Isaiah 43:18-21

Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old.  Look, I am about to do something new, even now it is coming.  Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.  The animals of the field will honor Me, jackals and ostriches, because I provide water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people. The people I formed for Myself will declare My praise.

I strongly feel God speaking to me this morning through this passage. He is saying, “Forget about the hurts of the past. Stop recollecting them. I am doing something new in your life, and I’ve already given you a glimpse of it. While you don’t see how certain things can happen, I will make a way for them.  Even the jackals who steal and devour and the ostriches who have their heads in the sand will cooperate with me in providing the way for you. I have power over them! My desire and intention is to provide relief to the dry, barren, and uncertain areas of your life so you might be made whole. I have been doing a work in your life all along, and I have formed you the way you are for My purpose. You will declare My praise for what I am doing for you.”

We cannot hold on to hurts of the past if we are to move forward in the new thing God has for us. We all need to let those things go and grab hold to that glimmer of hope he has placed in front of us. Let Him rejuvenate you with new passion and excitement to move forward. He has power over anything you think might be standing in your way, and His intention is to move you forward into a land of promise and fulfillment. 

The word wilderness here is a Hebrew word meaning pasture, as in the sense of driving. God has been leading you through that unsettled area of your life that makes you feel uncomfortable. He is going before you to clear the way for you to walk into your promise. The Hebrew word for desert here means a desolation – the place where you feel alone, in lack, and thirsty. God promises to make rivers – not just a small cup of water – in the desert to quench your thirst! He will give you an abundant supply for your area of lack!

As Psalm 23 tells us, God leads us through green pastures and beside still waters. He is the Good Shepherd, and you can trust where He is taking you. You just need to let go of the past and grasp hold to that glimpse of hope He has just given you. He is working it all out, so be ready to give Him praise when you fully see what He is doing for you!

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 127:1

Unless the LORD builds a house, its builders labor over it in vain; unless the LORD watches over a city, the watchman stays alert in vain.

Our best laid plans can only reflect good intentions and limited knowledge. No one knows the future, except God, who has the ability to change anything He wants. While we may try to build a house and put everything we have into it, God is still in control. If he doesn’t want the house built, He can stop it at any moment with whatever means He finds necessary. By the same token, if God wants it built, no demon in hell can stop it!

We must be careful to follow God’s plan, which includes submitting to it and trusting it. Pray continuously over the things God has placed in your heart, and look for doors of opportunity to open regarding those things. He will direct you in the right path. Sometimes, those doors don’t open right away. If we will simply submit the matter to Him, He will open the right doors at the right time. If we try to force them open too early, we will stunt our own growth and risk possible damage. When God is building a house, however, we would do well to get with the building program and go to work!

Attacks will come. In fact, we should expect them. God watches over us, and there is no way we can see everything that is coming. We must be willing to relinquish control to God and let Him handle the matters that threaten His work. We are His city, and He watches over us. We don’t need to lose sleep over things we can’t control but He has fully addressed already. Developing a pattern of praying, submitting, and trusting is crucial in helping build God’s kingdom. We must remember we are servants, not masters.

Accept the mindset today that if God is not in it, you don’t want it. If He is in it, He will make it happen and open the right door for you. If He is not in it, there is nothing you can do about it, anyway. Perhaps, His timing hasn’t come yet. Praying, submitting, and trusting will prevent you from missing His timing when it comes. He has something wonderful for you, and He is positioning you for success.

Have a blessed day!

Acts 9:31

So the church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, and it increased in numbers.

This verse reveals the key to physical growth that many churches fail to understand. We often develop programs to try to bring people into our churches or ministries, and programs will fail every time. The church is about people – not programs or gimmicks designed to attract more people. While people may come to an attraction, if there is no substance, they will not return.

The believers throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria grew in physical numbers because they were growing and increasing spiritually. Physical growth happens only after spiritual growth. Spiritual growth comes when believers are built up, strengthened, and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. A church grows by investing in its people, not by investing in programs. 

The Devil is always at work trying to tear down and discourage God’s people. Don’t cooperate with him.  Look for ways to build each other up and to encourage one another daily. Godly, caring community edifies the individual and strengthens the body of believers, but isolation destroys. Developing healthy relationships brings spiritual and physical growth.

