EXPECT GOD/ March 25th 2014

EXPECT God TODAY ( exchange grumbling and pessimism with thankful and expectant heart)

Listen closely

Be quiet enough to hear Him

Still enough to see Him

Do not wait for a BIG sign

Or expect like a PROUD Pharisee 

For miracles and test God

NO!

Expect HIM in EVERYTHING

Because if he is IN you

Then HE is

Believe it

If you are safe in your drive around town 

His angels protected you 

If you receive a hug from a small child, it was the arms of God loving you

If your heart leaps with joy over something specific its HIS gift to you among chaos

He is constant

He is near

He is LOVE

And if you look to darkness

Or choose fret and worry

You will MISS His handiwork

You will miss the Fathers love for you

Today

Expect Him to be there

Expect Him everywhere

What happens to you every second is HIM

Embrace it

ALL of it 

because the God who created the Universe created your TODAY every second of it was on purpose!

HUGS

SMJ

STRENGTH

STRENGTH/ March 2^nd, 2014

If I walked into any local gym and asked them what should I do to gain strength, they would introduce me to a coach and a big set of weights.   They would probably suggest I drink whey protein drinks and cut down on sugar and fat.  It would take lots of time, sweat and energy.  If it was really what I wanted I would do it. 

 

I was humbled this week as I studied Joshua chapter 1 for a lesson I was doing for children church.  It contains one of those scriptures, we Christians like to “throw” around.  You know those “feel good” scriptures when things aren’t going well.  God has begun to shed a new humbling light on his TRUTH when I open it these days.  Which leads me to my WORD for the day from God’s WORD; STRENGTH. 

In Joshua 1:1-9 The Lord commands Joshua 3 separate times to be STRONG and BRAVE.  The verse we like to throw around at times is: “Here is what I am commanding you to do.  Be STRONG and brave.  Do not be terrified.  Do not lose hope.  I am the Lord your God.  I will be with you everywhere you go.”   

 

Oh how my flesh is weak.  I LOVE to ask God for Strength and for Courage and Joy and Peace….But how often I don’t follow His commands that promise these things.  God knows what is for my best, and if I had to make my own laws to gain STRENGTH, what a mess they would be.   If I only read verse 9, I wouldn’t know the whole truth.  The 8 verses before verse 9 tell all of the things the Lord commands of us.  To read his law, his WORD and OBEY it, to study it day and night, and do not turn to the left of right of it.   Ooops.

 

Right after the command to be STRONG and BRAVE, the Lord commands us to not be terrified or lose hope and he will be with us.  The end of this verse really stuck out to me.  Why would God ask us to be STRONG and BRAVE and then almost contradict it with the opposite of it by saying, don’t be scared or lose hope?  WOW, I thought to myself.  It’s because he KNOWS that is our tendency.  He knows our weaknesses are to have fear and lose hope.  That’s why I need HIS STRENGTH not my own.  I will naturally be scared and weak.  He is naturally STRONG!

 

Dear God,  I am sorry for wasting so much time feebly attempting to use my STRENGTH for your Glory.  Thank you for challenging me this week from your WORD in the book of Joshua.  Just as you called Moses and Joshua and they had weaknesses, please take my weaknesses that I see as STRENGTH and BREAK any pride I have when I hold onto fears and false hopes.  Take them all Lord and I will obey YOUR  WORD, so the strength I ever have is YOUR STRENGTH. 

 

Join me today, in replacing our WEAKNESSES with God’s STRENGTH.

 

HUGS.  SMJ

FREEDOM

FREEDOM/ Feb. 16^th, 2014

When you hear the word REJECTION, what do you think about?  A name or label that has identified you at some point in your life?  Or do you think of those YOU reject?  Maybe you think of those rejected in our society?  The poor, dumb, smelly, outcasts, drunks, weak, ugly, too fat, too skinny, homeless, addicts, crazies…etc.

REJECTION is one of those negative words in our lives that God literally uses for good.  If you are feeling REJECTED today, then I have good news for you.  God has specifically called the REJECTED.    

This leads me to my WORD for today and it is found in 1 Corinthians 26-31;  Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when God chose you.  Not many of you were considered wise by human standards.  Not many of you were powerful.  Not many of you belonged to important families.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.  He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the things of this world that are common and looked down on.  He chose what is not considered to be important to do away with what is considered to be important.  So NO ONE can brag to God.  Because of what God has done, YOU belong to Christ Jesus.  He has become God’s wisdom for us.  He makes us right with God.  He makes us holy and sets us FREE.  It is written, “The one who brags should brag about what the Lord has done.”

