Walk Boldly With Jesus

People are Sticky

Sirach 13:1 “Whoever touches pitch gets dirty, and whoever associates with a proud person becomes like him.”

This entire chapter in Sirach is titled Caution Regarding Associates.  Each verse describes different types of people or different types of relationships you might have.  I liked this first verse because the way Father Mike described it left a distinct picture in my head.  It was a visual that I won’t forget.  I think if we can attach visuals to what we are learning it helps us understand them better.  First, let's talk about what pitch is.  Pitch, in the chemical-process industries, is the black or dark brown residue obtained by distilling coal tar, wood tar, fats, fatty acids, or fatty oils.  Pitch is sticky.  When you touch it, it stays on your hands and then gets on everything you touch.  When I heard this I thought of the tar baby in Brer Rabbit. That rabbit got tar all over him.  

The thing that Father Mike said that really stood with me was, “people are sticky.”  The verse talks about how if you touch pitch you will get dirty.  Then it talks about how if you associate with a proud person you will become like that proud person.  I agree with Father Mike, “people are sticky.”  If you hang around with someone long enough, you will start to become like them, even if you don’t want to.   It usually happens slowly, and often times without us even being aware of it.  We hang around someone who is negative all the time and eventually we start to complain more than we used to.  We hang around with someone who likes to go out to eat and we start to go out to eat more often.  We even start to talk like those that we hang around with.  If you don’t believe think about the people you spend the most time with.  Do they have any things they say often?  Do you say those things now?  One of the people I follow on social media used to say 100 % every time she agreed with something her husband was saying.  For instance, he would say something like “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to what happens to you.”  And she would say “I agree 100%” or she would just say, “yes, 100%.”  After watching their morning show for quite awhile I started to say 100% a lot as well.  

This is why we are called to be careful who we spend the most time with.  We need to be intentional not only about how we spend our time, but also who we spend our time with.  I am not saying you shouldn’t spend any time with those who are negative. You may have family members that are negative and you can’t just not spend any time with them.  If this is the case for you I would say just try to limit the time you spend with them.  Also, try to bring some light into the darkness of their complaining.  Maybe point out the good things or the positive things in their situation.  Also, sometimes if they get talking about a certain thing they can get pretty negative, try to change the topic.  

If you can’t avoid the negativity and you can’t really escape it, for instance, my husband and three boys were all pretty negative for awhile.  I lived in the same house with them, so avoiding them wasn’t really an option.  In this case, I tried to fill the time I wasn’t with them, when they were at work, or at school, with positive people.  I would listen to uplifting music, I would listen to audio books that would lift my spirits, I would do Bible studies.  We are in charge of our own thoughts and we are in charge of who we hang out with for the most part.  We are in charge of how we feel.

That is another way people are sticky.  Oftentimes, we can get stuck with other people’s moods.  We can wake up in a great mood, have a great morning, and then walk into work feeling great.  However, if someone we work closely with is in a bad mood, their mood can be contagious.  It can be the same if our spouse or our children are in a bad mood.  This is something that can happen if we aren’t paying attention.  If we are around someone who walks into work and had a bad morning their attitude rubs off on us.  Now all of the sudden our good mood lessens and we start to feel anxious and grumpy but we are not sure why.  Has that ever happened to you?  It would be nice if it happened the other way.  It would be nice if your good mood rubbed off on your coworker that was having a bad day.  This can happen sometimes, but more often than not the bad attitude is the one that winds up spreading.  I am not sure why this is, but I wonder if it is because we are going on autopilot.

I wonder if the bad mood spreads faster than the good mood because we are all just kinda going through our days on autopilot and not really being present in the moment?  If we aren’t intentionally guarding our thoughts and moods then the enemy can easily come in and turn them negative.  He can get us to think about all that is wrong in our lives instead of all that is right.  I know some of you listening have some pretty heavy stuff going on in your lives right now.  It is easy to find all that is going wrong in your lives.  However, I want to challenge you to try to find a few things that are going right.  Can you find 3 things that you can be grateful for today?  It doesn’t have to be three things that have to do with your situation.  We don’t have to be thankful for our terrible situation, but we can be grateful for something while going through it.  For instance, when we were really struggling with my son, I would be grateful for the few hours he was at school.  I would be grateful God put people in my life that were there for me and would listen and give me hugs when I needed them.  I was grateful for the times Tony, my husband, would take the boys somewhere for the weekend so I could recharge my batteries.  

The enemy doesn’t want us to know this, but I will let you in on the secret.  We can actually have control over our thoughts and our feelings.  If we don’t like how we are feeling, we can change our thoughts and feel differently.  The enemy wants us to continue to feel helpless because that is when we are most vulnerable to him.  We are never helpless because we are children of God.  God will put people in your life to help you through difficult times, and all you have to do is let them help you.  Accepting help can be hard, but not as hard as doing it on your own.  We seemed to have veered from the whole people are sticky idea, which means the Holy Spirit knew someone needed to hear this message today.  If you are struggling, please let others help.  I know trusting people can be hard, especially if you have been let down before.  Try to trust people anyway.  Pray for God to bring people into your life that will help you, people that will lift you up and not bring you down.  Pray for people in your life who are filled with God’s light.  Pray for people whose love and light are contagious.  

Remember, no matter what the enemy tells you, you are in control of your thoughts and emotions.  You have the power to change your emotions by changing your thoughts.  I have talked about this before and I don’t want this episode to be too long, so I won’t go into details, but basically, if you are having feelings you don’t like, ask yourself, “What story and I telling myself?” and then change that story to something you feel better about.  For instance, when I feel frustrated and sad with my son because of the choices he is making, I examine the story I am telling myself.  When I do that I realize I am telling myself, “if he continues to make these choices he won’t have a good future.”  However, we have no way of knowing this is true because our God is bigger than my son’s choices.  Once I realize this I change my thoughts to, “I may not like his choices, but nothing is too big for God to overcome.” This helps change my emotions and I find comfort in the fact that God can do anything and I release the worry over my son to God.  I put him in God’s hands and then I don’t need to worry.  

I know this is just a brief overview, if you would like more clarification on how to change your emotions, reach out and I would be happy to help you.  The main thing to remember is to be intentional about who you are spending time with.  Guard your thoughts and emotions and be intentional about what you are thinking about.  Also, remember that people are sticky.  If you spend a lot of time with people who don’t have similar values, your values may start to change into those of the people you are spending time with.  Also, guard your mood.  If you are in a good mood, try to intentionally spread that good mood, instead of getting stuck catching someone else’s negative mood.  Romans 8:31 says, “If God if for you, who could be against you!”  You can do this, you can take control of your thoughts and emotions.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, you are amazing and we are so grateful for you.  We are grateful for all the wonderful people you have put in our path over the years.  We are grateful for those you gave us in a season where we really needed them.  Lord, we ask you to help us guard our hearts and minds against those who are negative or who wish us harm.  Lord, help us to spread your light and love into the world and let that overcome the darkness.  Help us to guard our mood when others try to bring us down.  Help us to guard our thoughts against the enemy.  Help us to live more intentionally and less on auto pilot.  We love you Lord, you are incredible.  You are the almighty king of peace and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day.