Pray with me today that God will begin to strengthen us spiritually. The more isolated we are, the more discouraged we will become. Reach out to someone who may be alone today, and encourage her in the Lord. We all need encouragement to face the days ahead, and we all need each other. You stand nothing to lose from encouraging someone, and you can only be blessed in the process. Go ahead.  Make someone’s day!

Have a blessed day!

Psalm 125:4-5

Do what is good, LORD, to the good, to those whose hearts are upright. But as for those who turn aside to crooked ways, the LORD will banish them with the evildoers.

You can count on God to do what is good. He will always lift those who are upright in heart and who seek to do good to others and not harm. God always edifies and builds up His people who trust in Him. The Devil, however, comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Those who seek to tear down and damage are his disciples, and God will banish them from a fruitful land and deny them any inheritance in His kingdom.

Those who seek to destroy have impure motives of competition, greed, or revenge. God is just and big enough to provide everyone with more than enough. His favor on you does not limit His favor on me. My alignment with His word and to His call on my life is what will open and shut the flow of His favor. By His grace and through His favor come everything we need to succeed in life, and they are already ours in Christ.

If you have to lie, cheat, steal, kill, manipulate, intimidate, or demand to get something, it does not come by God’s favor. When God gives you something, it comes to you freely and completely. Taking something illegitimately does not bring the full satisfaction of receiving it through the blessing of God. If God doesn’t give it to you or approve of it, you don’t want it! Sometimes what we want will destroy us in the end, and God denies it in order to protect us. He freely and lavishly gives us everything we need to fulfill our calling in Him, and we need only to trust Him.

Determine to live by God’s grace and do good at all times. Don’t seek what is not yours, and learn to depend upon God’s favor to open doors no one else can open for you. He will do good to those who do good, and He will banish those who do evil. An open heart for His grace and favor is much more blessed than a heart set to gain at any cost.

Have a blessed day!

Isaiah 63:9

In all their suffering, He suffered, and the Angel of His Presence saved them. He redeemed them because of His love and compassion; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of the past.

While this is most likely a reference to God’s response to the children of Israel while they suffered under Egyptian bondage, it describes His heart toward His children today. When we suffer, God suffers, too.  He feels our pain. We are made in His image, and when we hurt, He hurts. 

We might wonder then, if God can feel our pain, why doesn’t He do something about it? Why doesn’t He eliminate it or prevent it altogether? Pain and suffering are a part of the fallen world in which we live.  He promises us eternal life with Him in heaven, where we will never suffer from pain again. He does, however, promise to be with us through the pain we experience here on earth. In all their suffering, the Angel of His Presence saved them. The Angel of His Presence saves us in the midst of our suffering, too.  What we suffer now is temporary. Where He is taking us is eternal.

We must come to look at pain and suffering as temporary. For whatever reasons we have to endure such times, God is with us, and He suffers, too. He will not allow us to remain in suffering any longer than necessary. He will provide a way out because of His great love and compassion for us. When we think we can’t go even one step further, he will lift us up and carry us to the place where we need to be.  Suffering comes for a reason, and it must do its perfect work. Most surgeries are usually painful, but they do a healing work in us that is necessary. Somehow, God will make sure that the pain and suffering we experience today will benefit us in the long run; He will not allow it to be wasted.  If we have to endure it, we can count on a reward from it in some way.

 Know today that wherever you are hurting, God hurts, too. Seek His Presence because it will lead you out of your misery. God is compassionate toward you, and He will carry you through to victory. This, too, shall pass, and you will rejoice in what He does for you!

Have a blessed day!

2 John 1:6

And this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: you must walk in love.

According to John, who was divinely inspired to write the gospel named after him and three letters to his followers, to walk in love is to walk according to the commands of Jesus. Jesus was not a weak, wimpy, mousy, passive individual who taught in the synagogues and never offended anyone. In fact, the religious leaders found His teaching very offensive – offensive enough to kill Him! Jesus was a strong, assertive Master Teacher who spoke with authority and power, and people were divinely drawn to Him. If you walk in love as Jesus did, you will offend those who oppose the gospel. 

Walking in love does not mean that you agree with everyone and condone sin as acceptable. To walk in Jesus’s commands means you recognize sin as sin, and you reject it into your life. You also must be willing to confront others in love who struggle with sin and let them know Jesus can help them overcome sin in their lives. Jesus did this with the woman at the well. He did not condone her sin; He confronted her with it. When He did, she became convicted of her sinful lifestyle.

