Tuesday, February 26, 2013

~Seasons of Spiritual Growth~

Daniel 2:21 and He changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings and setteth up kings, he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge unto them that know understanding.

The bible teaches that God moves in and brings us through seasons. During these we usually experience different things in life whether it be circumstance changes, trials, mountains, pain, heartache, joy, loss, gain, ect. During these things I believe God's intentions is for us to become more and more like him. This is so important to our spiritual walk because it is up to us to make sure we are surrendered and willing to be taught by the holy spirit to recieve what God has for us during whatever season we may be in!

As a stay at home mom I sometimes become a little frazzled, overwhelmed, and stir crazy at times (Im sure I am not alone:) But during these times at home I know God has important things for me here, whether it be writing, cleaning, reading, praying, spending time with my kids, preparing our meals, or just talking to a friend on the phone. To me this is a season, but in that season lately I have noticed that the actual physical 'weather' season has played a toll on me this year. Being at home I can easily get lazy at times and want to spend nap time with the kids actually taking a nap! or I can put off cleaning until they take a nap and do it then. The problem is the fact that I am not taking all my available time possible and using it for God's glory. Whether it be prayer, writings, studying, ect. So many times I waste precious time God has given me and I truly notice that it is more in the winter for some reason!
I believe that in my personal life that Satan uses this season because of the financial strain on this time of year after and around Christmas, the circumstances (being my kids and I are stuck inside when its cold), and just the whole 'winter blues' everyone talks about. But I'm writing this today to announce that he has been caught in his attempts to get me down! LOL

Knowing what the enemies schemes and plans are is such a great gift the Holy Spirit gives us!!!

2 Corinthians 2:11 In order that satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

Knowing that God works in seasons, and that his desire is for us to grow and bear fruit. Search your life today I'm sure that some of you reading this have a specific 'weather season' that gets you down, and makes your spiritual connection harder to keep up. For most of you it's probably winter. Well today instead of just considering it 'winter blues' or just a normal way of life, I challenge you to stand up a worship the Lord with all you have and get in your word and make satan eat what he has been throwing out for you! Make it a ritual that when this season that gets you down comes around again that you press through with such a determination that the enemy is afraid to even attempt to depress, mess, or disrupt you in that time!
 Make that 'weather season' a new spiritual season of growth and maturity in God!!!!

extra reading Ecclesiastes 3:1-22
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Monday, February 25, 2013

Speak with a holy life in mind

For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a Holy life. 1 Thesselonians 4:7 Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you say or do something that you had no intentions of harm but you were convicted for it? This morning I was on the phone with a friend and I remembered a funny story my husband shared with me. I felt like I shouldn’t say anything about it when I started the story but I had already began talking so I kept on. It really wasn’t something terrible or what you would call ‘bad’. And actually it wasn’t meant to tear this person down. BUT after I spoke it the holy spirit showed me that when words are spoken that are not edifying or building each other up that even if we are not being spiteful or trying to put others down they shouldn’t be spoken for several reasons. 1. Its gossip. 2. If the person you were speaking about was to find out you repeated this they may not think anything BUT what if they were convicted for it already?? How would they feel knowing that something they done was being spread around after they had asked forgiveness! 3. How can we live a holy life when we let our tongue out run the holy spirit? God has called us to live a holy life! DO YOU? 1. Do you feel your daily life consists of spoken words that God would consider a holy life? 2. Do you want to take action to control what comes out of your mouth? Challenge! 1. Make sure no unwholesome talk comes from our mouth today 2. The words of the wise are few the words of the fool are many. Make sure we use the least words as possible to get through each day to tame the tongue! HOW? Listen to the nudge of the holy spirit throughout the day to keep ourselves holy, afterall he is our helper! having a pure heart begins with paying close attention to our thoughts, because our thoughts become our words, our emotions, our attitudes, and our motives!- Joyce Meyer

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Let us REJOICE and MOURN with our brothers & sisters!

