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?

Being a Christian is Like Being a Pumpkin

I got an email the other day and this saying was on it. I was amazed at how true this is, so I wanted to share it with all of you!

"Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see."

I totally agree with this, for we ALL are from that same earthly patch and how grateful I am that God lifts us out of the dirt and cleans us up!

Question: Have you gone through the pumpkin patch process in your life? Is God's light shining brightly for all to see? If not, what can you do about it?

The Core of Living - Love

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited." Romans 12:14-16

Getting to the core of living through Romans 12 is the lesson for today. Just as we see in the center of the peach, that is the essence of the fruit, the core. That is what I am to glean from today’s scriptures, on how I need to get back to the core of living by learning to love one another. Loving one another is evident from all of chapter 12 in Romans but look at how we are to treat those that persecute us! We are to bless them and not curse them. We are to come along side of those that are having tough times and we are just to live in HARMONY with one another. The essence, or the core of our lives should be LOVE. We are to love one another more than ourselves.I am to look within myself today and ask, what is in my core? Is there self? Is there love for others that people can see as the fruit of my life? I want to live that, every second of my day. May God take away anything that is not of him and replace it with the fruit of the spirit – love! I want my core to be love and not self!

Question: What is in your core?

Spirit of Fear

"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." Romans 8:15 (NIV)

This was an amazing scripture that I got today in my daily devotions because in my ministry time yesterday, our teaching topic was on “Fear”. How amazing that emotion is. Just as God made the flowers above, there are some flowers that appear fresh and beautiful and others seem weak and wilting. The difference in the two flowers is like people – one is blooming as God intended due to their trust and faith in God and the other is wilting because they are under the opression of FEAR. We can either accept a lie that the enemy has given us or we can choose to release it and trust in God.

Yesterday I saw three women set free from “fear” in our ministry time and it was huge. I was so excited about what happened and it blew me away as how to the Holy Spirit brought up the fear in the lives of God's precious women and how each one began to repent, renounce and break the fear that was over them. God is so good and showing them that the enemy was stealing their peace by having the "Spirit of Fear" – sucking the life out of them. When we feel fear we need to realize it is not a Fruit of the Spirit but it is coming directly from the enemy. That is his weapon to steal, kill and destroy the peace in our lives!

Question: Are you experiencing fear in your life? Begin to release that fear in your life by asking the Holy Spirit to show you a lie that you believe, then ask God to forgive you for not trusting Him and ask that "Spirit of Fear" to be released in your life. God wants to set you free from fear today!

Pit-Dwelling?

Psalm 34
A psalm of David, regarding the time he pretended to be insane in front of Abimelech, who sent him away.

"I will praise the Lord at all times.
I will constantly speak his praises.
I will boast only in the Lord;
let all who are helpless take heart.
Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness;
let us exalt his name together." Psalm 34:1-3

I have heard people say,”Praise the Lord” when something good happens. My thought today is that it does not only have to be during the good times in our lives. Read the 2nd verse where it says, “let all who are helpless take heart”. Don’t you think it odd that the first verse is about praising God and the second is about being lifted up from a state of helplessness? It is not by chance, for it is what I have read about in many books on prayer. It is called the “power of praise”. No matter how far down in the pit that you are, no matter what you are facing in life, we are to praise the Lord. Begin to praise Him and thank him for all the things that are good in your life and what He has blessed you with...eyes, hands, feet and do not focus on the pit that surrounds you and what you don't have. When you begin to praise Him, worship Him and sing your heart of love for your God, then you will begin to see light and often find yourself outside the pit, not looking down!

Question: Are you having a pit dwelling experience? Begin to thank God for the good things in your life, for there are many. Start today!

At His Gates - Listening, Watching and Waiting

"Happy are those who listen to me, watching for me daily at my gates, waiting for me outside my home! For whoever finds me finds life and wins approval from me outside my home!" Proverbs 8:34-35 Proverbs (NLT)

As soon as I read these verses, I got the most wonderful visual of what the Lord was saying. I saw a country cottage with a fence outside. Then I found this picture and thought how perfect it was to illustrate the verses. As I reflected on the scripture a few words spoke to me. The first was, "How often am I to seek the Lord?" The verse is quite clear, it said "daily". Then, "How does the Lord want me to seek Him?"