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Switching from What If to What Is

Exodus 4:1-5 “Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.  The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.  Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.  “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

I was listening to a sermon on the Elevation Church podcast the other day.  Steven Furtick always has such great sermons.  I wanted to share part of this one with you because it was a topic that a lot of us have been struggling with lately.  It was something that is pretty common and yet it is not serving us.  The title of the sermon was “From What If To What Is” (Click Here) for a link to the full sermon in the show notes if you want to listen to it.  It is definitely worth the time to listen to the whole thing.  I am just able to briefly touch on what he said but his podcast is a good 45 minutes long, so he has more time to go into depth on it.  

This verse starts off by Moses questioning God.  God had just told Moses he wanted him to go to Egypt and talk to God’s people.  He said he wanted Moses to talk to the most powerful person at the time, the pharaoh of Egypt and tell him he needed to let the Israelites go.  He needed to release his entire work force, as the Israelites were slaves in Egypt.  Also, Moses has been on the run for 40 years after he killed a man.  Moses was concerned no one would believe him if he did as God asked Him to do.  

So Moses asked God, "“What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” Moses started right in with the what ifs. This is the only one he mentioned but I wonder if it was the only one?  I wonder if this one “what if” spiraled into a bunch of “what ifs?”  Has that ever happened to you before, you start wondering what if this happens and what if that happens and before you know it you’ve imagined 50 different scenarios and most of them bad.  Did you ever notice your mind doesn’t usually go through all the positive what ifs.  When is the last time your brains asked what if I win the lottery?  What if everything works out perfectly.  What if I do get that job with the pay raise?  What if I do meet the man of my dreams?  If your brain has done the what ifs with a  positive spin then you are lucky, that is not how it usually goes.

So Moses asks God what if they don’t believe him.  Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.  The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.  Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.  “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

God was going to use what Moses already had, the staff, to convince the people that Moses was telling the truth.  If God sends you to do something he will give you all you need to do it.  We don’t have to question Him.  One thing Steven Furtick said that I really liked was, “Do you know how you know if you have what it takes to do what you are called to do?”  “You know because God called you to do it.  If he called you to it then he gave you everything you need to do it.”  This kind of goes along with one of my favorite sayings, which is God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.  If God is calling you to do something you can rest assured knowing He has already given you all you need to fulfill that calling.  

When Moses said, “What if they don’t believe me.”  God said, “What is that in your hand?”  Do you see how Pastor Furtick got the title “From What If to What is?”  It is such an interesting concept though and one I think could really help some of us.  When we ask “What if” we are thinking about the future.  We are going through all the scenarios of everything that could go wrong with our day?  What if I don’t get this episode done in time? What if people can’t listen when they normally listen?  What if they get tired of having to listen later in the day? What if they stop listening? Do you see how one thought can then spiral into a lot of thoughts, each one seemingly more and more serious?  I would like to say this type of thought pattern was unusual.  It isn’t.  If you start to head down the what if road often, you are not alone.  There are many of us that do this.  

However, when we do this, we are worrying needlessly and we are probably missing out on whatever is happening at the moment because we are too wrapped up in our thoughts.  We are too wrapped up in what might happen and so we are missing out on what is actually happening. Let’s examine this concept of moving from what if to what is.  If we are focusing on what is, then we are focusing on where we are in that moment.  We are also focusing on the facts and so there is a level of confidence that we don’t have when we focus on the unknown.  If we focus on the what is we can also take the worry out of it or at least some of it.  For instance, let's say you have a bill due and you don’t have the money to pay it.  Your mind may start down the what if road.  What if I can’t pay this heating bill?  What if they then turn off my heat.  What if we freeze to death with no heat?  What if because I don’t have heat the state comes and takes away my children? What if my children have to grow up in foster care?  Do you see how our thoughts can spiral quickly?  Do you see how these thoughts are based on the future.  They are also based on things I don’t have any real control over.  

What about if I focused on the What is question?  What is true about this situation.  It is true I don’t have the money to pay the bill.  Is it true they will turn the heat off, probably not.  Most states have laws preventing the utility company from shutting these things off in the winter.  It is true that I have blankets and warm clothes if they did turn the heat off.  It is true that my children are at home with me right now and no one is threatening to take them away.  Do you see how these thoughts can keep you in the present moment?  These examples have a bit of problem solving in them but this doesn’t have to be the case.  You focusing on “what is” could be as simple as what is true in this moment.  For instance, if you are going down the what if road about your relationship you can stop yourself and just state what is true right now.  In this moment I know he loves me, I know I love him.  I know we are happy.  I know we enjoy spending time together.  Do you see how these thoughts will lift your spirits and the what if thoughts will bring you down?  Do you see how thinking like this keeps you in the present moment and the what if thoughts propel you into the unknown future?  The next time you are caught in a “what if” spiral, see if you can remember to switch to “what is.”  If you often get stuck on the “what if” road to misery maybe put up a detour sign.  Put a sticky note somewhere you will see it reminding you to switch from “what if” to “what is.”  You will be so much happier when you do.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this podcast today!  Lord, help us to stay in the present moment.  Help us to think about what is and leave the what ifs to you.  You are our Lord and our Savior.  You can take care of all the what ifs before we even get to them.  You are bigger than anything that could come our way.  Help us to trust that Lord.  Help us to trust you have already thought of all the what ifs and you have prepared us for them.  We love you Lord.  You are truly amazing.  We are so grateful we have you looking out for us and preparing the way.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you again on Monday.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I!  Have a blessed weekend!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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How Important is 15 Minutes?

Matthew 14:23 "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.”

In the Bible it often mentions how Jesus would go off to be alone to pray. Jesus spent a lot of time healing people and helping people.  He spent a lot of time talking to people also.  However, he also made sure He fit in time to go off by himself and pray or spend time with the Lord, His father.  The teacher in our class on Monday said she always thinks how easy it must have been for Jesus to go off and pray because God is His Father.  It would be like going off and talking to your father.  It probably wouldn’t be that hard for you to make time to do that.  Even as I say that, I realize that isn’t a true statement.  I enjoy talking to my dad and would love to talk to him more and yet, I don’t make the time.  Jesus was super busy.  I am sure He wanted to help as many people as He could.  I wonder if it was hard for Him to pull himself away from all that was going on to find time to spend with His Father?  I am sure Jesus wanted to help as may people as He could.  I also wonder if there was a lot of pressure to work hard because he knew his time here on Earth was limited?  

The teacher on Monday mentioned God had been giving her a lesson throughout that day.  He was calling her to 15 minutes with him each day.  I am sure He is calling all of us to the same.  He was trying to get her to understand how important this 15 minutes was to her so he kept giving her different scenarios.  For instance, how important would 15 minutes be if you are rushing to catch an airplane?  (pretty important) How important would 15 minutes be if you were at dinner with your friends and you were sitting around talking while waiting for your food?  (not too important)  Then He said, how important is 15 minutes with me?  She said she could just feel how important that 15 was to God.  Then she said she felt sad because she can remember all the times she said to God, “I’m coming, just not yet.”  How many of us have done this too?  How many of us have want to spend time with the Lord in the morning but then we get distracted or busy and we tell God we will do it later? I wonder what we have to do that is so important?  