As Christians it is our job according to scripture to be what our brothers or sisters in Christ need. I had three specific incidents today that reminded me so much of the scripture Im basing this post on. Two of them were phone calls one with great news and one with very sad. As I was talking to them I was reminded to be very sensitive to their needs. ( not saying I did it very well, but I tried and I count it A+ for just being able to hear the spirit speak when I have all my opinions or thoughts raging to let out to them!lol) I felt like I needed to write on this because I am sure I am not the only person in the world that becomes a little self-centered at times,even when it may seem like we are just offering advice or trying to relate to that person or event, sometimes I believe when need to completely cast our own thoughts and opinions aside and focus directly on what or who you are dealing with. God has given us a mission, that is to spread the gospel as Jesus did and love and show compassion to all. I don't think he would be pleased with us knowing that we were called by a friend that needed us to show compassion for a loss of a family member or to rejoice for wonderful news and all we wanted to do was somehow relate their problems or good news to our life. I truly believe sometimes God uses these moments in our lives just to test our compassion and ability to minister to others as Christ ministers to us. If that were so how many times would we to fail because we are centered on some silly opinion that we thought up with our own mind! I would way rather lend an ear, Speak Gods word to minister, and or pray with them for strength or thanksgiving for whatever the good news is! Sometimes people just need us to Rejoice with them or Mourn with them!

Romans 12:15  Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.

Monday, February 18, 2013

PRAY HIS WORD!

why would we want to pray and it be less powerful than it could be?
why would we want to ramble on in prayer time when our time is precious?

I have heard from many sources the power of praying a scripture over the last few years. I can personally say this is so true!  I placed a list of prayers and things that my heart desired for my life and my family on my refridgerator . I listed them with a scripture for everyone and I would pray these everytime I saw the paper or was in my prayer time. I posted these back in July? maybe August but i can honestly say as of today EVERY request if not answered completely is in process as we speak! GOD Is So GOOD!  
 I cant give whats on my heart hardly without a testimony of his goodness to me :) 