The scripture says to "listen", "watch" and "wait". Those three words were magnified for me. I realized that I need to listen to God and I am to seek Him daily in His Word. God can speak to me through scripture and the Holy Spirit will magnify it and it will come to life. The living Word will show me how God wants me to live my life and will show me His way. I am to go to that country cottage and stand at His gates and listen, watch and wait. I thought of the example of people standing outside the gates of the rich and famous, waiting for the perfect moment for the celebrity to make an appearance. That is how I am supposed to anticipate the Lord speaking to me and He can do it in many ways. He can speak through His Word, people, circumstances, worship and nature. All I have to do is to be standing at the gate in anticipation for Him to make an appearance!

Question: Are you daily waiting at the Lord's gate for Him to make an appearance? What can you do today to get to that country cottage and listen, watch and wait?

Focus on Jesus

"Sing to the Lord, all the earth; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples." 1 Chronicles 16:23-24

As I read this verse today, I thought about all the times when I didn't feel like praising God because of the trials or unpleasant circumstances that surrounded me. I began to meditate on this and realized that my praising God is not based on the circumstances in my life. Let not the circumstances of life dictate the circumstances of your heart. Then, I had a lady in my bible study tell me that in New York there are carriages that are pulled by horses. These horses wear blinders on their eyes so that they are not distracted. Since they are in traffic there are many distractions all around them and the blinders will cut them out. I thought about how that illustration is like in our lives when we too can get distracted from our spiritual journey by all the circumstances that surround us. Then another lady shared with me Habakkuk 3:17-18:

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God my Savior."

So I am to be like that horse, and put the blinders up on my eyes and not focus on the troubles in my life, but keep my focus on Jesus! I want my focus to be on Him and not on myself. He deserves the praises for not what He does, but because of who He is. 

Question: Are you in some trying times right now and need to be rescued? Take your eyes off your circumstances and focus on the Lord. He is the one that will rescue you and sustain you, no matter what circumstances surround you.

The Freeway of Life

Lamentations 3:40 (New Living Translation)
" Instead, let us test and examine our ways.
Let us turn back to the Lord."

Have you ever gotten lost on a freeway?  Have you every found yourself in a place where you had not intended to go? It is like that in our daily spiritual journey in life. How easy it is to lose focus and begin to drift away from God and then we may realize that we need to stop and examine ourselves, to see if we are going in the right direction.

This scripture really spoke to me today! Drifting away...loosing focus....taking the wrong freeway exit...finding yourself in a place that you know you are lost! I think of the times when I have gone on road trips in my car and had to navigate myself around and not knowing where I was going. I recall a time when I did a house exchange with a lady from San Francisco. I spent two weeks in her home and she spent two weeks in mine. It was amazing. I had a rental car and I would venture out in the car to unfamiliar places. I would get up in the morning and look at my map and figure out where I was going and write down all the directions, paying close attention to the major freeway exits. I planned a road trip to San Jose and I mapped my route and had it all written down. I got in the car and after about 30 minutes I was driving with confidence. I began to not pay attention and began driving in the “cruise mode". Then before I knew it, I saw an exit and thought," I think that is my exit". I did not look at my written directions, but used my memory to guide me. So I took an immediate exit and after a few minutes I realized that I was in a neighborhood that was totally wrong. It was scary because I was lost and I had to find my way back to the freeway. I did a few turns and eventually got back on the freeway. I consulted the written notes and realized that I took an exit that had a similar word in it but it was not the exact exit. A few exits after that, the correct one came up. My course was corrected and I was on my way to San Jose.

Isn’t that like our spiritual walk? We can be doing “life” and be in the cruise mode and not be paying attention. We may not be  intentional and can become complacent. Then, we may find ourselves lost because we have not been checking our life road map (God’s Word) and have taken the wrong exit. It is getting to that point when we realize that we are lost and need to return. We can get back through finding the right freeway entrance. I know that I can prevent taking the wrong exit by staying on course, staying in God’s Word daily and to follow His map of life. I cannot get in the cruise mode or I will miss it. Just as this scripture says, we need to stop and examine where we are at, and if that is not where we need to be, make the correction and Turn Back to the Lord! 

Question: Are you in God's Word daily to know the right direction in your life? Stop for just a few minutes and reflect on where you are in your spiritual journey and ask if you need to make a course correction.