Category Archives: Spiritual Growth

Search My Heart

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 “Search me Lord and know my heart, try me and know my ways and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).

All through Scripture we are encouraged by the Lord to examine our heart. In Psalms 139, David prays and asks the Lord to Search his heart.

David said, “any wicked way,” this would be any wicked way of thinking, feeling or acting.  The thoughts of our heart are sometimes hidden from view, but can be clearly seen by our actions and our responses. Psalm 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.” You can have the right intentions and want to respond correctly, but find it very difficult if you have been hurt or offended.  That is why the prayer that David prayed in Psalm 139 is so important for us to pray today.

The thoughts of our heart determine our decisions, actions and how we respond to others. We need to examine the condition of our heart, especially after we have been hurt or wounded by someone and know we are offended.  I believe that taking up offenses is one of the greatest traps of the enemy today.

When you ask, the Holy Spirit will reveal the condition of your heart. Ask Him to reveal every area that is not at peace. Therefore, when you ask the Lord to search your heart, don’t be surprised when the Holy Spirit brings to your attention a relationship conflict that still needs to be resolved. The level of peace clearly indicates how much we have resolved heart issues so that, we are no longer controlled our circumstances. Peace is the inward witness of the presence God, as He leads us through every situation we face.

Our God is With Us

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“I cried to the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of His holy hill. I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.”  Psalms 3:4-5

Resting Place of GodThere is turmoil and difficulties in our world that continually confront us.  We are challenged every day, and it is often hard to keep our minds and hearts set on God.  We know He is with us, but we often neglect to acknowledge and recognize His blessing in our lives.  He Loves us so much that even as we sometimes ignore Him, He is always there to hear our cries gives us peace in our slumber, and greets us as we rise.

“How precious also are they thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.” Psalms 139: 17-18

God’s thoughts towards you are so vast they are more in number than the sand.  The best time to receive His thoughts is when you wake up early in the morning.  His thoughts are higher than your thoughts, so listen to hear His thoughts before you start thinking your own.  When you wake up early you will be able to hear Him speak to you clearly.  Your thoughts are in your soul but your spirit receives God’s thoughts.  Your spirit needs to hear what God is speaking before your own thoughts begin.

Ask God to show you how He sees you and your situation and He will lift you up above it, so you can look from a higher viewpoint and see it clearly.  As you hear what His thoughts are towards you, write them down.

Write down in a Journal what you hear Him saying, and then wait on Him to confirm it.

The Path: Pray asking God to tell you what He thinks about you.

 

Meditate on His Word Day and Night

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 “I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto they ways. I will delight myself in thy statues: I will not forget they word.” Ps 119:15-16

awaken my faithAs you are spending time daily with the Lord, be prepared for your repositioning.  Instead of sitting in the seat on planet earth, frustrated about life’s problems, you will be seated with Christ in heavenly places. If you are a child of God it is your rightful place.

This seat is where you are to stay seated regardless of all that is going on around you.  This is a seat of perfect peace and rest, high above the turmoil of this world.  Christ is seated on the right hand of the Father and according to Ephesians 2:6 those who trust Him as Savior are seated with Him.  As you read the promises recorded in His Word, meditate on those promises all day long.

The promises of God are not hidden; they can be clearly seen as you meditate on the Word. So today delight in one principle from His word with great expectations of His full blessings.

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”   Psalms 1:1-2

 “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make they way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Josh 1:8

The right path is: to read and meditate on the word daily with great anticipation.

Stay on the Right Path

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Show me thy ways, O Lord and show me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me… Psalm 25:4

stay on the pathThe Psalmist is praying, asking God to show him His ways – the right way.  We are all faced daily with decisions and desire to know the right way, or the right answer.  The Psalmist David was asking for the Lord to show him a path to walk on, and to make it clear so he would know which way to go. I believe when we ask the Lord, He will make His way very plain and clear.

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way.”  Psalm 37:23 

His ways are so much higher than our ways, that we must wait on Him to reveal the higher or better way. The prophet Isaiah knew about the ways of God. He said they were like a highway to walk on. So the path leads up to a highway. A higher way, and a higher goal to reach. To reach a higher goal you must establish a higher standard for your life.  So ponder the path you have been walking on and ask the Lord to lead you on the path to His High Way!  Stay on that Path and don’t veer to the right or the left.  The High Way is straight ahead.

