Arm Yourself

Child, the Lord is on your side, and He provides you tools that will enable you to survive the strategies of the forces arrayed against you.  Use these tools.  Withdrawing from the battle does not work, because the battle will not withdraw from you.  A soldier who will not fight can nevertheless suffer injury.  Arm yourself. 

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 

--Ephesians 6:10-18

Partake of the Savior

Surely he hath borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows…(Isaiah 53:4 KJV)

There you have it.  You are not Christ.  You are the partaker not the Provider, the child, not the adult; the Lord asks you to feed upon Him, not to apportion yourself out to others so they can feed upon you.  In ministry those who are very young in the faith may be nourished by His presence in you; but that is a very different thing from offering your body a living sacrifice to them (as they will desire you to do…you must direct them to the Lord rather than attempting to save them yourself).  Your sacrifice is exclusively His.  Lay down your life to the LORD, not to other human beings.  Being “nice” does not get you to Heaven.  Being liked or loved by human beings is not the way to where He is.  Partaking of the Savior, not becoming a savior yourself is the way to peace. 

Sweeten the Message

God's voice, as it flows through you, becomes flavored with who you are in Him. Sin would taint the final product, but a pure heart and mind only lends flavor, like a teaspoon of vanilla in cookie dough. You actually have the opportunity to enhance His message—not to change it, but to enhance it—when you walk the narrow way.

Although he himself was slovenly, Balaam repeated God's messages verbatim; and the Lord's power is such that Balaam was recognized as a prophet. God's word will stand, regardless of the individual He uses as a vessel or a channel. But how much better if His spokesperson sweetens the message!

God uses those He chooses, and you must not gauge the veracity of a prophet’s message based on the appearance of the prophet. But He has placed His hand on your unique way of expressing your thoughts and feelings. Again He reminds you, do not edit your responses based on the reactions of other people, but look to the Lord!


Scripture: "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10).

Faith

Turmoil in the world along with failures in your personal faith walk have caused you to suffer a low level, energy sapping depression. Turn from your negative thoughts and accept that there is hope for your future. Of course there will be struggles, but you will become stronger, happier, more certain of your eternal destiny, more cognizant of your faith in God.

Your faith is the precious conduit through which Heaven flows to Earth via the terminal of your heart. As a prism divides a beam of light into the colors of the spectrum, God's word flowing to your heart by faith can be directed to minister to the needs of those who are earthbound. The Lord touches the world through your heart and hands, and He has come to your heart through faith. Your faith in God through Jesus Christ via the Holy Spirit provides the healing power of grace to a hurting world.

Scripture: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1 KJV

Christ in You

How easily you doubt the veracity of the gift you have been given. God's voice channels through your mind, and the vernacular that results seems an unlikely expression for the Most Holy God. Do not doubt Christ in you. The piquant tone your voice lends to the truths He speaks through you does not diminish the truth itself. The Lord  cannot be contained or channeled through a human vessel, but when you are  yielded to Him, you become an instrument in His hand. The melody of your words is the result of the virtuosity of the master musician; Mozart played on a harmonica is still Mozart!

You are a unique and beautiful instrument that each day is being conformed more and more into His likeness. When you are perfected, you will be uniquely beautiful; a lovely expression of the creativity and love of your Lord and God. 

Scripture:  "To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  

Uncomfortable Truth

Our Heavenly Father endures the outcry of His suffering saints for one reason and one reason alone, and that is for the sake of the unsaved. If the work of offering salvation to those who are able to be rescued were complete, then the Lord would hasten to return and end the suffering of this broken world once and for all.

What have we done to further His cause of saving those who are lost?

We can anesthetize the pain that is the inevitable result of living in a broken world. We can hide in our houses and pull the covers of comfort over our heads. We can allow fear to separate us from an awareness of God’s will for those who are in need of our ministering hands and hearts.

Or we can say, “Here I am, send me,” (Isaiah 6:8) and, “Come, Lord Jesus!" (Revelation 22:20).