You cannot convict people of sin. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. Unless the Holy Spirit convicts and the Lord draws people to Christ, they will not come to know Him. As long as we condone sin and make everything acceptable in the church, people will continue to live comfortably in their sin, thinking everything is fine. Unless they see a difference, they will blend in with us and, perhaps more debilitating to the gospel, we will blend in with them. As Christians, we are to live lives of distinction from the world.

1 John 5:16:

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not bring death, he should ask, and God will give life to him – to those who commit sin that doesn’t bring death. There is sin that brings death. I am not saying he should pray about that.

John gives us the answer on how to address those who insist upon living a sinful lifestyle in his first letter. We are to pray. If we pray anything according to God’s will, we know He hears us, and we have what we asked of Him. Praying for the Holy Spirit to convict a sinful person and for that person to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is always God’s will. He is not willing that any should perish but that all would come to Christ. We should pray more and argue less. We aren’t trying to win arguments; we are trying to win souls.

Determine to walk in love by walking according to Jesus’s commands. Reject sin in your own life, and pray for those you know who insist on living a sinful lifestyle. You can’t make a decision for anyone else, but you can pray. God hears such prayers and answers, which makes your walk very powerful. Walking in love is certainly of life of obedience and prayer and never an “I’m ok; you’re ok” attitude.

Have a blessed day!

Ruth 4:11

The elders and all the people who were of the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is entering your house be like Rachel and Leah, who together built the house of Israel. May you be powerful in Ephrathah and famous in Bethlehem…”

The elders at the gate in Bethlehem pronounced this prophecy over Ruth as Boaz contracted to take her as his wife. Boaz gladly and honorably took the obligation to marry her, and he had certainly taken notice of her. While Scripture does not give a physical description of Ruth, her submissive, dedicated, and friendly demeanor indicate a lovely woman. In her we find the foreign widow taken as the bride of the kinsman redeemer. We see a beautiful picture of grace (acceptance of the foreigner) replacing the law by fulfilling it (Levrite marriage to inherit property). Indeed, Christ fulfilled the law that we could not keep so we might receive His grace and become His bride, inheriting all the blessings of heaven. 

Leah and Rachel together built the household of Israel, and every son was important as the twelve tribes of Israel emerged. These sons would give birth to the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people. Ruth’s lineage would produce Obed, Jesse, David, and finally Jesus, who would give His life for the entire world.  Through Him, Jew and Gentile could become God’s children and receive the blessings promised Abraham.

By prophesying that Ruth would be like both Leah and Rachel, the elders proclaimed wholeness to Ruth.  She would not have the void that each woman felt because she would possess the blessings of each and have all her needs met. Salvation in Christ will not only save you from hell, it has the power to make you whole, lacking nothing and equipped to do every good work to which God has called you. 

These elders also pronounced Boaz powerful in Ephrathah and famous in Bethleham.  Ephrathah means fruitfulness; Bethlehem means house of bread. Their blessing was for Boaz to be powerful in fruitfulness and famous for providing bread. In Christ, we have both. He is able to make us powerful through the fruitfulness of His Holy Spirit and famous among the hungry because we can feed them in the places there they are hurting. 

We need the blessing of Ruth, who was like both Leah and Rachel. We need to be made whole and to walk in fruitfulness while providing bread for the hungry, both physically and spiritually. May we be women like both Leah and Rachel and work together to build God’s kingdom. 

Have a blessed day! 

Psalm 121:1-2

I raise my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Have you ever felt like you just needed help, but no one was there to help you? Have you ever been so overwhelmed with things to do that you just knew you could not do it all alone? Welcome to my world! I know many of you feel this way as widows, too.

God knows every demand that is made on you and all the things that need your attention. He is your very present help in times of trouble, and He is there with you to help you do whatever you need to do. Your help is the Maker of heaven and earth, and there is no job or task too great for Him. Sometimes, He will bring the help you need in the form of another person, and sometimes He may just help you focus on priorities while He takes care of the rest. The key is letting Him have control of your life so He can work out all the details you are too busy to handle at the moment.

Know for certain today that you do have help, and He will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5). You don’t have to carry your burdens alone, so surrender whatever you need done to God. He is for you, and nothing can stand against you (Rom. 8:31). He will work all things together for your good and His glory (Rom. 8:28). Stay close to your Maker in prayer, casting every burden on Him because He cares for you (1Peter 5:7).

