1) Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Strengthen relationships. Have fun. Life is more than just work. Play also. Become emotionally healthy. Time will reveal sin weakness. Don’t let sin enter in as it will bite hard and last long. Listen to your body. Listen to the Lord. Strengthen your heart.
2) Strengthen self-respect. Be your own best friend. Make your thoughts captive to love yourself because when you do, it will be foundational to loving others. Set boundaries. Say no. Then keep your boundaries. It’s Ok that people don’t like you or that they get angry with you. Don’t give in. Seasons of loneliness come and go. Setting healthy boundaries will give you healthier friends. Honor your body. Take care of it by the food you eat and the way you showcase it. You are worth investing $ into. Not just your spiritual life but your physical and emotional well-being also.
3) Let go of control and trust the Lord. He does things better than you can imagine. I realize you think you have let go of control, but when you feel helpless, unprotected, alone, oftentimes it’s because you’re scared because you’re in control and it doesn’t look good. These are warning lights to remove trust in yourself and trust in the Lord. It doesn’t mean things will turn out happy and good and like you want.
4) **Edited as some things just aren't for public knowledge.
5) Take every thought captive. Your life will go in the direction of your most dominant thought. There’s always a different way to perceive things. Perceive them in light of trusting the Lord.
6) Develop your forgiving muscle. You will need it your whole life. The stronger it is, the better life you will have.
7) Nurture hope. Take jobs that give you pleasure. You can do jobs you don’t like for a season, but eventually they will crush your heart. Find solutions not problems. Hope against hope in every situation. God loves it when we discover Him between the rock and a hard place.
8) Be devoted to prayer and the Word. Always. Be led by the Spirit. Discover the riches of the Spirit of God.
9) The great commandment came before the great commission. Learn to love. You will always hunger for the truth, but you must learn to love. God takes sons of thunder and turns them into brothers of love. Let him do that for you.
We are not able in ourselves to win this battle.
We are not able to change hearts or minds.
We are not able to change worldviews and transform culture and save 1.6 million children.
We are not able to reform the judiciary or embolden the legislature or mobilize the slumbering population.
We are not able to heal the endless wounds of godless ideologies and their bloody deeds.
But, O God, you are able!
And we turn from reliance on ourselves to you.
And we cry out to you and plead that for the sake of your name, and
for the sake of your glory, and for the advancement of your saving
purpose in the world, and for the demonstration of your wisdom and your
power and your authority over all things, and for the sway of your Truth
and the relief of the poor and the helpless, act, O God.
This much we hunger for the revelation of your power.
With all our thinking and all our writing and all our doing, we pray and we fast.
Come. Manifest your glory.
I appeal to you to seek the Lord with me concerning the
place of fasting and prayer in breaking through the darkened mind that
engulfs the modern world, in regard to abortion and a hundred other
ills.
This is not a call for a collective tantrum that screams at the bad people, “Give me back my country.”
It is a call to aliens and exiles in the earth, whose citizenship is
in heaven and who await the appearance of their King, to “do business”
until he comes (Luke 19:13).
And the great business of the Christian is to “do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31), and to pray that God’s name be hallowed and his kingdom come and his will be done in the earth (Matthew 6:9-10).
And to yearn and work and pray and fast not only for the final
revelation of the Son of Man, but in the meantime, for the demonstration
of his Spirit and power in the reaching of every people, and the
rescuing of the perishing, and the purifying of the church, and the
putting right of as many wrongs as God will grant.
The following is a repost from one of my friends, Suzanne Gowin. She has over the years borne 9 children, 3 of her flesh and 6 of her heart through adoption. Check out her blog at www.gowinfamily.comwww.gowinfamily.com. She's an amazing woman of God and lives what she preaches.
Is God Angry With Us?
Because of an interview this past weekend, I was reflecting on my
personal discovery of Isaiah, back in the spring of 2010. I remember
with fondness a short season I had with all the kids in school (before
the new ones came), chores caught up at home, and available time to
spend hours in the Word. It was a season where I eagerly and
purposefully pleaded, “Lord, please reveal to me your heart, so I can be
more like you.” I will honestly admit that this is often not how I come
to Scripture, but it truly was during that season.
My journey began with Isaiah 1, where I was blown away. I had never seen language like this to describe God.
God is ANGRY with his people! He calls them “a brood of evildoers.”
They have rebelled against him so much that their whole bodies are beat
up, from the bottoms of their feet to the tops of their heads. They are
covered in welts and nasty unbandaged open sores because foreigners have
come and desolated their people and their land. If God had not saved a
remnant, they would have been totally demolished like Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Even more than their land and their bodies, their hearts are as far
away from God as they could possibly be. So much so that God says, “What
are your sacrifices to me?” When they come to their place of worship,
he tells them to “Stop bringing meaningless offerings!” They are
“trampling his courts.” He “cannot bear their worthless assemblies.”
Their prescribed festivals “I hate with all my being!”
God is so tired and “weary of bearing them.” When they lift up their
hands in prayer, he “hides his eyes” from them. He says, “I am not
listening”–those hands are “full of blood!” Their incense is “detestable” to Him! He even goes on to say that the “faithful city has become a prostitute!”
My heart is racing even now as I read those words in Isaiah. Have you ever heard words like these from God??
Now, before you want to jump to conclusions like: “Well, that was the
Old Testament God… He was authoritarian and domineering and far away
from His creation… That was before Jesus”– look back at the beginning of
the chapter.
Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth! For the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.
This Old Testament God calls his people his “children” and he raised
them and cared for their needs as any loving father would. But he is so sad that they have rebelled against him anyway. He says that even the donkey and ox know their master and their home, but his own children are far from him. They do not know or understand him at all.