Our participation in His work hastens the time of His return. Our desire for perfect unity with Him fuels our efforts to speed His return. If we truly desire His return, we will want to help in the effort to complete His work.

Here Am I

You are not to seek repentance, but rather, holiness. There is a difference.

The desire to be holy springs from the desire to be closer to God, to enter into His presence, and to gaze in adoration upon His face. The first, faltering steps toward Holiness almost immediately results in the humiliation of Godly sorrow, because it becomes instantly apparent that you fall short of that which is necessary to enter God’s presence. All your sins stand out in bas relief*. It becomes very clear that you need a Savior. Repentance is the willingness, born of desire for God and humble awareness of one’s own sin, to accept the Holy Blood of the Savior in order to gain God’s presence.

To seek holiness is to seek God Himself.

*Note: Bas-relief (pronounced bah-relief) refers to fine lines carved into stone. The design stands out from the background and is especially apparent when light casts shadows across the design.

Scripture: "'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.'


"Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.'

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?'

"And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'" (Isaiah 6:5-8).

Service

You pray for help with self-discipline, but the Lord will do much more than that. He will help you to remember your love for Him. Your tendency is to focus on all the ways you have failed, but the truth is that every day you bless Him with your love. In fact, if the Lord were to reward you for every righteous act you perform, you would soon acquire an elevated opinion of your own worth that would make you insufferable.

You know that none of your righteous acts purchase cleanliness; be sure to let this fact produce humility. Your purity before Him comes entirely from the blood of Jesus. Nothing you ever do will be enough, because the only medium that can elicit the needed change in your heart and mind is the Holy Blood of Christ. You cannot obtain the recipe for this precious life force; you must receive it as a gift. Let your acts of service flow out of the humility of the knowledge that you are a forgiven sinner.

Scripture: "Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the Gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else" (2 Corinthians 9:13).

Pull With Him

Turn your eyes from your grief (which is anticipatory, not actual) and place them on the Lord. You have the mistaken belief that your loved ones can control their own hearts and motivations, but the Lord is the only one whose reach extends to the full depth and breadth of the human heart. Your loved ones cannot control these hidden motivations for themselves any more than you can reach the influences that cause you to say, “I do what I do not want to do.” Your loved ones are unable to change themselves to please you, but God can change them to be pleasing unto Himself. Direct your energy to pull with Him. Guard your words and actions carefully and flow with the Holy Spirit’s love.

A Weapon in God's Hand

You are a weapon in the Lord’s hand, not the other way around.

You are an arrow in His quiver, safe in Him as He carries you, safe in Him if He shoots you forth. Because He is God He never sends you beyond His reach.

It’s an immature perspective to think of God as YOUR weapon. You don’t keep the Almighty Lord like a concealed weapon, ready to be drawn when you are threatened or afraid. He is the Lord. You are His. You belong to Him. Somehow He also, through Jesus and through Holy Spirit Power; through God’s great love…somehow He is also yours. Jesus did change the water to wine at His mother’s request. But the driving perspective of your life needs to be, “Here am I, send me.”

Prioritize Your Time

You may confide to the Lord in detail all that is troubling You. There is no rule or law against pouring out your heart to Him, but you must not stop there. Thus it becomes important to prioritize your time when you come to sit at His feet. “Seek ye first…” (Matthew 6:33). First look at His face; gaze upon His countenance. Heart hurts will be uncovered, yes, but the overwhelming awareness will be of His love and of His grace.

Start Now

If you design a plan with the goal of obtaining physical health for yourself, and follow the letter of your self-made law, you build a security based on false righteousness and self worship.

If you rightly decide that God's love is to be the focus of your life, but then with the intent of creating your own opportunities make a list of your idea of ways that you can serve Him, you once again fall to the deception that you can become righteous through a plan of your own making.

You are to be God's love in the midst of the circumstances in which HE has placed you. Your opportunity to serve the Lord does not wait for some future time in which you plan to be more fit, have more energy, or to have obtained opportunities to serve Him according to your own ideas of what constitutes great deeds for the Lord . Be His voice, His hands, and His heart today, in the circumstances that you are in.

