Tag Archives: Spirit

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The Right Perspective!

 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”  -John 14:1-3

BELIEVE!  Life is tough and it is going to throw you curve balls.  In fact, life will throw you a knuckle ball right upside the nose every now and then.  On the best days, it’s not easy, but it is possible to live a blessed life and a blessed life makes all the difference.  You have access to control how you take it and what you do with it.  Jesus said:  “Let not your heart be troubled!” indicating that we make the choice.  Sometimes, you just have to grab hold of your emotions and let them know who the real boss is.  The best way to do this is by fighting your fear with faith.  Jesus said:  “Believe in God, believe also in me!” and if your really believe, then this is a “game changer!”  No matter what you are going through, remember:  Don’t Panic – God’s got this!

CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE!  After we get our belief fixed, we then need to focus on changing our perspective.  We do this, by moving from the finite limited time and space of this moment to the infinite, unlimited time and space of eternity.  Whatever you are facing right now, ask yourself this question:  “What’s the worse thing that can happen?”  Ask this question enough times and you are probably going to come up with the answer:  Death!  Well, death is no big deal for Believer!  Jesus moved from a present perspective to an eternal perspective when he said:  “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places and I go to prepare a place for you!”

Next time you find yourself fretting over something, ask yourself this question:  “What is this going to matter 100 years from now?”

The Scriptures teach us in Philippians 1:21 that to live is Christ and to die is gain!  This physical body is simply my “FLESH SUIT!”  One of these days when this body dies, I am going to take off this flesh suit and then I will really fly!  Death is not a big deal, because it is just me separating from this body and the 70, 80 0 r 90 years, which are a small blip on the radar screen compared to ETERNITY!

The enemy wants to put blinders on you, so that all you can see is your problem, challenge or frustration, but don’t fall for the trick!  The enemy wants you to lose and forget about your eternal perspective, but don’t you dare trade in the good stuff of your Creator!  Use your memory and look back at all the times that you thought your ship was sunk, but the blessings came through and you can say with the Psalmist in 103:  “Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not none of his benefits!”

Now this is living blessed and it is what you were created for – get you some of that and live blessed!

 

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Too Much Noise!

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One of the great challenges of living in today’s world is learning to deal with all of the noise.  When I say learning to deal with it, I am talking about learning to get past it, so that we might be able to hear what is really important and needed.  I really do think that most of us are living with information overload.  We get media input from so many different sources and ideas and opinions from so many competing directions, that we have gotten used to living in a continual spin.

Some days I wake up from my noisy dreams to an even more noisy world and I know that I am missing something, but just can’t seem to figure it out.  Then I realize that I am never going to figure it out with all of the noise, so I begin to try to filter some of the noise away.  This seems to work for a moment, but then, I realize that I still am not anywhere near to what I am really searching for, so I go in search of quietness.  It is not near as easy as it used to be to find solitude.

Solitude is the place where we step out of the noisy world and into the peaceful relationship that we were created for.  It is the best place to listen and learn from our Creator.  It is the place where we figure out what life is really all about.  The journey to solitude is not easy and it will cost you, but it is a trip worth taking.  In fact, once you take this trip, you will want to take it again and again, because you will discover that solitude is the place that enables you to live blessed!

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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!  😉