God needs the weak, the lowly, the REJECTED.  Why?  Because, everybody who is REJECTED by the world’s standards, needs to be set FREE.  And God came JUST to set you and me FREE.  My WORD for today is FREE!  Replace all those rejections in your head with FREE.  God has come to set you FREE.  If you sit around and brag about yourself and how smart you are, or powerful, or rich, God doesn’t accept your bragging.  Therefore, the high and lofty, proud and judgemental, the ones who REJECT God’s chosen, are actually the ones REJECTED by God. 

God has come to set you FREE from worldly REJECTION.   Lay those rejections right down at the feet of Jesus, the Son of the God of the universe who has come to set you FREE.  NO ONE has the right to reject YOU.  If they think they do, then they themselves are REJECTED by God.   He has CHOSEN YOU and you belong to Christ Jesus if you want to belong to Him. 

Here’s the cool factor, the word FREE, means God gives you the FREEDOM to choose Him.  If in this FREEDOM you choose His life to set you FREE from all that stuff that keeps you in chains, if you trade your JUNK for his HOLYINESS, and your WRONGS with His RIGHTS (v. 30) then he takes what is sin, what is weak in you and makes you STRONG in HIM!  This is why all you will have to brag about is what the Lord has done for YOU. 

I’m tired of the WORLD’s  REJECTION in my life.  I’m tired of being chained to words and labels that don’t truly define who I am.  I AM A CHILD OF THE MOST HIGH KING!  If you believe this, I pray you will CLAIM it with me today.  I challenge you today to join me by taking your REJECTIONS and replacing them with FREEDOM in Jesus Christ.  The REDEEMER of REJECTION.

HUGS!  SMJ

FEAR

FEAR / Feb. 4^th, 2014

Watch the news for less than 10mnts. and you can find at least 10 things you should fear; from cancer to car accidents, food poisoning to being held hostage at a mall, and from fires to floods to financial disasters.  Our world is FULL of fear.  Honestly, I can’t even watch the news, because I do have a weakness of FEAR of the things on this earth at times.  They creep into my heart, and I think, oh no, I hope that doesn’t happen to someone I love. I’m not sure anyone feels safe anywhere at any time anymore.  Fear of the things that can happen to us on this earth have divided us from the ONE whom we should fear.  

There is a vicious snake that has creatively used fear of many things to distract all of us from whom and what we should fear.  It’s a very clever tactic, I admit.  One we must always be aware of.  Stop and listen to yourself speaking, how many times a day do you say, I am scared of -------?  My plane crashing, the flu, my child’s school or playground, a creepy mole on my back, etc.  What are your fears?

I was reading in Deuteronomy this week and came across a few times when the phrase; “fear the Lord your God” was spoken.  One time in particular drew my attention, because it said, “O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to FEAR the LORD your God..”  Deuteronomy 10: 12  This caused me to pause and read the whole chapter again, to gain perspective of why is it that the Lord said MORE than 25 times in the Bible to FEAR Him?  I began to look up all the scriptures that speak of FEAR of the LORD.  Many of them are written as this one, like a command with a promise afterwards.  Fear the Lord and…your children will prosper, you will inherit the promise land, you will be blessed.  Other verses say the FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.  This leads me to the WORD of the day from the WORD.  I would like to challenge US to exchange OUR version of the word FEAR that is created from earthly experiences, with God’s version of the word FEAR.  So yes, let’s exchange FEAR for FEAR.  How can we do this?

The answer is found in the WORD, of course.  “ My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the FEAR of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 2:1-5.  Why would getting to know the LORD be the beginning of understanding FEAR?  Because when we FEAR the things of this earth, the things that could KILL our families and those we love, we have put all of our trust in ourselves, this is called PRIDE.  But, when we read God’s WORD, accept them, store them DEEP within our hearts and apply them to our lives, searching endlessly for God’s treasures, our focus simply switches from US to HIM.  And that my friend is a PERFECT EXCHANGE of our FEAR with FEAR OF THE LORD! 

I pray tonight you stop listening to that little snake in your ear and instead EXCHANGE your FEARS with a FEAR OF THE LORD, and start searching for that treasure as if its EVER LASTING LIFE because IT IS which is why….The FEAR of the LORD leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm.  Proverbs 19:23.  AMEN and AMEN.

