Let it Go!

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34

I have always loved birds, even when I was a little girl. For a period of 12 years of my single life, my best companion was my peach-faced lovebird. Her name was Millie and I raised her by hand. I would feed her every 4 hours with an eye dropper and we bonded. She was the best companion for me and I learned so much about birds and their habits. When I would be troubled, I would have her on my shoulder and she would look up at me with her little black eyes and it seemed she would absorb my worries and cares! She never would complain, for Millie would just take one day at a time. Even at the end of her life, she had developed a tumor in her abdomen and it was not treatable. At times you could see she was very uncomfortable and yet, she never complained. She would take one day at a time and deal with life on a daily basis. This is what scripture is telling me this morning, to focus on today and what needs to be done today – forget about what is coming tomorrow or what is around the corner. I believe God wants me to deal with the “here and now” and that includes not looking back at the past. I have seen many people that live in the past and cannot live in the present. The opposite is also true, I see many people that are always looking at what’s next, what is tomorrow going to bring. They too are not living in today. I recall that I was having a meeting with a lady that had so many problems and she was trying to deal with them all at one time. I reminded her that you cannot deal with it all in one day, so to begin with deciding what she could deal with in one day and what was the most pressing thing she had to deal with now. This helped her stop her focusing on tomorrow and all that needed to be done – that is called “worry”. She let all the future problems go out of her mind and she began to focus on what needed to be done today. It was really freeing for her and she realized that she was carrying much on her shoulders. I am using this example in a teaching I will give, “Let it Go”, at the Equipping and Empowering Night on February 12th at my church. One point that I need to stress to everyone is to live in the present and deal with only what needs to be dealt with today. This is what scripture tells me and mostly to not worry. God has everything under control.

Question: Do you have worry in your life? What do you need to let go?

Tangles Ropes of Sin

"For the Lord sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes. An evil man is held captive by his own sins;they are ropes that catch and hold him."(Proverbs 5:21-22)

As I went into my devotions today, when I read that the “ropes will catch and hold” the evil man, I went,“WOW”. Many times when I have prayed for people in the healing & deliverance ministry sessions, I have seen in the spiritual realm, these same ropes but I described them as looking like “spider webs” of sin. When I saw this photo this morning when doing my search, it was exactly what I was seeing behind people that connected them to the enemy!! Oh those tangled webs we weave when we begin to walk our own path and do things our way. We can get so misguided and begin to not rely on God and follow His way. Staying grounded everyday is my task, to come before God and repent of being so selfish and self motivating in my actions and deeds. I need God to get my heart right and cut those ropes of sin so I can be free, so my heart is lined up with the Father’s Heart and His Will. Let it not be my will, but His will be done.I no longer want to get tangled in the ropes of sin but to be set free, by the blood of Jesus!

Question: Are you tangled in ropes of sin? What is one thing that you can let go that is connecting you to this world?

Lose your Life for Jesus!

Mark 8:34-38 (New International Version)

34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
So many thoughts and ideas are swirling around in my head this morning. The need for me to stop making myself the center of everything but to get emptied out of ME and to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I need this DAILY! I just cannot cling to me and how important I am – for I am really not very important in the whole scheme of things! I am like a little ant on the sidewalk of life and then I think of how HUGE God is, the Creator of the Universe, and it puts it in a better perspective. I think about my short little lifetime and compare it to eternity with God. My life is just a blink of an eye. I think of all the times I was offended because someone said something not nice or their actions were hurtful and then I realize that I am giving way more importance to my feelings than I should. So, what do feelings have to do with it anyway? I think about this verse today and how Jesus says very clearly, that we are to lose our lives! It is about picking up our cross and walking with it, daily. It is about making God bigger than ourselves and knowing that He IS greater than i and I need to “let it go” – let go of all sense of self and begin to lift up God as bigger, stronger, more powerful than I am.
Question: Are you making yourself bigger than you should? What can you do to make yourself smaller and God bigger in your life?

Loving Others

Luke 6:27-36
27"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Loving the unloveable is a tough job! It is easy to love those that are kind, generous, humble, gentle in spirit but what about those that are mean, nasty, unfair, unkind and down right rude? I learned that hurting people hurt others. It doesn’t make the hurt go away, but it helps to try to understand their motives. Many times when we have done individual prayer sessions and we go back to traumatic events and hurts of the past we begin to look at the circumstances that surround the person but also to look at the key players in the event. When we look at the persons that were the perpetrators, they are often ones that were hurt themselves and really didn’t know any better. It is helpful to have the victim understand that, for it is easier to forgive the person if you know that they were hurt and in such pain that was why they had to act out those aggressive acts. It was not about the victim but it was about the person acting out their own hurts. It does not excuse the act itself, but it helps in the healing process and in forgiving the person. Jesus forgave those that condemned him, beat him, mocked him, nailed him to the cross and put him to death. And STILL, as he hung on the cross, he said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. How much more can we forgive our enemies and those that have hurt us? Jesus is our model to true forgiveness of others. Every time I hold onto feelings of bitterness or resentment and I feel justified that I was right, then I hold bitterness in my heart and it gives the enemy a foothold. If I release it all then I am not allowing the enemy in. May I always remember how Jesus handled persecution and to not hold onto anything.

Question: Are you holding onto any bitterness or resentment? Is there anyone you need to forgive?