“… he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”  Psalm 23:3b

 “Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies;

 make thy way straight before my face.”  Psalm 5:8

The Path: Establish a Standard of Righteousness for your life and for your home. When you commit your ways to the Lord, He will direct you.

The Lord Will Answer You

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May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!  Psalm 21:1

God will answerMay the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high and defend you. Send you help from the sanctuary and support, refresh and strengthen you from Zion. Psalm 20:1-2 Amp

There are times that we need supernatural support and strength to make it through the challenges of the day. When we call on the Lord He will dispatch help from His throne. Psalm 20:2 says, “He sends help from the sanctuary.” He will send help, sometimes even angelic assistance. Scripture tells us that the angels of the Lord excel in strength at His command. They are like an emergency back up support system that is on call twenty four–seven waiting for the next assignment. When we call out to the Lord for help, He sends them forth in strength. When Joshua was preparing for the battle of Jericho the angel of the Lord appeared to him in Joshua 5:13-15 and told him he was the Captain of the Lord’s host. Joshua had the Lord’s host on his side as he fought and won the battle of Jericho. Scripture tells us the angels of the Lord are always encamped round about us. Could it be they are just waiting for the next assignment?

A house cannot stand without a strong support system. In a house you cannot see the support beams but you know they are there. It would seem foolish to sit in your living room fearful that the house was going to cave in. When you put your trust in the Lord, you can be assured the house will stand, the support system is in place and you shall not be moved. The Lord establishes the support system so you can stand even when the strong winds of adversity come.  We cannot see them with our natural eyes but we know the support system of the angelic army is in place.

The Right Path: Ask God to send help from the Sanctuary if you need extra support and strength.

Have you been offended? How to Deal With Offenses

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“Oh, Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.”   Psalm 34:3

dealing with offenseHave you noticed the increase in the opportunities to be offended?  Even after 25 years of marriage to my husband, I sometimes get offended by what he says.  As a wife, I may know he doesn’t mean something the way I took it, but I still feel a huge pull to be offended.

I believe in the day we are living, the days prior to the return of the Lord, there will be a greater pull than ever before to be offended.  Jesus taught us in Mathew 18:7 that offenses will surely come.  In Mathew 24, when the disciples asked Jesus what the signs of His return would be, He said in verse 10, “And then shall many be offended…”

So we should not be surprised when we feel the pull to be offended. The question is: how fast do you move past an offense?  Jesus made it possible for us to be able to move past offenses very quickly.

I must constantly remind myself that we are in “the time,” the days before Jesus returns.  Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, that there would be a great falling away in these days.  I believe the falling away is due to being offended. If your love waxes cold according to Mathew 24, you will fall away.

I know when I am offended, I must quickly forgive.  Forgiveness is the only answer!  It is the way of escape! The quicker I forgive, the quicker I come back into my right mind.  When I am offended my soul is in control.  When I forgive, my spirit rises up above my soul and takes back over.

I have learned that when I am offended everything is distorted and even my emotions become out of control. When I am offended at a person I will see them in a distorted way, bigger than they really are.  I will become overly focused on them. They become the center of attention and all I talk about for days.  Every conversation even goes back somehow to what offended me.

The more we put our focus on those who offended us, the more magnified they become.  This could cause our heart to wax cold and may lead us to sin against God.  He is the only one we are to magnify.  When we focus on others and what they did to offend us, we make them bigger than God.

 Oh, Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. (Psalm 34:3)

So right now press the minimize button and minimize the person who has offended you.  Bring them down to the right size and forgive them.  Remember, if it were not for the grace of God you might have done the very same thing.

Keep a Journal of your Blessings

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“Our fathers in Egypt understood not nor appreciated Your miracles; they did not earnestly remember the multitude of Your mercies nor imprint Your loving-kindness [on their heart], but they were rebellious and provoked the Lord at the sea, even at the Red Sea.” Psalm 106: 7

write it downI have found that when I write something down I am able to remember it. I have even written down a grocery list and then left the list in the car but, because I wrote out the grocery list I was able to remember the items on my list.