HUGS!  SMJ

GUARD

GUARD / January 27, 2014

Atherosclerosis is defined as the hardening of your arteries due to accumulated cholesterol plaques and scarring in the artery walls.  The result over time is an unhealthy heart because blood cannot flow easily towards it.  This disease is very similar to what I call the “ALL ABOUT ME, MYSELF and I” terminal illness.  This illness over time BLOCKS God from your heart, and when your heart can no longer except instruction from the God of the universe, it becomes hardened.

This leads me to my WORD of the day.  GUARD.  Above all else, GUARD your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  Proverbs 4:23.  This command to GUARD your heart is a warning for protect our hearts from becoming hardened.  How does one guard their heart?  I’m going to share with you what I have learned the HARDENED WAY. 

I have spent several years NOT guarding my Spiritual heart, without realizing it.  It all began when I started putting myself FIRST in my life.  I would complain about one thing, then grumble about two, sometimes I judged others unfairly, I worried about many pointless things and worse I focused on myself.  While each of these separately, seemed little and justifiable at the moment, like a little bag of chips or a little scoop of ice cream isn’t good for the heart, over time when combined, my spiritual heart became hardened.  It was clogged up with WRONG THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS, so the ultimate result was an overflowing of wrong thoughts, words and emotions.  I became very sad when the Lord revealed a x-ray of my heart to me.

I would like to share something with you today in hopes you can bypass a hardened heart in your own life.  I was blessed enough to grow up in church and surrounded by very Godly family members.  The older I became the more I thought I knew about the ways of God, and became “TOO COMFORTABLE” in my walk with the Lord.  A too comfortable attitude, led to a, “I know all things” attitude, which led to “I’m better than others” attitude.  YUCK! Just like our heart is the most important organ in our body, our inner self and spirit is vital to our connection with our Creator.  In this verse, “Above all else, Guard your heart…”  heart represents are inner selves, our emotions, intellect, desires and our wills.   Basically, like Matthew 12:34 says, “The words we speak flow out of our hearts.”  When “I, myself, and Me” become a part of your vocabulary, it says your heart is focused on YOU, not God.  God challenged me during my quiet time with Him one day, “LISTEN to how many times you make statements regarding your own well-being and not that of others.”  The results weren’t pretty. 

I am thankful because I am living with a soft, pliable heart before the LORD today because God continued to rescue me from myself and all my careless acts that I justified as “no big deal.”  He took my heart and wrapped it in his great BIG TRUTH, bringing His WORD alive to me as my WORD for the day.  “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will GUARD your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7 The TRUTH in this WORD is heart changing.  God sent his son, Jesus Christ to GUARD our heart. God is our GUARD from a hardened heart. BUT we have to humble ourselves and admit we can’t GUARD our hearts on our own.  My WORD from the WORD today is GUARD.  Exchange all the I’s and Me’s in your life and lay them down at the GUARD’s feet and ask him to GUARD your heart from becoming hardened.  He will joyfully GUARD you, because YOU MATTER to Him enough to be created in His great big world.

HUGS.  SMJ.

HEALING

HEALING / 1/19/14

What does it feel like to be broken in spirit from the wounds of someone, to then turn around and be so broken in the presence of the Lord in such a deep way, that you heal? 

The saying goes, “You can’t fix what’s not broken.”  TRUE.   You would never take a brand new anything that works perfectly back to the store and say “fix this,” if nothing was wrong with it. Same reason we can’t go to God and tell him we need a Savior, if we are perfect. 

So to be BROKEN before God, when inside you already feel like someone else broke you, can be a deep and painful surgery.  Imagine a beautiful ceramic pot, glazed and painted for display, and someone comes in and whacks it with a bat into a million different sized pieces.  Would you go get a glue gun?  Or a trash can?  This is my visual every time I think about being truly BROKEN before God.  I visualize, being broken into so many pieces, that I can’t even attempt to glue my life back together.  I think to myself, the only thing I have as a solution is a trash can.

To go before God BROKEN, means to humble yourself and lay every broken piece before Him, holding NOTHING back.  It says to God, “I’ve got nothing worthy to offer you, I am nothing, You, LORD are everything, and I need ALL of you, to hold my BROKENESS together.  I am BROKEN without you.”  Sure, we can all mumble a prayer that seems humble, and we can say all the right words out loud among peers, but God KNOWS and SEES His BROKEN children, and when he does, he calls you by name to come to Him, so he can put the pieces back together again.