I remember reading Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly.  There was one place in the book where Matthew was talking about how he and is brothers would take turns asking their dad if they could stay home from mass that week.  He said he remembered asking his father one time if he could stay home from mass and his father said yes.  He was so excited.  Then his father said, “You can stay home this week if you an tell me what you are going to be doing at home that is more important than thanking God for giving you another week of life.”  Matthew just looked at him, not knowing what to say.  His dad said, “It might take awhile to think of something that important so why don’t you go get dressed fro mass while you are thinking.”  It was about 5-7 years ago that I read that and it left an impression on me.  What is more important than thanking God for another week of life?  

Sometimes if I have a busy day I will cut my prayer time short so I can prepare for the day.  Have you ever done this?  However, prayer time is preparing for the day in the most powerful way.  Prayer time can be inviting God into your day and asking Him to help you throughout the day.  Have you ever noticed the days when you do start with spending time with God go way better than the days you don’t.  My sister gave me a wooden plaque with a poem on it called “The Difference” by Alan Grant.  It really changed the way I thought about prayer, and not having enough time in the morning to pray.  Here is the poem:

I got up early one morning

  and rushed right into the day:

I had so much to accomplish

  that I didn't have time to pray.

Problems just tumbled about me,

  and heavier came each task.

“Why doesn't God help me?” I wondered.

  He answered, "You didn't ask."

I wanted to see joy and beauty,

  but the day toiled on, gray and bleak;

I wondered why God didn't show me.

  He said, “But you didn't seek.”

I tried to come into God’s presence;

  I used all my keys at the lock.

God gently and lovingly chided,

  “My child, you didn’t knock.”

I woke up early this morning,

  and paused before entering the day;

I had so much to accomplish

  that I had to take time to pray.

I really liked this poem.  I think it is a great reminder of how important prayer is, even just 15 minutes, even just 5 minutes.  It is also a great reminder that things just work better when we invite God into our situation.  When we stop and give him permission to do what He wants to do in our lives.  When we stop to go over our day with Him and let Him know we are thinking of Him.  There was something else our teacher said that really hit me.  She was talking about how she was planning a conference and it was getting difficult.  She was feeling abandoned because she was only a few weeks out, she didn’t have a lot of help, and there were several things that hadn’t come together yet.  She knew God was helping and at the same time she felt abandoned.  She said she called out to God and asked why He wasn’t helping.  She said she got the impression God told her she could do it.  Look at all Jesus did.  She said to God, “Of course Jesus could do all of that, He had you.”  And God said back to her, “So do you.”

God is our Father too.  We are His adopted sons and daughters.  When we go off to pray like Jesus did, we are talking to our Father, our dad, our daddy, our papa.  When we are doing the Lord’s work, we have God on our side, just like Jesus did.  God will help us, just as he helped Jesus.  Whatever we do in Jesus’ name is all for the Lord’s glory.  He will be there for us just as He was there for Jesus.  God is calling us to spend time with Him.  He is calling us to just start each day with Him.  He is calling the woman teaching our class to 15 minutes a day.  Matthew Kelly says to start with just 10 minutes a day.  There was a word of prophecy at prayer group recently that said just 5 minutes a day.  Whatever you give the Lord, He will give you back 10 fold.  I don’t think God is sitting up there worrying if you gave him 5 minutes or 10 minutes, or 15 minutes.  God just wants to spend time with you.  I know you are busy, I know I am busy, I know we are all busy, but too busy for God?  Too busy for 15 minutes thanking God for another week of life and inviting Him into our day?  If we truly are too busy to spend 15 minutes with God each day, then we really need to revisit our calendar and see what we may need to give up.  God should be our priority, let’s make that happen!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to put you first.  Help us to start our day off with inviting you into our day and thanking you for giving us the gift of a brand new day.  Lord, we are sorry we allow ourselves to get so busy that we don’t make time to pray.  We are sorry we are not starting our days off with you.  Please help us Lord.  Please show us where we could rearrange things so we can put you first.  We love you Lord and we want to spend time with you each day.  You are awesome Lord.  You are the almighty and powerful Lord.  You are the light of the world.  We adore you and we glorify you.  We give you thanks for your great glory.  We are so grateful for all you do and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  Could I ask for a favor?  If you are enjoying this podcast, could you share it with a friend?  Also could you rate and review the podcast as that is how other people will find it.  Thank you!  I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I!  Have a blessed day.  

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Today I would like to witness about how faithful God is and how He is always listening even when you don’t think He is.  My husband, Tony, joined ROTC in college and was commissioned into the Air Force right after his four years of college was over,  Although he was enjoying the Air Force, after his four year commitment was up he started looking for a different job.  He had always wanted to be a criminal investigator for a government agency.  His top choices were the Marshal’s or the FBI.  He applied to many positions and was often considered for the jobs, but ultimately didn’t get hired a lot because veteran’s had preferential treatment and although he was in the military, he was not a veteran yet because he was still in the military.  I talked with him about getting out of the military and then finding a job but we had three small boys at the time and giving up a steady income and great health care in the hopes of finding his dream job was not something he was willing to do.  

He searched for several years while we were in New Jersey.  There wasn’t any real urgency to his search though because he really liked being in the military and was happy in the various jobs he had on base.  Then in 2009 we moved to Stuttgart Germany.  We were excited for the move as we had lived over seas, in the country of Turkey, a few years earlier and loved it.  Tony did not love Germany.  He was not happy at his job and he was not happy in Germany.  We were supposed to be there three years I think but he was really wanting to go home the whole first year we were there.  He was finally settling into Germany and beginning to think it wasn’t so bad, when October 2010 came around and our lives changed forever.

In the Summer of 2010 we heard there was going to be a reduction in force for Air Force personnel officers that were in Tony’s year group.  What this means is that they have too many personel officers with the same rank, and they need to let some of them go.  Basically the air force was doing a lay off.  Tony’s bosses told him not to worry.  They usually cut the bottom 10%.  They look at your performance reports and see who is not performing as good as the rest of them.  I am sure they take other things into account, but I don’t know what they are.  Tony’s bosses said he had nothing to worry about because he was always given really high scores on his performance reports.  He was always rated #1 our of how ever many officers there were that he worked with.  

One morning in Oct 2010 Tony went to work and found out his name had been selected to be laid off.  It was devastating news.  Everyone was astonished.  His bosses called to see if there was some mistake.  They said there wasn’t.  This board was different than previous boards.  They let a lot of people go that scored high on their performance reviews and they kept a lot of people that others though would surely be let go because they didn’t score well at all.  Many people said it did not make any sense.  They let go some squadron commanders and in order to have that job it means you are in the top 10%.  It was confusing and no one understood why they made the decisions they made and yet there was nothing we could do about it.  There was no appeals process.  None of us could understand what happened and yet, God knew.  