Don't underestimate your Lord. He is more powerful any life decision you have made that you now view as having been "good" or "bad." His is the hand that has guided you to the exact place you find yourself today. Begin now, this instant. Fall back into His arms, and then press forward in His Name.

Scripture: "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:8).

The Work of Our Hands

The Lord will not allow you to become an accessory to another’s life and ministry at the expense of your own, but you must not give way to fear or strike out in anger.

It is not entirely possible for another human being to comprehend your perspective and to understand your burdens (or you, theirs), but the Lord is able to work in your relationships through His love. It is possible to love while simultaneously refusing to sacrifice your anointed work and your anointed rest.

Other people are not able to rob you of blessings that God has ordained. No one can deliver out of God's hand (Deuteronomy 32:39, Isaiah 43:13). Do not be afraid. The Lord's purposes for your life will be fulfilled (Psalm 138:8).

Scripture: "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us--yes, establish the work of our hands" (Psalm 90:17).

Blessed Brokenness

The heartbreaking compassion that you feel on behalf of your fellow human beings is not an indication that something is wrong with you. You are who you are because of who the Lord is through you. You have seen with His eyes and have spoken with His words; you have reached out to others with His compassion.

The Lord desires you to rejoice in this blessed gift of sharing His heart. Do not view this as a mandate to serve but rather as an opportunity to bless. This is opportunity, not threat; blessing, not burden. When your heart melts, when your compassion flows, when you reach out with Holy hands, you gladden His heart.

The power that has fueled the acts of compassion you have committed in His name has been His love being expressed through your hands, your heart, your eyes. When you meet Him face to face you will find that the dross has been swept away by the Holy Blood and that those acts of love will stand.

The question is not how you can keep your heart from breaking, but rather, how you may be broken in a way that glorifies Him.

The Lord spoke this word to me after I watched Give Me Your Eyes by Brandon Heath at Youtube

Scripture: "...this do in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24 KJV).

Fight Head to Heart

The powers and principalities of the air are too strong for you. When you attempt to "turn over a new leaf" you put yourself onto their battlefield. You cannot fight them head to head, stop trying. Fight them head to heart. Your heavenly Father owns your heart. He purchased it through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, and the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead indwells Your heart through the Holy Spirit.

You cannot devise a battle plan that will thwart the enemy's strategies against you. You must operate on a different plane. Those who trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior have been given the ability to walk in the Spirit, and in the Spirit your enemies cannot touch you. It is your Holy Spirit fueled love for God that will cause their strongholds to fall.

The Cross has been placed as an immovable sign of absolute victory over the turmoil and grief in your heart.

Scripture: "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross," (Colossians 2:15).

"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires," (Romans 8:5).

Mercy, not Sacrifice

Do not make it your aim to do everything “right” or even “righteously". Purpose instead to manifest the Lord's mercy and compassion to those around you. The Lord asks you to be identified with His interests in other people not in order that you may do for them, but so that you may be for Him.

Compassion does not always carry a mandate to perform some action in the physical realm. You have shielded your heart from compassion for those around you because you know that you have no surplus of time or strength for a physical sacrifice of work. You have forgotten the power of prayer. There are very few true intercessors, because intercession is a labor of the heart. There is always time to pray, and the Holy Spirit supplies the strength.

Scripture: "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6).

The Lord's Agenda

The Lord is your help, but you are to be about His Work. The Almighty God will not facilitate your heart's plans unless your heart is aligned with His. "My food...is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:37). God is indeed with you. Only stay open to Him and do not fix in your mind an agenda of your own.

Don’t press forward in the strength of your own determination to make for yourself a good reputation. You sometimes plunge forward in an attempt to right what is wrong. Fall back into the Lord’s arms. He has worked in memories, in hearts, and in minds. He has vindicated you. He is vindicating you now. He will vindicate you.

All those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are chosen by God. You are being raised up to fulfill the purposes for which He created you.

…what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God. Isaiah 49:4