Won't you Come and Meet With Me....

For the past week, I have heard this song played over and over in my head. This is how is goes...
"I am here to meet with you. Come and meet with me." (in my imagination that part is Jesus singing to me the next part is me singing to Him) "I am am here to find you, reveal yourself to me." I wish you could hear the tune. It is so pretty. I know that Jesus has been calling me. There is so much joy in His presence.
This morning I am having a sweet time in His presence. Oh the presence of God, there's nothing like it my friends. He is calling me, he is calling you. Why? Because in His presence is fullness of joy, healing, restoration, clarity, fellowship. Sometimes when I am spending time with Him, I hear Him say, "you don't have to do anything right now, just breath, breath in my presence because you are breathing in life. You are breathing in everything you need." There is such freedom in that. I just can't express the joy there is in His presence. You will have to go there to find out! Just get alone and ask Him to fill you with His Spirit. Ask Him to give you all he's got for you. Just tell Him that this time you have set apart for just you and Him and let Him lead you in it. You may sit quietly, you may sing to Him, or begin to thank Him for all He's done, you may pour your heart out, don't worry about what you do. Just be there with Him. It's so beautiful and fulfilling. And He will begin to speak to you, I promise. He wants to speak to you and have fellowship with you. Do you know that feeling of emptiness that we all sometimes have? That feeling of dissatisfaction? That hole that we all try to fill from time to time? Well, when you are in God's presence, there is no hole! There is no void! There is fullness of joy!
"I am here to meet with you, come and meet with me."

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No Idols

This one really hit me where it hurt! But God reminded me that these words are NOT to bring condemnation but gentle correction.
One of the ten commandments is Exodus 20:4. It says: You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God am a jealous God..." Obviously this means we don't make any statues or things to worship and bow down to. And most of us don't have that problem! But what does this mean to us? Well, the Lord has shown me that an idol is anything that we think we have to have. It's anything we put in the place of God. And what do I mean by that? Well, what do you run to for comfort? What or who do you run to for encouragement? For safety, to confide in, for friendship, when you're bored? If you answered anything but God you could have something in your life that has become an idol to you. For some of us, it's a person, for others, t.v., food, drugs, alcohol, sleep, etc. etc. It could be many different things but if you have something in your life that you feel you just can't give up then maybe it's time to sit back and re-evaluate your priorities. Ask God to help you, to show you anything that may be keeping you from Him. Then ask Him to help you give it up! There is nothing wrong with watching wholesome t.v. or eating, or many others things, unless they are taking the place of God in your life. I know if we try, we can form new habits. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was our habit to run to God when we are down, or tired, or bored, or happy? Wouldn't it be wonderful if He was always the first thing we thought of? I LOVE what Joyce Meyer says, "When we have a problem, do we run to the throne or do we run to the phone?"
Do some running to the throne today. God is waiting to meet with you. After all, you are the love you His life! You are always on His mind.

Choose Life!

When I asked the Lord what to write today, I heard the words, "A soft answer turns away wrath." I was thinking about that and thinking about how we so often talk angrily to those we love. I am so guilty of that! But if we will just choose our words carefully we can avoid so much strife. Sometimes our loved ones fail us. They don't do what we expect them to and we get upset because we didn't get our way. So we lash out with angry words. And then we have strife. Everybody is unhappy and nobody wins. Is getting our way really worth all that? Maybe giving up what we wanted to happen really is worth the peace that it will bring.
We have to choose to enjoy our loved ones and treasure them. We have to choose to love them and to give them the benefit of the doubt. The people God has given us really are our greatest blessings. Are we going to enjoy them and enjoy life or are we going to manipulate them? That is kind of a harsh word but it is what God is teaching me. For example, if I wanted my husband to mow the grass and I asked him and asked him. Time and time again he still doesn't mow the grass. I could lash out in angry words and maybe even get my way. But in the process, I've destroyed a little piece of our relationship. I've taken away a little of his "free will". You see, it is so much better, to ask once and then let it go. Or maybe, not to ask at all. Then when he does it, it is so much sweeter, so much more enjoyable. And if he doesn't the natural consequences will speak for themselves. And if he doesn't I will forgive him, I will enjoy him, and I will choose to love him anyway because my love is unconditional. We can just wear ourselves out trying to make things happen. In the big picture, getting the lawn mowed really isn't all that important. But Peace reigning in our home Is! This can be applied to all of our relationships in life.
It says in Duet. 30:19 that God has set before us life and death, blessings and cursing, CHOOSE LIFE! God even gives us the answer ahead of time! Choose Life! God's words are life, if we want to have and enjoy our lives we must follow them.
So let's choose to enjoy our loved ones today, let's set them free! Let's choose life and choose "a soft answer".

