Month: September 2018

Pausing Brings Healing

Fill your thoughts with my words until they penetrate deep into your spirit. Then as you unwrap my words, they will impart true life and radiant health into the very core of your being. Proverbs 4:21-22 TPT

One of my favorite Bible teachers, Graham Cooke, says that “Our experiences with the Lord should radically change how we face life.” I believe when we pause to capture more of God’s heart for us, we cannot help but be changed, transformed and infuse with the courage to keep going. Every day I need more of God. I’ve found a rhythm with my savior and best friend. As I dance through life with him, if I twirl a little too far from his heart, he pulls me right back in. But, one thing is certain, my heart has to be open to feel his nudge. We can’t shut our heart, because then our ears and eyes shut as well.

I was reading Matthew 11:28 the other day, you know the one that says “come to me all who are weary” and there is a phrase that says “I am easy to please”. My heart, without even the slightest pause, answered back, “It doesn’t feel like it, Lord.” I didn’t know where that came from, but I’ve learned that anytime I question or have a belief in my heart that is fighting against his truth, I need to spend time capturing more of God’s heart so that this area in me can realign with his.

So where did I go? I went to his Word and the dance began to unfold. This is the part where he pulls me back in! I opened my Bible and the first verse that captured my eyes was Psalm 51:16-17. His truth reached out to the nagging belief that was haunting my heart and he spoke right to the place where my view needed a new perspective. “For the source of your pleasure is not in my performance…The fountain of your pleasure is found in the sacrifice of my shattered heart before you.”

This hit right to my core. You see, I am a performer. A striver. A doer. And at the end of the day, I often struggle with the question did I do enough? God was telling me, “Stop it. It isn’t about how you perform. No, all I want is for you to be real with me. Come to me with the struggles I already know you have so that I can re-arrange your broken view and heal the shattered places within you.” And let me tell you, EVERY TIME, I let him in he lays before me a picture of his grace I was failing to capture and my heart melts.

The simplest prayer of my heart has become, “Lord, help me to usher people into your heart so that they may be changed forever.” I know that if I can help others enter into his heart, they will be blown away and changed forever! Why do I know this? Because my experience with God’s heart has led me to a place of awe and beauty and freed me in ways I never knew I needed. My experience with his heart has transformed how I face life! There is certainty that my dance partner will always point my feet in the right direction and never let me twirl too far from his heart.

Pause to capture more of his heart today. I promise when you seek, he will be found, and the picture he develops within you will lead you to an experience with his heart that will blow you away!

Be Bold ~ Be a light!

Remind Me Who I am!

And he chose us to be his very own, joining us to himself even before he laid the foundation of the universe! Because of his great love, he ordained us, so that we would be seen as holy in his eyes with unstained innocence.  Ephesians 1: 4 TPT

This one verse alone in Ephesians contains so much of our identity! It is powerpack with the realization of who we are because of the Cross.  Make no mistake, the Bible is clear. You have been chosen. You have been ordained. You are Holy in his eyes. Covered only by unstained innocence because of his great love for you!

At a bible study this week I was so moved by reading through Ephesians. It truly is one of my favorite books of the Bible. If you are ever questioning who God is, who you are, and what he has planned for your life, then take some time to sit right here in Ephesians. The Word that flowed from Paul’s heart will make it ever so clear.

Ephesians tells us that “before we were even born” before you existed, God thought about you and gave you a destiny. And the beautiful thing is this destiny came straight from his heart (Eph 1:11). His plan for you was beating in his heart before yours ever began. Stop and let that soak in for a moment.

We have to begin to let the truth of his Word and how he sees us soak into our hearts or else we run the risk of never discovering the destiny beating in his heart for us!

I challenge you, as I too was challenged this week, to read Ephesians and begin to let God’s Word shape your identity. Let your divine purpose pop off the page at you. Write down every word that makes your heart leap and begin to speak it over your life until you begin to see yourself as God sees you!

I’ll leave you with a few of the words that jumped off the page at me. I turned them into a prayer of thankfulness, declaring his truth over my life.

Thank you, Lord, that you have claimed me as your own. I’ve been chosen for a divine destiny you wrote before my feet ever touched the ground. Thank you that you are the source of everything I need to fulfill this call on my life and that you unveil mysteries before me that make me always live in awe of you!

Lord, I thank you for the passion you’ve given me for your Word and the desire to enlighten every heart I meet with the divine mystery of who you are and how you see us. Lord, thank you for trusting me with the awesome responsibility of being an advertisement of your great and mighty power on this earth. 

Thank you that I have become your poetry, eloquently written by your hand. I can’t wait to fulfill with you all you have planned. 

Thank you that what your light exposes it corrects so that darkness has no choice but to flee my heart! Thank you, Lord, that you placed a divine plan for me in my heart straight from yours! Thank you that I can find my resting place in your unfailing love and it will ground me–making me unwavering and stable as I pursue your plans for me. 

And may I never doubt these plans you have so creatively and thoughtfully designed for me. Your mighty power is most assuredly at work in me and as I partner with your presence I will accomplish more than I could ever dream, think or imagine!

Lord, help me to imitate you and to be supernaturally infused with strength because I chose every day to clothe myself with your armor. I am protected, I am free. I will rise victorious in any battle because you have given me every tool and weapon to succeed! 

 

Now it’s your turn. I can’t wait to hear how God spoke to your heart through this beautiful letter to the Ephesians Paul wrote so long ago.

Be Bold~ Be a Light!

 

 

 

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