We were now living in Germany, We had four months to find a new job and to move.  Tony had to find a job while living in Germany, so he had to fly back to the states for interviews or take them over the phone.  This was a very difficult time for Tony.  The uncertainty of the future and how he was going to provide for the family was weighing heavily on him.  We did pray together that God would provide and find him a job.  We knew God would take care of us and yet there was still that worry, especially as it got closer and closer to the deadline of us having to move.  However, even in that we could see God working.  For instance, because it was the military saying we had to move, they would pay for the move.  We didn’t have to worry about how we were going to afford to move back to the states.  I believe they also let you keep the medical care for 6 months after you got out of the military until you found another job so we weren’t going to be left out in the cold.  Although after giving the military 11 years of your life and then being let go, I am sure to Tony it probably felt like they were abandoning him.  

Tony started applying for jobs right away.  In December he went back to the US for a transition class that helps people who are transitioning from the military back to civilian life.  While he was back there he got a job interview for a job at Lakenheath England.  The job was to be the Mission Support Group Deputy Commander.  He said he felt like he had a pretty good interview, he really liked the commander who was interviewing him and it sounded like the job would be something he would really enjoy.  He was unsure if he would get the job though because the other person they were interviewing had a lot more experience than he did.  The other person was retired Col, so he had over 20 years experience.  Right before Tony got on the airplane to come back to Germany he found out they were offering him the job.  He was so excited.

Although Tony was excited for this job, we really had no idea how much of an answer to prayers it was until we got there and he started working it.  Tony had wanted to get out of the military for a few years, but especially that last year and a half, however, he wouldn’t just leave the military without having another job because he wanted to be a good provider for our family.  All of the sudden there is a situation where he has to leave the military.  That part of the story is not great.  I know Tony hates the way he left the military and yet it forced him to take the step he had been wanting to take.  He absolutely loved the job he went to.  It was a promotion.  He was a major in the Air Force, and he was a GS 14 in the civilian world, which is equivalent to a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force.  In his job he was not in the military but everyone he worked with was so he got to have the best of both worlds.  His job as deputy Mission Support Group commander meant that he got to over see the workings of the support side of the base.  Anything that had to do with the services for the people that worked on base.  For instance, the security forces and the fire department, the hotel on base and all the restaurants, the civil engineers and the housing offices, Tony got to work with all these different squadrons.  

This job was exactly what Tony was looking for, even if he didn’t know it when he first got it.  Tony was so grateful to have a job and to get to stay overseas in England.  Although Tony was not happy why he had to find this job, he was so happy in this job.  He really enjoyed working with the commander that hired him into the position, even though she was just there for a few months before she moved.  Then he had two great commanders after her before we moved back to the united states.  We stayed in England for about 4.5 years and Tony loved his job.  It was more than he could have ever asked for. He loved helping people, he loved being around the military and he loved those he worked with.  He could not have asked for a better outcome or a better job.  We also found an amazing house when we moved there, the boys each had amazing friends, we were blessed with family friends who had children our boys age.  We were able to go on family vacations with them and have them over to our house.  It was an incredible 4.5 years.

As I said at the beginning this is a witness as to how God is faithful and how He is listening even when we don’t know He is.  Tony talked about getting a job outside the military but I don’t know if he ever talked to God about it specifically.  Tony wanted to get out of the military but didn’t want to jump ship without another job, God heard that and took care of it.  I also want to point out how God always out does our expectations.  Tony was looking for any job.  He probably would have taken any job, even if it was one that wasn’t perfect  because we needed and income and we needed health insurance.  Yet, God found him the perfect job.  It wasn’t just another job, it was a job and a promotion.  It was a job helping people, which always fills Tony’s heart and soul.   He found us the perfect friends, and made sure each of our three boys had a best friend as well.  He found us the perfect house that was big enough for us to have our friends over.  He put the perfect bosses in Tony’s path so Tony had awesome leadership to help him learn this new position.  

God goes above and beyond.  It won’t always look like we want it to.  It won’t always happen in a way we want it to.  There will be times of uncertainty when we need to step out in faith and keep trusting even when we don’t see the ending.  This was a period of extreme uncertainty and yet we can see God’s hands all of it.  If you are in an uncertain period right now, just hold on, just keep trusting, God is working on a plan that is going to knock your socks off.  I know it is hard when you are waiting and I know its frustrating because its in God’s time, not ours, but your answer is coming, I promise! 

We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives.  This is why it is so important we start talking about it more.  The more we share our experiences the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us.  If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here.  It won’t take up much of your time and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today.  Prayerfully consider sharing.  Everyone has a story and the world needs to hear them.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday.  Have a blessed day!

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Don’t Count Yourself Out

Genesis 28:10-15 "Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran.  When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.  He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

The title of this episode is Don’t Count Yourself Out.  Do you ever do this?  Do you ever hear about someone doing something and count yourself out because you don’t think you are strong enough or you don’t think you are good enough, or you are not enough in some other way?  Do you ever hear about someone receiving a blessing and count yourself out of receiving a blessing because you are not good enough or you are not holy enough?  I think we all count ourselves sometimes.  We hear about people receiving blessing and good things from God and we tell ourselves they are holier than we are.  They are better Christians that we are.  They are closer to God so of course He is blessing them.  We then proceed to think of all the ways where we are falling short.  We think of all the thing we are doing wrong and how God couldn’t possibly bless us.  

Yesterday in class we talked about the verse above and when I heard her talking about it I knew some of you needed to hear it as bad as I did.  In the verse above God is bestowing upon Jacob an amazing blessing. He is promising to give him and his descendants the land Jacob was laying on.  God is also promising Jacob his descendants will be like dust of the earth and will be spread out to the east, west, north and south.  Then he says all people on earth will be blessed through Jacob and his offspring.  God promises to be with Jacob, to watch over him, and to bring him back to that land.  I am not sure if you know the story of Jacob or not.  If you don’t you probably assume Jacob is a great guy.  It is easy to assume he is a very holy man that was doing everything right. However, this is not the case.

In Genesis 27, the chapter right before this, Isaac, Jacob’s dad, asked Essau, Jacob’s brother, to prepare him some food and then he will give him the blessing he deserves because he is the oldest.  However, Jacob’s mom persuades Jacob to get the blessing instead.  Jacob dressed up like his brother, they even put goat skin on his hands so he would be hairy like his brother’s hands.  Then he brought food into his father and pretended to be his brother.  His father doubted but Jacob convinced him and stole his brothers blessing.  When Essau came home he was really angry.  He begged his father for a blessing but there wasn’t really one to be had, He had already given it to Jacob.  

Essau was so angry he decided he would kill Jacob once his father passed away.  Their mother heard about Essau’s plan and told Jacob to run away.  She told him to go and stay with her brother until Essau’s anger calmed down.  It was on his way to her brother’s house where Jacob has this dream.  Jacob was not doing everything right.  He was not the ideal person we would think God would choose to bless and yet God blessed him tremendously.  Do you know what that means?  That means He can bless you tremendously too.  It means you don’t have to count yourself out from whatever it is you think you want to do or whatever it is God wants to do for you.