So my advice to making your prayer time more powerful and knowing you arent asking something outside of Gods will would be to first renew your mind to know what his good, pleasing and perfect will is, but also to compare your requests to scripture and pray Gods word over every aspect of your life ! 

~~~ Isaiah 55:10-11 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven ,and do not return witbout watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yeilds seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

WWJD?

I first want to say that my 8 year old son, Bryan got saved last night! Such a good feeling as a parent to know your Child loves and wants God to be part of his life:)

As i was listening to the radio this morning my earcaught a commercial that came on. I am not sure if it was an encouraging word or just an adverstisement  but either way it blessed me. The man was talking about how Jesus spoke so many times through the bible about following him. He was saying that nowadays there are so many doctrines people follow and so many rules and things but if we could just get the concept that its not all about a checklist of what we are supposed to do if we would just FoLLoW Jesus! we would know how to love, know how to pray, know how to deal with problems, etc. This sparked my memory to the old simple saying What would Jesus do? My prayer today is to follow Jesus in everything I do that i use thos question and make it a part of my everyday life..how can we go wrong if we are following Christ? 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

WALKING IN VICTORY BY FAITH

THIS IS JUST A FEW NOTES I JOTTED DOWN TODAY, THERE IS NO PARTICULAR ORDER OR AGENDA JUST WANTED TO SHARE
*Sacrafice. Set aside a specific time for God and time to focus on him only. Not your kids, not your phone, not your spouse. YOU & GOD!
*Apply the word. We can read until we are blue in the face but applying and knowing are two different things. BE YE DOERS OF THE WORD NOT HEARERS ONLY!
*Strip ourselves of everything we know of to be of ourselves giving it to God to replace with his love, mercy, and grace. We must walk in his spirit at all times to be victorious in this life and we can be full of ourselves and his spirit at the same time.DO NOT WALK IN THE FLESH ONE DAY AND ATTEMPT TO WALK IN THE SPIRIT THE NEXT!
*Allow God to mold you into what he wants you to be (potter and the clay) not what you think and expect to be molded into by looking at everyone or anyone else and their walk with God. We are the Body and that requires all different parts to be complete. Be satisified with what God has called you to do no matter what it may entail and allow him to mold you to perfection in the area he needs you in.
*We cannot expect victory if we have a defeated mindset.. meaning we walk around speaking we are at our end, we have had enough. We have to speak the same thing we expect to happen. God isn't going to change his mind about our 'trial end date' because we have decided we have had enough! He has already known what we could handle before the trial even began. We need to begin to walk in victory by saying, I WILL KEEP GOING, I WILL PRESS THROUGH THIS, THERE IS A MIRACLE IN THE MAKING AND I WILL NOT GROW WEARY IN WELL DOING! GALATIONS 6:9
*And we should daily speak life into ourselves LORD YOU ARE OUR PORTION!!! WE WILL WAIT ON YOU !! NO MATTER WHAT!
*We must be so spiritually minded that no matter what circumstances come our way our faith in God will see us through. Whether it be small or large things. FAITH IS BELIEVING WHAT WE CANNOT SEE!!!
*We cannot be double-minded (walking in faith and walking in the worlds ways) at the same time! God wants us to trusting in him in EVERYTHING!!!!!

OPEN YOUR WHOLE WORLD TO GOD AND ALLOW HIM TO REDO YOUR MINDSET, YOUR WAY OF THINKING, YOUR WHOLE YOU!!! AND PRAY THAT WE FOCUS ON GODLY THINGS AND WAYS IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE:)


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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Proverbs 18:21

This is actually something I wrote on June 27, 2011 so it is a little out of order with my daily journaling and it may be like that here and there because I'm trying to post as I feel the spirit of God leading not as I wish to post.. this is a story of a personal experience some may think this is ridiculous or that I'm making it up but I'm telling you when you have an encounter with a spiritual presence other than God you will definitely know its real..
I was lying in bed around midnight last night while my family slept. The feeling of anxiety gripped me then I began having to pant for breath.. My mind was being attacked, out of nowhere ! I immediately knew this was satan and something he was attempting! I began to pray, or try to but all i could do was say Jesus, Jesus , Jesus over and over. I payed there speaking my savior a name while the devil attempted to continue to speak to me using my families past to talk me into believing that the grip on my mind he thought he had was true. The feeling I felt was unexplainable ! It was like something was literally pulling my mind out of my head and I knew that if he won I would be lifeless. I spoke Jesus until this feeling fled which didn't take long:) at the same time The Lord was speaking to me also .. Jennifer , the words you speak are very important!! My mind went back to earlier in the day when I said my favorite saying " you kids are gonna make me lose my mind!!" People may think I'm fanatical or like I said earlier that I'm making this up but this was a very real experience and I am so thankful I knew to say Jesus!!
I shared this because during church tonight I was reminded that we say soooo many things everyday that are not positive things and that we do not realize what or who we are talking down too! Gods word says that there is life and death in the power of the tongue , I personally have reason to believe this but if you believe the word of truth you should believe this as well experience or not! Meditate on whatsoever things are pure, just, of good report! Renew your mind, and rid yourselves of all ungodliness because from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks!! Fill your heart with goodness so the overflow into our mouths brings forth LIFE when it comes out!!!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Delight yourself in The Lord & he will give you the desires of your heart

One of the first things I want to talk about is the true revelation of dying to self. I cannot, of course, say what is perfectly right or perfectly wrong but I will share what God has shown and done in my own life personally. I was saved as a child 8 years old to be exact, I strayed away from The Lord as a teenager and made several crazy life choices and many mistakes .. Through it all though I know I am now where God intended me to be, with a crazy past, three beautiful children, and a Husband who lives for The Lord. All of that shared to get to this I dedicated my life to God with my husband in June of 2008. We became very involved in church and thought we were doing very good but behind the scenes satan was working to tear us apart but what he seems to forget a lot is Romans 8:28 :) anyway he's just a working and striving to tear everything God had blessed us with including our marriage apart .. Meantime all this warfare brought me to a place where I would call 'the bottom' I knew I couldn't keep going like I was, I was spiritually sick and almost completely turned from God our life bore no fruit and my marriage was falling apart .. One day I was home folding clothes and doing what I usually would and I knew I was done with everything I had made my ' phone calls' and everything to friends and family stating I couldn't take anymore I was leaving.. This is EXACTLY where God needs me to be and satan just thought he was fixing to win.. I ended up after all those calls in my room in my bed on my knees crying out to God begging for help at this point I can honestly say I was at the end of myself ( I'm still being worked on though lol) just at this point I knew there was absolutely NOTHinG in this world I could possibly do to change my circumstances my husband my bitterness towards the situation our finances NOTHinG I knew I needed something more than another day of banging my face on a brick wall with no results I knew that what I needed was my savior, my first love, my portion. It was a long several months to get me and my family to where we are now in our personal relationships and in The Lord but I can honestly now be a living speaking testimony of Romans 8:28 and an example of Gods grace and mercy has definitely been poured on and manifested in our lives.. I have so much to say and so many great testimonies of Gods love towards us and good things he has shown us even through the bad things we have overcame but to start our I just wanted to share this story and one of my favorite scriptures Lamentations 3:21-24 the reason I can still find hope is that I keep this one thing in mind: because of  the Lords mercy we were not consumed his compassion never fails and his mercies are new every morning his faithfulness is great my soul can say The Lord is my portion!