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and HEAL their land.”  2 Chronicles 7:14  God cannot heal someone who doesn’t even know they are broken.  He cannot work with HARD clay or HARD hearts.  But with BROKENNESS and humility he HEALS you completely.   God can take all my tiny, fragmented broken mess of a life and put it all back on His Wheel, The Potter’s Wheel, and add his special pliable dose of mercy, love, grace and forgiveness and suddenly, my brokenness is put all back together by a GREAT BIG GOD!

God wants to HEAL our land.  He wants us to replace the words that tear us down and steal the power He offers to us with His WORDS from His WORD.  Let’s replace our BROKENNESS today with HEALING.  Let’s lay down EVERY BROKEN hard chipped part of the beautiful pot he originally created in each of us, and let his HEALING WORDS HEAL our land.  Humble ourselves, pray and seek HIS face only and turn from what is BREAKING our lives apart, SIN.  It’s no easy journey, but laying around BROKEN into a million pieces serves NO purpose!  BRING IT ON GOD, I choose to speak the WORD HEALING TODAY.

HUGS.  SMJ

PRESENCE

PRESENCE Jan. 19^th, 2014

I am in a very RAW place this early Monday Morning.  This church chorus from over a decade ago, possibly even longer, came to me during the night as one word has continued to roll around in my heart over this long, emotional weekend: PRESENCE.  If you remember this song, sing it with me in spirit today…

“Surely the PRESENCE of the Lord is in this place

I can feel His might power and His Grace

I can see the touch of angels wings I see glory on each face

Surely the PRESENCE of the Lord is in this place”

 

We all have experienced those “dry desert experiences.”  You know those moments frozen in time, when you take one small step forward and it feels like someone has pushed you 5 steps backwards and knocked you off your feet.  Laying flat on your back, breathless you reach out for someone to rescue you from this place, and with most of the air from the fall being knocked out of you, you can barely gasp, “Is anybody out there?  Anyone? Help?”

I often go to the book of Exodus, when I am personally experiencing an emotional desert.  I could read these ancient pages forever and always gleam a new insight.  This weekend, I saw PRESENCEover and over as I read.  Moses life stories of valley’s and desert’s and mountaintop’s weave themselves in such a similar way to each of us. This is where I was drawn in DEEP this weekend.  Moses had already received the 10 commandments, inscribed by the very finger of God….and around chapter 31 and 32 when he is returning to the people that God had CHOSEN, and gifted and poured into blessing after blessing…gold and silver and abundance, God’s provisions day and night had been with His CHOSEN….and then this moment of utter defiance… they took EVERY single blessing from GOD and turned it all into another GOD, a Golden Calf.  Chapter 32.  Then in Chapter 33, I shiver at this statement…”The Lord said to Moses, Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff –necked people.  If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you!!!!” Exodus 33:5  Their creator, the God of the Universe, the one they have worshipped and saw miracles falling from Heaven in the form of food, HIS PRESENCE had been lifted from them at this moment in time.  I can’t even imagine the anger, frustration, knocked off your feet and punched in the gut feeling deep within Moses.  He had just been with the Lord on the mountaintop, and now this.  In his desert place, he cries out in verse 13, “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. “  and verse 14 “The LORD replied, “My PRESENCE will go with you and I will give you rest.” And in verses 15 and 16 it is all sewn together at this moment..”Moses said to him “If your PRESENCE does not go with us, do not send us from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?  What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?’

It is in these verses I weep, not a slow falling tear, a gut wrenching, gasping for air sobering mess of a weeping fit….Because in relating these verses to my seasons over the years, I recognize over how often I have sinfully tried to step out in “MY PRESENCE”, “MY POWER”, “MY WILL” and in so doing, I just fall further backwards into a big fat MESS, without the PRESENCE of God being minute by minute the intention of my heart, the voice on my lips of His name, the song in my spirit.  Without His PRESENCE in my life, what distinguishes me from any other people? 

So my WORD today from the WORD to begin this work week and chew on is PRESENCE. Is God’s PRESENCE with me today?  Or have I allowed my circumstances to keep me on my back in the dirt?  Have I spent so much time in the PRESENCE of the Lord that HE is seen on my face, NOT ME, but HIM?  I will close with this… “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD.” Exodus 34:29

Go out into this NEW week, IN HIS PRESENCE!

HUGS.  SMJ