If we look back through scripture we will see plenty of examples of where God used people we would have never chosen to do the things he wanted to get done.  God chose Tamar, a woman whose husband died and because her father in law refused to give his other younger son to her so she could conceive a child, as was the custom back then, she pretended to be a harlot and tricked her father in law into sleeping with her so she could conceive a son.  Tamar was definitely not doing everything right and yet God used Tamar is part of the lineage that brought about David the king and therefore our savior Jesus as well.  There is also Ruth, who was not even Christian, she was a moabite woman, a foreigner.  Even though she was not Christian she was great grandmother of David.  

I know it feels like we are getting it all wrong sometimes.  I know it feels like we can’t possibly be doing enough to earn God’s blessings.  I know it feels like we are never good enough.  I know.  And yet, God isn’t asking us to be good enough.  God isn’t ask us to do enough.  God isn’t asking much from us at all.  He isn’t expecting us to get it all right.  He isn’t expecting us to be perfect.  He is just expecting us to show up each day as we are and to spend some time with Him.  He does the blessings, not us.  There isn’t a way to earn blessings.  God gives them freely to all who ask and to all who seek them.  

The next time you are counting yourself out because you think you are not enough or because you think you have done too much wrong, think of Jacob.  Think of how he first stole his brother’s birthright by telling Essau he can only have a bowl of soup if he gave up his birthright.  Essau was starving, so he agreed.  Then Jacob went in and pretended to be Essau to steal his blessing too.  Whatever it is you did, God can still bless you.  He is not counting you out, so don’t count yourself out.  I heard a phrase in class last night and it really stuck with me.  The teacher said, “When we believe the lie we empower the liar.”  I love this.  The enemy is the father of lies.  When we believe these lies, we are empowering him and giving him authority in our lives.  God loves you, he loves you just as you are.  He made you and He is our good, good Father.   Don’t count yourself out.  God will use you if that is what you want.  God will bless you.  God isn’t looking for perfection.  If you don’t believe me, go back and look at almost every bible story written.  David was blessed beyond belief and yet he had an affair and then had the girl’s husband killed in battle.  I could go on but I will leave the rest of the stories up to you.  Hopefully you can already see whatever you did, it is not enough to count you out of God’s blessing.  There is nothing you can do that would exclude your from God’s blessings.  God is always waiting with open arms for us to turn back and repent.  Don’t count yourself out!

Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to realize you love us right were we are.  Help us to see you don’t need us to be perfect, you just need us to be us. Help us to not count ourselves out.  Lord please bless us as abundantly as you blessed Jacob. Please bless our perfectly imperfect lives Lord.  We love you Lord, you are truly amazing.  We ask all of this in accordance with you will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I am not sure who our witness will be tomorrow but I am sure the Holy Spirit will provide one.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I!  Have a blessed day!  

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God is Love!

1 John 4:7-11 “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”

It’s funny how the Holy Spirit works sometimes.  I put a verse into google this morning because often times I will use the verse God gives us during prayer group.  I put in the verse that I had starred in my notes and I clicked on the first result on the webpage.  I read the verses and then decided to read the whole chapter to get more of a context.  Then I found the verse above and I knew I wanted that verse because it contains the single most important thing we need to know about God.  Well, in my opinion it is the most important because if we can’t believe that then we probably won’t believe the rest of it.  After I choose this verse I noticed it was not at all the verse I put into the search bar.  I was looking for John 14:12-13 and somehow the search pulled up 1 John 4:12-13, which lead me to 1 John 4:7-11.  I take this a confirmation they Holy Spirit was leading me to this verse, and I know this message is for someone specific.  Is that person you?

The reason I said I think this verse contains the single most important thing we need to know is because is says, “God is love.”  I really feel if everyone knew this, if everyone could believe this one thing, we would all be believers.  The enemy wouldn’t have any of us in his camp because everyone wants to be loved.  Instead of believing this, or even really talking about this, we talk about all the rules that God has and we talk about religion and who believes what and who does what within their religion.  I was going to say the apostles had it easy because they didn’t have all these different religions, but they did have a lot of different religions.  There was only one Christian religion but there were lots of other religions and lots of other false Gods they were competing with.  Actually I remember hearing Jeff Cavins, the author of several Bible studies, say one time that love is what brought a lot of the pagans into our religion.  They were astonished by the fact God didn’t need anything from us.  He loves us just as we are not for what we could do for Him.  This was different from all the other Gods.  

Let’s take a look at what this verse says.  It starts out by sayings, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”  I love that this verse starts with “let us love one another.”  This is so important and yet I think it is something we are lacking in the world today.  I feel there is more hate and more division in the world.  People seem to see all of our differences instead of all the ways we are similar.  Yet, this verse says, to love one another because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  This is nice because if we love God we know God.  There are many that haven’t known love.  Some people were born into families where the parents didn’t know how to love.  Or maybe they did at one point but then they got addicted to something else, drugs, alcohol, or whatever it was and that was the only thing they could love.  Some people were brought up with a perverted sense of love.  They were taught that love meant keeping quiet while they were being abused.  None of that is the kind of love that comes from God.  God’s love is a pure and unconditional love.  God’s love is given freely and with no strings attached.  

The next part of this verse says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”  This is perhaps one of my favorite lines.  Whoever does not love does not know God.  This is something I don’t think a lot of people understand.  Even people who attend church regularly.  They go to church and sit there and judge all the other people in church.  They judge the people they see on the street and those that are different from them.  They think they are doing it because of their love for God.  They think they are looking at others through God’s eyes because God tells us to do certain things and these people certainly aren’t doing it correctly.  Do you ever do this, be honest.  Have you ever looked at someone and thought they weren’t doing it right?  They shouldn’t be living with that person before marriage or they shouldn’t be doing that thing.  We all do this, whether we want to admit it or not.  It is human nature.  However, why are we doing it?  Are we doing it out of concern because we love that person and we are concerned for their soul, or are we doing it because we think we are perfect and they are not?  

I love how this verse says, “God is love.”  I feel like that right there could be a mic drop moment and nothing else really needs to be said.  “God is love.”  Full stop, end of sentence.  I think too often we think of God as the Judge, Jury and Executioner.  We think He is sitting up there in heaven judging our every move and just waiting to rain down judgement on us like He did for Sodom and Gomorrah.  When in all actuality, He is up there watching us, helping us, and weeping for us when we go astray.  He is not mad at us because we went astray, or turned away from Him, He is sad.  He is sad because He wants each and every one of us to get to spend eternity with Him.  Yet, if we turn away from Him, or reject Him and don’t turn back, then we will be separated from Him for all eternity.  He loves us too much to sit back and watch us do that.  

