I want to worship you and you alone. I don’t want to be forged by the culture. I am in you; I want to be one with you. Bind my heart to yours, and place your truth deep within me. I not only want to know you and your Word, I want to have the desire to forsake sin and follow you and your Word. Enable me to worship you in spirit and in truth. I need your power, your grace, and your love so that no matter what life brings my way, I can respond to each situation, each person, and each trial the way you would respond—all for your glory. I don’t want to respond merely outwardly, but rather from within, from the river of living water. I want to be so close to you, Jesus, that your Spirit flows forth from me in all I do and say. May I find all of my joy in you. May I glorify you in all I say and do. (Psalm 42:1-2a; Galatians 2:20) No matter where I am, what I am doing, what Scripture I am reading, or what song I am singing, I want my mind, my energies, and my heart focused on you and not on me and my circumstances. I want you and you alone. No matter if I succeed or fail, win or lose, am rich or poor, am included or excluded, am known or forgotten, may I be content knowing that you are mine and I am yours. May my chief aim be to love you and be loved by you, to please you and serve you. Help me to see my sin, mourn it, and forsake it, by your grace. Help me hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Lord Jesus, grant me your grace, your mercy, and your lovingkindness to enable me to see you, know you, love you, and be one with you. Thank you that your Word tells me if we ask anything in your name and according to your will that you will do it.
 Amen. (John 14:13-14)

Light in the world

Matthew 5:14-16

New International Version (NIV)

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

We Need each other

We need each other. There is nothing more encouraging than a brother or sister in Christ "spurring you on to love and good deeds." But just as deflating is a brother or sister who talks you out of your convictions. I am tired of this! God has given us the ability to be a life-giver to someone's faith, to breathe a flame into a fire for the things of Christ. If my convictions line up with scripture, I need to hear someone say, "You will never regret this in light of eternity." Or, "It may be difficult, but you have to do what the Spirit is leading you to do!"

Do you find yourself giving courage (encouragement) to other believers? If not, could it be that you are holding back so that you don't have to feel any conviction? Ask the Lord to search your heart on this, because He is waiting to use you in the life of your friend, husband, child... Ask God to give you the opportunity to be a life-giver.

"Encourage one another and build one another up." (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Suit up

Do you ever get so overwhelmed and discouraged being a woman? There are so many obstacles to endure in one day. Before I open the door and enter the war zone, I spend time with my King. In other words, I suit up and put my armor on. No sooner do I put my foot on the enemy's territory than my shield goes up and I am darting arrows as fast as I can. Then I lose my bearings and drop my shield and the enemy takes me down. The enemy is not some creature from another place; it's someone I know really well. It's me, my flesh.

When I received Christ, I received the Holy Spirit. I now have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Hebrews 10:16 says, "This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." I have no excuse; God gave me a part of him. He gave me the same power He gave Jesus. I ask myself daily, "Why do I waste such a priceless gift?" So many times it's my flesh that is first to cross the finish line.

This is when I go into my quiet chamber (my closet), enter the throne room, and get on my knees and say, "Forgive me Father. Once again I thought I could do it in my strength. Please fill me with your Spirit till my heart and soul are overflowing." I am now confident to fight my enemy and enter the battle. I now pick up my cross and follow Jesus.

"So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you!" (Hebrews 10:35)

Our Heart's Desire

Have you ever been singing a worship song, and wondered if you could actually mean what the lyrics were saying?

When I sing songs about God being more than enough for me, andall that I want, I struggle with the integrity of those statements. I know at moments it is true; there are moments when I taste that God is, in fact, enough for me. But there are also so many moments when He is not all that I want. There are a lot of things that crowd out my contentment in Christ.

This is all the more reason to embrace denying ourselves. There has to be a connection between our dissatisfaction in Christ alone, and our over-indulgence in stuff.

The more we have, the more we crave. The more we crave, the more we pursue. And whatever it is we are pursuing, that becomes our treasure—our hearts' desire.

So imagine how this applies spiritually: The more of Christ that we experience, the more of Him we crave. The more we crave that intimacy with Him, the more we pursue Him. And as we pursue Him, He becomes our treasure—our hearts' desire!

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."(Matthew 6:21)

We need to make room in our hearts for God. And I really believe it will happen as we let go of some of our earthly pleasures and treasures. Pray for a heart of contentment today. Ask God to help you love Him more than any other thing. He really is more than enough for us... we just need to see it and believe it.

We can all agree that it's easy to get caught up in the difficulty of denying ourselves. Some can't even get past it, so they give up before they even begin to learn how to do it. So what if today was different? What if today you focused on the outcome of self denial; the benefits that far outweigh the difficulties.

For example: you commit to denying yourself of the time spent watching TV for the week. Which, amazingly, means you added a whole hour, or three, to your day. You have the ability to go through your Bible with care, and actually have time to really come before the Lord in prayer. It's concentrated prayer for your family and the ones you love. This, inevitably, makes you feel more intimacy with God and gives you peace you didn't even realize you were lacking.

Maybe one evening you engage your kids in a meaningful conversation that you never could have planned, but one that just happened, because all the noise in the background was gone.

Then one night as you're finishing mowing the lawn, you realize you have time to mow your neighbors' lawn. The one who just lost her husband, and you can't get over how amazing it feels to bless someone in the smallest of ways.

As you consider the dramatically different turn your week has taken, you realize this all started with a simple, difficult decision to deny yourself.

It's so worth it! You can't always see or know the blessings that will come to you on the front end of obedience and surrender. So dive in. Trust God to do immeasurably more than anything you could imagine. Let Him work in you and show you things you have never seen before.

JOy

There is so much joy to be known in our walk with Christ. Joy is one of the most powerful emotions. It draws people in, it motivates the heart, it is contagious! Joy is something that can transcend circumstances, because it is wrapped around our hope in Christ.

I would hate for us to get so caught up in the pain of self-denial, that we lose our joy in the process. Of course it is difficult to go against our flesh- but we are never without hope. There is always a joy in obedience, because we are honoring God, and displaying that He is worth our sacrifice. Christ laid down his life for "the joy that was set before Him." And we too can lay our lives down willingly, because we are confident of the JOY we will experience. "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory..." (1 Peter 1:8)

My prayer for today is that an inexpressible joy would well up in our hearts, that this joy would overshadow every struggle against our own desires and motivate us to keep dying to ourselves. And ultimately, this joy in us would draw people to Christ, the hope of glory.