Romance

When I asked God what He wanted me to write today He said, "Tell them I am waiting to meet with them. I want to spend some time with them."
Wow, isn't that sweet? It's amazing because He confirmed it to me when I read my daily devotional in "God Calling". It said, basically, what if you had to spend time with a friend and were forced to like them? You see, God wants us to run to Him because we want to, because we enjoy it. I would compare it to when you first fell in love. You couldn't wait to be with this person, every spare moment you had you would seek them out, you really wanted to hear what they had to say. God wants us to fall in love with Him. After all He is emphatically in love with us! He is so in love with you that He would have died for you even if you were the only one! And it's really not so hard to fall in love with God because He loved us first! And He is the most handsome, the strongest, the smartest, the most creative, the most loving, etc. etc. Anything you could want He is it! The first step to falling in love with God is to ask Him to help you to fall in love with Him. Believe it or not He wants to help you. Then keep focused on Him during the day. Because what you focus on is what you will desire. And spending time with him is fun! Many times we think that our times in prayer have to be us talking to him constantly. But prayer is so, so much more than that. It's fellowship. Think of times you spend with your husband. You are not always doing all the talking! You are also listening. Sometimes you are just sitting beside each other in silence, just knowing that being in each other's presence is good enough. God also loves our praise! And praise is the highest form of prayer and also great spiritual warfare! So how do you praise God? The Bible shows praise as sometimes singing to God, or raising our hands, or sometimes dancing. Sometimes it's just sitting quietly telling Him of our love for Him and telling Him how great He is. That is prayer. And listening to God is prayer! So how can we hear him? Well, when we read His word He speaks to us, when we read devotions he speaks to us. He speaks to us through our pastors and evangelists and teachers. He speaks through books and He speaks quietly to our inner man. I believe He is always speaking to us if we will listen and get in tune with Him. Sometimes He even speaks audibly. Wouldn't that be exciting? And that is prayer too! Listening to God is prayer too! Because praying is conversation! You didn't know it, but I bet you have prayed a lot more than you think you have!
So, go have a romance with God today, meet with Him, He is waiting.

Pray the Word!!!

The Bible says, "The Word of God does not return void". The most powerful pray principle I ever learned was to pray the word. Because all of God's promises are "yes" and "amen". That's a scripture too.
So, for example, if I am praying for healing, I would say to God,"Lord, I thank you that by your stripes I was healed." Because it says in Isiah that at the cross He took the lashes for our healing. If I need finances for something, I say to God, "Thank you Lord that you provide all my needs according to your riches and glory! I need money for groceries this week will you please provide it?" God has always answered my prayers one way or the other. Either I would get the money or someone would bring us food but we always have had enough. God's promise to us is that His word will NOT return void. It cannot because God cannot lie!
Another prayer principle that God just taught me yesterday is to imagine that Jesus is standing directly in front of you, with eyes full of love, and just talk to Him. Keep focused on Him. We have to practice this until our minds are disciplined in it and they don't wander to everything we have got going on that day.
I love you and be blessed today!

We Fall Down We Get Up....

I've had that song playing in my head a lot today. Have you heard it? It was written by Bob Carlisle. The line of the song that plays over and over in my head is. "Saints are just sinners who fall down and get up." It's really good and encouraging although technically it's not completely true. You see we were sinners but then we got saved and now we are "the righteousness of God in Christ." So although sometimes we sin and make mistakes, we are truly righteous in God's eyes. As human beings we are comprised of three parts, the soul, the spirit, and the flesh. The spirit is the part of us that is in tune with God. Before we were saved our spirits were dead. But when we got saved our spirits came alive! Praise God! Our flesh is the part of us that is never happy. It always wants what it wants and wants it now! The Bible says that our flesh is at enmity with God. So this is the purpose of fasting, to starve our flesh man to death (not literally of course) but to make our flesh man grow smaller we deny it what it wants. That's why the Bible says that at times we must deny ourselves, we have to say no to our flesh. And so while we are denying our flesh we are making our spirit man grow bigger. That is the goal, to have a bigger spirit man than flesh man! When we feed our spirit spiritual meals i.e. prayer, church, the Word of God we cause it to grow bigger and bigger. And when we tell our flesh no, our flesh man grows smaller and smaller. Now our soul is our mind, will, and emotions. With our soul the goal is to get it lined up with the spirit man and not the flesh man. The flesh is always striving against God. Have you ever noticed that when you go to pray or go to church all kinds of things happen with your flesh? It's crying out, "I'm hungry, feed me, I'm too cold, I'm too hot, I'm bored... on and on it goes!" So when you soul man is on your spirit's side, it says, "you will be OK body, you don't need to eat right now, what you need is to be fed the Word, or to spend some time on your knees."
I like the song, it's overall point is good. Sometimes you will fail, sometimes you will fall down. You may have bad days but just keep getting back up. We fall down, we get up, we fall down, we get up... If you are feeling bad today or you feel like you failed God again, just get back up. Ask God to forgive you if you need to. He will, instantly, you don't even have to beg! And go on. Spend a few minutes feeding your spirit and go on! Get up!