This makes me want to cry. I think any mom or dad would want to cry
after their beloved children have turned their backs on the ones who
love them the most.
So here is the clincher in verses 16-17. The part that stopped me in
my tracks. God tells them to clean themselves up. “Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right.” This is the part where I expected to read about how
God wants us to worship the right way. Change our hearts when we go to
the house of worship. Pray more. Do our sacrifices better. Don’t do
things for show. But this is where I was blown away.
Here is the equation. How do we “learn to do right”?
Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
What?!? This doesn’t sound like worship? What about church? What about Bible studies? What about my quiet time??
What God wants from us in worship is much more practical and doesn’t just happen on Sunday morning: Take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.
Look after the most vulnerable, the ones who are taken advantage of by
others, the ones most avoided and forgotten by the rest of the world. THIS is what “religion” is supposed to be. This is true “worship!”
Sound familiar? We have read it so many times in the New Testament it has become old news. But read the equation again:
Religion
that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look
after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from
being polluted by the world. (James 1: 27)
Our New Testament God and our Old Testament God are one and the same.
His love for us is the same, and the worship he expects back from us is
the same. He is the same loving and intimate Father.
Similarly, in Hosea 11 (another prophet like Isaiah who is called to
preach repentance to a rebellious people), God talks about his love for
his children, how he “taught them to walk.”
I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.
Does that sound like a harsh, overbearing, distant father? No, this
is a beautiful picture of a Daddy bending down to scoop up his beloved
child and swing her around like a princess!
Many times in the Old Testament, God is shown to have an intimate relationship with his children. And he yearns for relationship with them.
I long to redeem them(Hos 7:13)
So here is the answer to my question when I asked God to show me his heart: Take care of the vulnerable, those without someone to provide for and protect them. Period.
We all can relate because that is what we all were before He adopted
us into his family. We were fatherless, far from our Heavenly Father.
Since we understand what it means to be redeemed, to be a part of a
family, shouldn’t we do everything we can to help others have that kind
of relationship, to not be alone and destitute? God even calls himself
the “Father to the fatherless” in Psalms 68:5. Should we not do the
same, in whatever way He has called us?
Or is God angry with us? Are we doing all the “church things,” and
avoiding the mess and inconvenience of taking care of others? I want to
ask myself this question every day. Is my worship selfish, for me to
feel good? Or does it honor God, and in doing so sometimes not “feel
good” at all? Is my life a sweet incense to the Creator, or do I just
stink?
"Therefore, I urge you,
brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper
worship.(Rom 12:1)"
I was continuing to get agitated at a person/situation. Then I realized that I needed to stop looking to the source of the problem for the solution, and to the Source of the solution for the problem. It changed everything. Peace and joy returned.
When someone sees a problem and tries to bring about change and that change is blocked, at first there's discouragement. Repeated efforts that don't meet fruition sour hope. This soured hope
can express itself in anger towards God, others or even at oneself causing a bitter root. It's called cynicism and it grows like a spreading cancer.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick" says Solomon (Prov 13:12).
I have struggled with cynicism.
I have tried to make changes in organizations I've been a part of where there is glaring holes. "If it ain't broke don't fix it" was a reply I once heard. On the contrary I believed that the one who said this was so settled into tradition that they didn't see that it had broken long ago.
I have tried to make changes in my life. Personal ambitions to fulfill dreams. I have yet to see them fully fulfilled. I was turned away as I wasn't __________ enough. Or because I was too __________. And I grew angry at the Lord and at myself. A critical spirit grew.
I've tried to suggest changes to people that I am in constant contact with and met only with fierce stubbornness. Cynicism birthed evil children.
But thankfully I'm in process of being delivered. Because what I've discovered is that cynicism has another root--idolatry. Focusing on anything other than God himself to bring about change is idolatry. When I look to an organization or a group or a person to change my situation, I'm setting them up as an idol. It is an idol that I repeatedly bang my head against and then wonder why I am bloodied. I can definitely voice my concerns and suggest changes, but if those changes aren't received, my spirit does not sour if my hope is in the Lord. Hope, even if what I hope for doesn't go my way, does not go bad. It's because I trust His wisdom.
The fruit in casting my cares upon Him is that I pray more. I am seeking Him and His wisdom, seeking change through prayer (and maybe it's me that gets changed). I'm less in control and that's uncomfortable but I am more submitted. It also means that I release the person from the sights of my angry gun because I'm not looking to them. I'm looking to the Lord. And when I trust the Lord, I get peace. It's a much better place for my spirit to reside.
Several centuries ago I attended driver’s Ed where we were taught to
avoid looking too intently at oncoming headlights. Apparently if you
stare at something long enough you
unconsciously go that direction. This little tidbit of advice grabbed
my attention. As I continued to mature I noticed this strange
phenomenon occurred in many spheres. It explained to me why some
friends, who desperately hated certain characteristics of their parents,
tended to grow up and produce the same fruit. They put so much energy
into staring at what they hated that they collided with it. I find it
can take enormous amounts of effort to avoid those tempting headlights;
they seem to irresistibly beckon us to stare and mindlessly drive their
direction. Anger, fear, perfectionism, unbelief, pride- these are semi
trucks I care not to meet fender to fender on a highway. Today I
was wondering if I could apply this truth the other direction.
Currently the GPS in my car has been high jacked by Jesus. It’s a
high-speed chase of trust these days and I don’t exactly know where I am
going. But I know who I want to follow. And He seems to enjoy testing
my ability to track Him. Instead of panicking that I can’t name the
roads we are zooming past or even recognize the scenery, I will just
keep staring at Jesus. Some sweet day at the end of this race we’re
going to have an amazing collision!!
What seemed impossible 6 months ago is today a reality. God honors and hears the prayers of his people. Thank you Lord. Just one week in and already a gift is given.