I recently had a dream that re-enforced the importance of writing things down.  In the dream the hardest math equation on earth was placed before me.  In the dream, I was told that the math equation represented the bondage that so many people were in.  I was told that if I could figure out the equation I could help these people get free.

In school I struggled in math, but, in the dream I was able to figure the equation out.  The key to figuring out the equation was to write it down.

As I read this verse I was reminded of the importance of keeping a journal, of writing down and recording the wonderful blessings of the Lord.  We experience God’s loving-kindness every day of our life.  But, when we fail to keep an account of all the marvelous ways He works in our life, we can soon forget.  We can step into the trap that the children of Israel were in. They did not appreciate God’s miracles or His daily provision. Therefore, they began to grumble complain about what He did not do.

Could it be that they could not see the right path to take because they failed to remember the goodness of God?  Could it be that this is a major key to keeping out eyes fixed upon the Lord?  The children of Israel strayed off track and wondered in the wilderness for 40 years, because they failed to imprint His goodness on their heart.

This is a lesson we must learn, to keep our eyes upon the Lord, to record His miracles, mercy and loving kindness every day and He will direct our path.

God’s Purpose for Your Life

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“I will cry to God Most High …who brings to pass His purposes for me and surely completes them.”  Psalms 57:2 AMP

what is my purposeDo you seek and desire to know what is your purpose?  You may be wondering, “Why am I here and what am I suppose to do with my life?”

So many times we run here and there pursuing this idea or that idea trying to discover God’s purpose for our life.

We read in Psalms 57:2 that God has established His purpose for each of us and He will bring it to pass. All we do is continue pursuing Him.

We must stop imagining castles in the sky and pursuing our own foolish, lofty ideas so our soul can find rest and peace in the Lord. Our purpose is to pursue God, to love Him, to worship Him and enjoy fellowship with Him. Then our purpose will be an overflow of our relationship with Him.

 

God’s House Plans

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Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it… Psalms 127:1

Gods House PlansGod is the Master Builder and in His kingdom He is building many houses. When He is building a house He draws up the plans, and then He shares the plans with you through a vision or dream. This is how His house plans are delivered to the earth.  If you have a dream that is much larger than anything you could do alone, then there is a good chance that God has revealed one of His house plans to you.  He showed Noah a huge boat and Solomon a massive tabernacle.  Each of these houses was unique and perfectly laid out by God to minister to His people, but He did not show the plans to everyone.   He showed these plans to Noah and Solomon, because they were to ones He chose to build the house.  He could trust them with the plans, because He knew they trusted in Him.

God must be able to trust you to hold the vision and wait on Him for each step. Hold on to the vision, and don’t let time discourage you. The very fact that He gave you the vision indicates that He intends for His house to be built. If the Lord is building the house wait on Him and trust in Him and in time the construction will begin. Always keep in your mind focused on whose house it is.  You are building His house and not your own.

A vision from God is like a fire, and it burns within you and can’t be put out. If there is a fire within you that can not be quenched it is the fire of God. At just the right time He will poke at the embers and the vision will blaze up. Just hold on to the vision, this is the embers, and at just the right time the fire of God will been seen and He will build His house.

Drink From the Fountain That Will Never Run Dry

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“Oh God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land….”  Psalm 63:1

There is a deep well within us that must be filled up daily.  When this well has not been filled, you will find yourself dry and thirsty.

Jesus said, “If any man thirst let him come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) Jesus is the fountain where we go to drink; He is a fountain that will never run dry.  When we spend time with Him praying and reading His Word, we are drinking from the “living water.”  The Word brings life and refreshing to our spirit just as a drink of natural water refreshes us when we are dry and thirsty.

Are you stressed, tired, and burned out from the pressures of life?

If so, I would like to encourage you to get up early in the morning and spend some extra time drinking from the Word of God.  Drink until you are filled up with a renewed strength.  As you spend time in the Word, you will also experience a renewed hope that everything is going to be all right.