Have a blessed day!

Genesis 30:17-21

God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, “God has rewarded me for giving my slave to my husband,” and she named him Issachar.

Then Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. “God has given me a good gift,” Leah said. “This time my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons,” and she named him Zebulun. Later, Leah bore a daughter and named her Dinah.

Just prior to this verse, Rachel foolishly traded her night with Jacob for Leah’s mandrakes, which were believed to increase fertility. As a result Leah conceived. Intimacy gave Leah the very thing Rachel wanted but could not acquire on her own. We must learn that we cannot manipulate a blessing from God. He is more than willing to bless us, but He will bless us on His terms and not our own. Rachel wanted more than just sons. Some scholars believe she wanted control of the household and power over Leah. If she had that, she could potentially run Leah from the household, and that was not God’s plan. He bridled Rachel by not giving her sons. 

God listened to Leah. All she wanted was to be loved by her husband, and God had a heart for her.  What would it take for God to listen to us?  If only we could realize that intimacy with God brings Him closer to us and gains His full attention, would we not spend more time with Him? Would He not listen to our prayers, hear out cries, and intervene on our behalf to grant exactly what we needed? All the mandrakes in the world could never gain His attention nor cause us to bear fruit in God’s kingdom. God desires the heart that longs to seek Him and to hear from Him. To that heart, He grants His full attention and intervenes on her behalf. He does not reward magic potions or formulas designed to manipulate a blessing for selfish and ungodly purposes. He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

Take time today to cultivate intimacy with God. Spend time in His Word and in prayer. Pour your heart out to Him, and listen to what He has to say. Embrace His fellowship. God listens to those who desire Him and do not try to manipulate their own blessing. He will listen to you, and you will find your answer in the time you spend with Him.

Have a blessed day!

John 2:4-5

“What has this concern of yours to do with Me, woman?” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.”

“Do whatever He tells you,” His mother told the servants.

These two verses seem to contradict each other. The setting is the wedding at Cana, where the host ran out of wine. Mary took the matter to Jesus in a manner which implied she expected Him to fix it. Jesus avoided responsibility by telling her His hour had not yet come. Mary left the matter with Him and instructed the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do.

Mary exhibited a power here that few women learn, especially in our society where the word “submission” is almost taboo. Mary submitted the issue to Jesus and left it with Him to handle. She gave Him full authority to do whatever He needed to do, and she walked away so He could do His job.

For anyone to submit a matter requires three things to be in place: authority, responsibility, and trust. Authority is the power to do something, but it requires responsibility. The two go hand in hand; he who has the authority of a matter also carries the responsibility. On the flip side of that rule is the fact that anyone who has been given a responsibility must have the authority to carry it out. To give someone responsibility without giving them the authority or power to do what is needed sets the person up for failure. This is the first rule of Management 101, and it is the reason most small businesses fail. Failure to delegate can be summed up in one word – trust.

You will have trouble delegating – submitting – to anyone to whom you do not trust. Wherever you have a submission problem, you have a trust issue. Submission must be voluntary. Forced submission is coercion.

In these verses, Mary took the matter to Jesus, who realized He did not have authority in that place. Therefore, He avoided responsibility at first. Mary then instructed the servants to do whatever He told them. Most scholars believe Mary was actually helping with this wedding, which was probably the wedding of a relative. In this case, Mary surrendered her authority to Jesus.

Mary could do nothing about the fact that the wine was gone. When she no longer had the power or ability to handle the matter, she looked for someone who did – Jesus. We must realize that there are some things in our life which are just too great for us to handle. At that time, we would be wise to do as Mary did and fully submit the matter to Jesus. To ask Him to help us and try to keep our hands in the matter proves we don’t fully trust. If we are going to make Him responsible, we must give Him the authority to carry out what He needs to do. Through submission, Mary turned control into power.

What issue are you facing that is beyond your control? Follow Mary’s lead, and trade control for power by submitting it fully to Jesus. Deal with your trust issues by accepting the fact that He loves you with an unfailing love, and He can do this better than you can. Mary’s submission led to a miracle, and yours can, too. Jesus has your best interest at heart, and you can always trust Him to do the right thing. The guests at this wedding received superior wine as a result. Let the grace of Jesus surprise you with the best wine possible for your want. He is the expert at miracles!

Have a blessed day!