Tag Archives: life

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Trouble Free Heart!

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“Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.”     John 14:1

When Jesus speaks these words, he is not offering a suggestion to be accepted, he is giving a command to be obeyed, a principle to be followed.  It is not optional, it is the very foundation to our getting the spiritual life right for His glory.  Jesus was giving this information to his disciples right before he was to be crucified.  Life as they knew it was about to encounter the biggest change and most crazy challenge that they had ever faced.  They were about to have to live in a world without Jesus in the flesh.  Jesus was preparing them, by telling them that no matter what – “Do not let your hearts be troubled!”

Have you ever noticed that most believers and non believers respond in just about the same way to the challenges of life.  This should not be.  Believers should respond with faith over fear, with expectation over desperation and with hope over hopelessness.  Most all of us, tend to respond to the challenges of life with our emotions.  The problem with this, is that if we don’t control our emotions, then our emotions will control us.

The problem with emotions is that they tend to want to run and will run away from your control before you know it.  When Jesus says:  “Let not your hearts be troubled!”, he is teaching us to reign in our emotions before they get out of control.  You can rule your emotions, or they will rule you.  Every person has to decide for themselves – how they are going to handle the tough battle with emotions.

If you decide that you want to deal with your emotions, then you have to learn how not to indulge the negative.  Life is full of negatives.  We are surrounded and bombarded by them from all forms of media.  Indulging the negative is making an on purpose decision to live life in fear, not in faith.  If Jesus commands us to do something, then it is possible and what seems impossible, always becomes possible through the power of faith expressed in our everyday living.

Life is going to throw some challenges your ways this week, I want to encourage you to follow the instruction of Jesus and “LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED!  I promise you will be glad you did!  😉

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No Approval Necessary!

We worry too much about what other people say or what other people think.  If we want to be who we were created to be, then we need to learn to live independent from the opinions of others.  It really does not matter if they love us or hate us, the issue comes when we make their assessments more important than the ones we have of ourselves.

Our reason for caring about what someone else thinks is based on the messed up system of trying to find favor from others.  Our reason for wanting the favor of others is to satisfy our need to obtain or live up to some man generated status.  It is our chasing after status that corrupts the flow and power of supernatural power that flows into and through our lives enabling us to live the life that we were created for.

Just be you, the you that you were created to be and stop worrying about trying to live up to everyone eles’s standards.  Status, titles and ego are all man-made things that get in the way of the real you, the inner you that is longing to flow out.

Life has it’s own way of working out the things that need to be worked out.  The approval you need will flow to you, as well as the disapproval.  When you work to achieve approval from man, then you make yourself a slave to man.  When you get disapproval, then you work that much harder for their approval.  All of this is looking to the outside for that which we need to be getting from the inside.

Outside living makes us dependent, which decreases and blocks the flow of a blessed life, while inside living makes us independent, which increases opportunity and allows the blessed life to flow freely.  

The bottom line is that ego – edging God out, will get you into trouble every time.  You are more than your flesh, you are spirit.  We give more attention to the physical than the spiritual and because of this, we miss out on much of the amazing part of life and living.

Get in touch with your spirit, who you really are and start to live from the inside-out.  Your life is filled with passionate and powerful thoughts.  When you learn to allow these thoughts to flow, you will begin to live a secure and blessed life.

You are not your physical body.  You are not what other people think or say.  You are spirit, made in the image of God.  Allow His Spirit to flow to and through your life.  Learn to see with His eyes and hear with His ears and you will walk in His footsteps and touch with His hands of love.  You will experience the amazing gift of really living, which is all about learning to live blessed.  Live blessed – it’s what you were created for.

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The Place Of Contentment!

We tend to focus our energy on outward pleasure and the satisfaction of our senses at the expense of vision and the inner work of our lives.  The sad reality is that this produces a life of illusions, where appearances leave us empty and wanting more.  The wise writer of Ecclesiastes teaches us that “Everything comes and goes, there is nothing new under the sun.”  

The material world can only bring temporary satisfaction, because the stuff of the temporary world is – temporary.  When all we see, taste, touch, hear and smell is of the material world, we limit ourselves to only what exists in this world and cause ourselves to miss out on the vast blessings that exist in the spiritual world.  We often so focus on the creation, that we fail to know and appreciate the Creator.

The biggest problem with our trying to satisfy our senses is that our focus becomes the chase and attainment of that which is limited and temporary.  We get locked into a game of continuously striving, because there never seems to be enough.  We all know what it is like to live in this place of craziness, but most of us, are not willing to do life differently.  We keep doing the same things, making the same mistakes and expecting different or better results and that is just plain insane!  
 
Peace and inner satisfaction come from within.  Jesus teaches us to be in the world, but not of the world.  My satisfaction does not come from this world, because this is not my home, I am simply a spiritual being passing through a human experience.  When we learn to live life from the inside, then there is not much that is required from the outside for our happiness and peace,
 
We need to learn to look and see beyond the here and now.  We know that a flower is much more than just a flower.  It is even more than what our senses tell us it is.  It is more than color, taste, feel, smell and sound.  It is creation unfolding in a different way, unique and beautiful.  Evidence of something greater, someone with a greater plan.  It is in front of you for you to enjoy and be blessed by and when it ceases to be, there will be something else, but you don’t have to go out and find it, because it will find you.
 
Learn to relax.  Enjoy the gift of this moment.  Instead of being consumed by a focus on the search for what you can find outside of yourself, instead take some time to journey inward and discover awe, wonder, excitement and appreciation for the things that make your senses alive to appreciate and enjoy the gifts of the outside, physical, material world.
 
Allow life to flow in the natural order of “come and go” and avoid getting caught up in the tyranny of the urgent.  This moment is a seed, plant it, cultivate it, observe it from the inside out and you will enjoy it’s growth for ages to come.  You are a seed, your Creator has planted you, is cultivating you, observing you from the inside out and enjoying your growth.  When you get that you are created in the image of the Creator, then you will discover a power that allows you to live from the inside out and this is a big part of what it means to live blessed.