The ending of this verse show us just how much God loves us.  God made the perfect world and then Adam & Eve went against what God had commanded them to do.  This meant our closeness with God was removed.  We lost the right to be in God’s presence.  However, even though God is a just God and He needed to kick Adam and Eve out of the garden, He didn’t want to live without in His presence forever, so He came up with a plan to redeem us.  This is what the ending of this verse is about.  It says, “ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”

Can you think of a way that shows us more fully how deep and immense the Lord’s love for us is?  He sent His only son to Earth, to walk among us and then to die a horrible death for our sins.  That is a pretty extraordinary way to reveal His love to us.  You know what is even more remarkable?  He sent His son to die on a cross while we were still sinners.  It’s not as if we had all cleaned up our acts, we had it all together and then God said, ok, my son will atone for your sins now that you are no longer sinning.  He came and forgave us while we were still sinning.  It is truly remarkable when you think about how much love God must have for us.  

I also love how the verse ends just how it started.  We must love one another.  The emphasis doesn’t seem to be on how much God loves us or that God is Love.  Although this verse does a great job showing us both these things are true.  The emphasis is on how we need to love one another as God loves us.  The verse is saying God is love and God loves you so you should love others.  It is also saying if we don’t know love, we don’t know God.  We don’t want to be left out from knowing God.  If you are someone that struggles with loving others, get to know God more.  When you do, you will know how to love more.  Let’s all try to love others a little more this week.  Try to think of some way you can show someone else you love them this week.  Not a loved one, but someone you meet out in public, or someone you work with.  You don’t have to say “I love you,” to a complete stranger, but is there a way you can show them love?  One way that is anonymous is to buy a couple scratch tickets and put them on random strangers car windshields.  Or there are many other random acts of kindness you can do.  Pay for the car behind you’s coffee.  Put easy to grab snacks in your car for when you see a homeless person asking for money at a light.  Whatever you think you want to do, just try to do something to show others a little bit of God’s love this week.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we want to know you and your love, please help us.  Lord, help us to love others as you love others.  Help us to not judge others and to just love them.  Judging is your job, not ours, help us to remember this.  Helps us to spread your love around like confetti.  You started and ended this verse with the command to love one, show us how.  Convict our hearts of where in the world you want us to show your love.  Help us not to get overwhelmed with all the various ways we can love others.  Help us to just start and take one step and then another.  We love you Lord and we are so very grateful you love us so much!  We can’t believe how amazing you are and how much you sacrificed in order to save us.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

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Could You Perform Miracles?

John 14:12-13 “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible.  it is one that I read and when I heard it I believed it right away.  Some verses are like this in the Bible.  When you read the Bible some things are easy to take in and others are difficult.  These easy and difficult things are different for everyone.  We all have a different experience when we read the Bible because we have all had different experiences throughout our lives.  There is a quote by Steven R. Covey that I really like.  Steven R. Covey said, “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are.”  This is true for the Bible as well.  We look at and interpret the things we read in the Bible with our own unique lens.  For instance, if we had people letting us down our whole lives, we may read the parts of the Bible that talk about trust and struggle to believe we can trust God because we haven’t been able to trust anyone on earth.  If we have grown up in a very unloving environment, we may struggle with the parts of the Bible that talk about unconditional love. Other things may come easier to us.  

For me, I instantly loved this verse.  I know the Bible is God’s Word and that God chose His words very carefully.  Sometimes when we are reading the Bible there may be a question in our minds about why they used this word vs. that word.  One thing I have learned from doing Bible studies is that there is always a reason why certain words were chosen.  Also, if you have done Bible studies you have had the benefit of hearing all about the original Greek or Hebrew words that were used in the original translation and what those words meant.  Sometimes, when translated, we don’t have an exact word to mean what they were saying. I find Bible studies fascinating because you gain so much more insight into what the verses are really saying.  Anyway, back to the verse.  I heard this verse, or read this verse and I believed Jesus’ word to us.  I have never really been one to struggle with trust.  I grew up in a loving family, I had great friends growing up, I am blessed to be able to say I was not let down by those I know and cared about often growing up.  Therefore, I trust pretty easily.  

But, what if you don’t trust easily?  What if you look at that verse and say there is no way we could preform the works Jesus did, Jesus was God, of course He performed miracles.  Also, the apostles were right there with Him for 3 years during His ministry, of course they could do miracles too.  We can all usually agree that Jesus did miracles when He walked the earth, and we can also usually agree that the apostles were sent out and they performed miracles too.  Where we run into trouble is trying to believe we could do signs and wonders in the world today.  Who are we?  We are not holy enough, we are not worthy of that power and authority.  I agree with both of those statements, and yet Jesus still says we will do the works that He did and even greater works than He did. How is this possible?

It is possible through the Holy Spirit.  Did you ever realize or notice that there is not a single miracle recorded in the Gospels before Jesus was baptized?  Jesus was fully human and fully God the entire time He walked the earth.  There was nothing stopping Jesus from performing miracles during the first 30 years of His life.  However, He chose to wait until after He was baptized and received the Holy Spirit to start performing miracles.  This is something I recently found out and found fascinating.  It was not a surprise to me that Jesus did miracles in the Bible, He is God after all.  What I didn’t know is that Jesus didn’t use his divinity to perform miracles.  He used the Holy Spirit, working through Him to perform the miracles.  He chose to put his divinity aside and act from his human nature, with the help from the Holy Spirit because it would be greater glory for God.  

St. Lawrence of Brindisi explains it like this:

"Christ came into the world to do battle against Satan, to do away with idolatry, and to turn the world to faith and piety and the worship of the true God.  He could have accomplished this by using the weapons of his might and coming as he will come to judge, in glory and majesty… But in order that his victory might be the more glorious, he willed to fight Satan in our weak flesh. It is as if an unarmed man, right hand bound, where to fight with his left hand alone against a powerful enemy; if he emerged victorious, his victory would be regarded as all the more glorious. So Christ conquered Satan with the right hand of his divinity bound, and using against him only the left hand of his weak humanity.”

Is this new to you too?  Did you know that God performed these miracles and defeated satan without using his divinity?  He relied on the power of the Holy Spirit working through Him.  Do you know why this changes everything?  It changes everything because Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us as well.  If you are baptized then you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.  If you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you then you have the power to defeat Satan and to perform works like Jesus did.  Another one of my favorite verses is Romans 8:11 “ The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you…” I wish we all knew how much power we actually have inside our frail human bodies.

This verse can be scary to many people.  Wait, if I can perform works like Jesus did, does that mean I have to travel all over the world and be a missionary like the disciples were?  No, you don’t have to travel anywhere if you don’t feel called to do that.  What they talked about in my class is ministering to your sphere of influence.  You can start small.  Be an example to your family, your friends, your co workers.  Let’s read the verse again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

If you were able to believe and adopt this verse as your own personal truth, how much greater would your life be?  How great would it be to do works like Jesus did?  How great would it be to be able to heal a loved one?  Did you know there are people doing this everyday?  Did you know there are lots of people that have read this verse, decided to believe it and are now living out a supernatural lifestyle with the power of the Holy Spirit?  The last line of the verse says, “If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”  How awesome of a promise is that?  God has so much more for us and we aren’t asking for it.  We aren’t going to God to ask Him what He has for us.  Why are we choosing to live a normal life when God is offering us a supernatural one of signs and wonders?  

You might be thinking, that is great for you Catherine.  I am glad you believe this verse and you want that life, but I am happy with mine as is.  If this is what you are thinking I challenge you over this next week or so to bring this to prayer.  I challenge you to be brave enough to just talk to God about it.  Tell Him how you are feeling about this verse and ask Him if He has anything to say to you about it.  When we do sign and wonders, we build up people’s faith.  Don’t you think this world needs some faith building right now?  Look at the day of Pentecost, 3,000 were baptized on that day.  I know this verse can be scary.  I know the thought of us healing or performing miracles is strange to most of us.  I know it is way outside of our comfort zone.  I also know God is calling us all to it.  I also know that this world really needs people who are willing to step outside their comfort zone.  God needs people who will step out in faith knowing they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them and that He will guide them.  

If this verse is something that you struggle with, write it down and look at it often over the next month.  Bring it to God and ask Him to show you how this applies to your life.  Ask God what He wants you to do with this verse?  Be brave, be bold, if you ask the Holy Spirit for help, He will help you.  Just start small.  Step out in faith and ask a loved one if they want you to pray for them.  If you spend time with God He will guide this journey for you.  He will lead you to where you need to go.  We just have to be brave enough to say three small words, “Use me Lord.”  Can you be brave enough to say those words?  Can we be Christ’s hands and feet here on earth?  Remember, we have a good good Father.  He is going to ease you into this lifestyle.  He is going to meet you where you are at and build your faith along the way.  Trust Him and give Him permission to work in your life, give Him permission to use you and He will.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we ask you send your angels to prepare the way for everyone listening to hear this message today.  We pray you give us the courage to believe this verse and to step out in faith knowing you have given us the power of the Holy Spirit to help us do your work here on earth.  Lord, the world needs you more than ever and if we can bring you to others, please show us how.  Show us what you want each of us to do.  Reveal to us what this verse means for each one of us in our individual lives.  We love you Lord, you are incredible.  We are so grateful you gave us the Holy Spirit.  Lord you are the almighty one, you are the king of kings and the Lord of Lords.  You are the light of the world.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you on Monday.  Remember Jesus loves you, and so do I.  Have a blessed weekend!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Was The Devil Ever Given Authority?

Genesis 1:26-28 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

This is another verse we talked about in my class.  They were describing how this verse shows God giving us the freedom to rule the things on Earth.  There are three things God is giving us permission to do in this verse.  First, He is saying to be fruitful and multiply.  God created one man and one woman.  It was their job to create the rest of the population on earth.  The second thing God asked us to do is to expand over the earth.  God told us to fill the earth and subdue it.  The last thing He told us to do is to take authority over it.  God told us to have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.  This might not be anything new to you.  You may have already known this.  I have definitely heard this verse many times before, especially the be fruitful and multiply part.  However, I have never heard it explained as it was in class on Monday night.  I had never thought of it as God giving us authority over the things of this earth.  I know it says it, I just never really gave it much thought I guess.  

The next thing they said is something that I also never really thought of and although it makes sense, I am guessing most of us have not thought of it.  The teacher asked if the devil was ever given any authority over the things of the earth?  That is a great question and the answer is no.  Yes, he was given permission by God to mess with Job, but even then, he needed to ask permission.  He has never been giving authority of the things of this world.  Do you know what that means?  The only way he has any authority over us is if we relinquish that authority God gave to us.      Have you been giving the enemy authority over you and your life?  Have you been allowing him into your thoughts and letting him run wild?  Maybe you didn’t know you had a choice.  The devil is very good at twisting the truth and making us believe we don’t have a choice or that we are not in charge.  

I think we worry about the enemy because we realize there is spiritual warfare all around us.  We worry because evil seems to be creeping into all aspects of the world.  We worry because the hate seems to be growing stronger and stronger.  The world seems to be fighting hard against Christians these days.  I saw a billboard last night that said, “I am an atheist and I vote.”  What is even the purpose of that billboard?  I know people are saying it seems things have never been this bad.  If you have ever read any books written by the saints, they always say the same thing.  Everyone always things the time they are living in is the worst time.  I am not saying we aren’t getting close to end times and I am not saying we are.  Jesus told us the timing is not for us to know.  

I do know if we spend time worrying about it then we are giving the authority over our worry to the enemy.  Whenever we are worrying about something we are spending too much time in the what ifs.  When we do this, we are allowing the enemy to come in and have free range in our thoughts.  He only has that authority because we are giving it to him.  Maybe we are getting close to Jesus’ coming and maybe we aren’t.  My question is not whether He is coming soon or not, my question is what do I have to do to be ready for it.  Instead of worrying about what may or may not happen, let's spend our time making sure if it does happen we are ready.  Saying that makes me think of parable of the 10 Virgins in Matthew 25:1-13.  The Parable of the Ten Virgins, is one of the parables Jesus told about ten virgins who await a bridegroom; five have brought enough oil for their lamps for the wait, while the oil of the other five runs out. The five virgins who are prepared for the bridegroom's arrival are rewarded, while the five who went to buy further oil miss the bridegroom's arrival and are disowned.

It makes me think of this parable because the girls did not know when to expect the bridegroom.  Five of those girls were ready for whenever he got there.   They did not have to worry if he got there late because they had come prepared.  This is what we must do.  We must stay alert and do our best to make sure if Jesus came tomorrow, we would be ready for Him.  When we do this, we take the power away from the enemy.  He wants to be in our ears whispering, Jesus is coming and you aren’t ready, you still have so much to do, you aren’t good enough, you will never be ready and so on.  However, when we spend each day living according to how Jesus asked us to live, we don’t have to worry about His coming because we are ready.  We don’t have to listen to the enemy whisper in our ears because we already know what he will say.  We know he will try to twist the truth.  Remember on Tuesday we talked about how the devil’s greatest fear is confident children in Christ, this is how we get confident.  We live each day in the best way we can and at the same time we are continually striving to live it better.  Not because we have to earn our way into heaven or to earn the Lord’s love, but because we love God and we want to keep growing closer and closer to Him.  We can’t grow closer if we don’t know Him.  If we want a more intimate relationship with God we need to read scripture and really get to know who God is.  

Instead of spending time worrying we could be spending this time reading scripture and spending time just being with God.  I think that is His favorite.  Every week in prayer group God tells us some version of, “sit with me in silence, or just be with me.”  My goal and hope by talking about this with you this morning is that you will realize that if the devil only gains authority by us giving it to him, we don’t have to be afraid of him.  Yes, be aware and be on guard, but we don’t have to be afraid of him because we are children of God and God is our refuge and our shield.  God will protect us from the enemy.  I think one important thing we forget when we think about the enemy and the spiritual warfare that is going on is that God already won the war.  When Jesus died on the cross He defeated evil.  He regained this world for us and we have the authority over it, not satan.  Let’s not give him any power over us.  Let’s be strong and confident in who we are and whose we are.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we are so grateful you created us in your likeness and image.  We are grateful you gave us dominion over the things of this world as we know that is giving us a lot of responsibility.  We are sorry we don’t always do things correctly.  We are sorry we aren’t always good stewards of the things you give us dominion over.  Lord, help us not to relinquish any of our authority to the evil one.  Help us not to give him power over us or to let him into our thoughts.  Show us how to keep that from happening.  Lord, you are incredible.  You already defeated evil, so we don’t have to be afraid of him anymore.  Help us to be strong and confident children of God.  You are amazing Lord.  You are the light of the world and the word made flesh.  You are the resurrection and the life.  We adore you and we glorify you.  We are grateful for all you do for us and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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We have all seen God working in our lives, however, we might not all be aware it is God who is working in our lives.  This is why it is so important we start talking about it more.  The more we share our experiences the more people understand how God works and how much He truly loves us.  If you would be willing to share any experience you have had of how God has worked or is working your life, please email me at [email protected] or just click here.  It won’t take up much of your time and your story could be just the story that someone needs to hear today.  Prayerfully consider sharing.  Everyone has a story and the world needs to hear them.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow and I will have another witness for you next Wednesday.  Have a blessed day!

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The Devil’s Greatest Fear

1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

This is one of the verses that was covered in my class last night.  In case I didn’t mention this before, I have enrolled in a two year program with the Encounter School of Ministry. This school was designed and established from the heart of Encounter Ministries.  This school draws from the richness of our Catholic heritage as we seek to teach, equip, and activate disciples to demonstrate the love of God through the power of the Holy Spirit in their spheres of influence. In conformity with the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church, we offer students a dynamic  2-year training program designed to take you to the next level in your ministry.  I am really loving the class so far.  I truly believe that Jesus gave us all the authority to do signs and wonders here on earth when He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit.  I am sure I will be using a lot of the Bible verses from class in the podcast so that everyone can see how powerful the Holy Spirit is.  

This first quarter is all about Identity and Transformation.  Last night I heard something and I knew I wanted to share that with all of you.  Our teacher asked us a question.  What is the devil most afraid of?  Do you want to take guess?  Maybe you already know, but I don’t think I did.  The enemy is most afraid of confident sons and daughters of Christ.  Did you know that already?  What does that mean?  What she meant by confident sons and daughters is that we are confident in who we are as sons and daughters of Christ.  We have talked before about how the enemy loves to steal our joy with half truths.  He takes a kernel of truth and then twists it into a lie that we believe hook line and sinker.  Why do we believe it?  Because we are insecure in who we are and He knows that.  

Remember when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and then the Holy Spirit came upon Him and He went into the wilderness for 40 days?  This can be found in Matthew 3 & 4.  In Matthew 3:16-17 it says, “And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Immediately after this Jesus went into the desert for 40 days.  In Matthew 4:1-3 it says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”  Do you see how the devil was trying to get Jesus to question His identity?  God had just said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  Now the devil is coming in 40 days later when Jesus is hungry and trying to get Him to question His identity.  The devil says, “If you are the Son of God.”  Luckily, God had just affirmed who Jesus was and Jesus was confident in who He is.  He was not tempted by the devil.  I wonder if we can say the same?

Are we confident children of Christ?  Do we let the enemy get in and twist the truth of who we are?  Let's look at this verse and see who we actually are.  The verse says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  It starts out by saying we are a chosen race.  Did you know you were chosen?  God chose you, yes you to be one of His children.  It says so right here in this verse.  If this is something you struggle to believe, post it somewhere you can read it multiple times a day.  We are a chosen race, you are His chosen child.  Next, it says we are a royal priesthood.  I was not sure exactly how to explain this, so I looked it up and found the answer on lavendervines.com.  “We are a royal priesthood, which means we have direct access and fellowship with God like a priest but are also called to expand the Kingdom of God and influence the world like a king.”  I will post a link to her article as she goes into a lot more detail in her article.  Basically we have direct access to God, there is nothing in between us like there was in the old testament.  The moment Jesus died on our cross the veil at the temple was torn in two. (Matthew 27:51)  This veil in the temple was meant to keep the Holy of Holies apart from the people.  Only Priests were allowed to go in there.  However, when Jesus died on the cross that veil was torn in two and we were granted direct access to the Lord.  That is another thing I learned somewhat recently and something that still amazes me.  We now have direct contact with the Lord, we don’t have anything standing in between us.  

Next, the verse says, “A holy nation, God’s own people.”  We are holy, which means to be set apart, or different.  We are not the same as everyone else.  We belong to God and that makes us different.  We don’t have to do things on our own, or rely on our own strength.  We have the power of the Holy Spirit on our side to help us do what we need to do.  Also in Philippians 4:13 it says, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”  We have a loving father who has set us apart from the ways of the world and He gives us the power to resist the ways of the world if we call upon it.   Do you believe this?  Do you believe that God has set you apart and that we are called to live differently?  

The last part of the verse is one I think we forget often and maybe even the thing we have the most trouble believing or remembering.  It says, “That you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  Do you struggle to believe you've been called out of the darkness and into His marvelous light?  Right now it may feel like you are stuck in the darkness.  That is a lie the enemy wants you to believe.  Yes, things may seem pretty bleak right now, but you have already been called into the light and you are not stuck in the darkness.  God is shining His light into that darkness you feel, can you see it?  Are you looking for it?  Or are you just falling for the lies of the enemy?  If you struggle to believe who you are in Christ, you are not alone.  We all struggle sometimes.  However, the reason I wanted to share this with you today is because we are so much more powerful when we can believe these things and we can be confident in who we are.  

When we know who we are, when we are confident in who we are and whose we are, the enemy can’t touch us.  Being confident in who you are doesn’t mean you will never being tempted by the enemy, you will.  He will do all he can to get you to doubt who you are.  However, when you are confident you don’t fall for his lies.  He still tries, but you don’t give him the time of day.  You don’t even listen to His lies because you know he is a liar.  If you go back and read Matthew 4, you will see Jesus didn’t get upset at the devil, He didn’t get flustered, He just answered the questions of the devil with scripture.  This is one reason why it is so great to get familiar with scripture.  If we truly know what the Bible says, it is a lot harder for the devil to use it against us.  It is hard for him to twist it into something it is not if we know what it says.  However, even if you don’t know scripture, you can still ignore the enemy if you just remember this one verse.  This verse above says all you need to know.  

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Write this somewhere you will see it often.  Memorize this one scripture if it helps you to believe more in your identity as a child of Christ.  Know who you are and whose you are and the enemy won’t be able to get into your heard.  He won’t be able to make you doubt.  He will be afraid of you because he knows how much power a confident child of God has.  He knows how powerful we become when we step into our identity.  He knows when we fully step into our true identity, we are lost to him forever.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we accept our place as your sons and daughters.  Lord, please help us to step into this identity fully and to not believe the lies of the enemy.  Help protect us against these lies.  We want to be confident children Lord, please show us how.  Give us the strength we need to do this.  We are so grateful you have adopted us Lord, we are thankful you have chosen us and set us apart.  Help us to live into this glorified state.  You are the almighty one, you are Lord of Lords and  Kings of kings.  We are so very grateful for all you do for us and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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