Walk Boldly With Jesus

Let’s Judge & Condemn Less and Forgive More

Luke 6:37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven;”

This verse was from the Gospel reading at church Sunday.  As soon as I heard it I knew I wanted to use if for an episode.  I feel these are three things that come so easily to human nature.  We often find ourselves judging, condemning and being unforgiving.  There almost seems to be an epidemic of that these days.  Everyone lives such public lives, there is little that people keep private. Because people are living their lives so publicly it seems we have decided that if they are going to put it out there for all to see, then they can’t get upset when they are judged or condemned for it.  We have an attitude that if they don’t want to be criticized then they shouldn’t put it out there.  I understand this thinking and I am sure I have even said it in the past.  However, today what is on my heart is, What about our responsibility to not judge or condemn?  What about our responsibility to forgive?

I often think about going to Heaven.  Not in the way where I want to get there sometime soon, but I do think about what I need to do to get there and what it will be like when I get there.  I have a lot of goals in life and my number one goal is to be a saint.  This is probably not something a lot of people think about.  I was at a conference once and the speaker asked how many people in the audience wanted to be a saint and only 2 people raised their hands.  It is not something we think about because I think most people think that it is not something they can do.  However, saints are not perfect people.  You don’t have to be perfect to be a saint.  Saints are people that have dedicated their lives to loving God and doing their best to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Do they fall short at time, absolutely.  However, they never stop trying.  They know that they can’t do it on their own.  Saints are people who are humble enough to know that they can do nothing without the Lord.  They are humble enough to know that in their human frailty they are weak.  However, with God they can do anything.  

I don’t think we give enough thought to what happens after this life.  If we are talking in terms of eternity, this life is pretty short.  Do we really want to trade eternal happiness in the next world for moments of fleeting happiness in this one?  Or maybe its not fleeting moments of happiness, maybe we feel extremely happy and fulfilled right now in this life, and yet we are not living according to God’s commandments and what He says is right and wrong.  Is it worth spending eternity separated from the Lord?  Lately, the Holy Spirit keeps bringing me back to Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  The gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction.  Has your life been a little to easy lately?  Have you been choosing easy because, well, it’s easy?  Don’t you see that the easy way is leading to destruction? It may be easy, but are you getting the outcomes you want?  What is the fruit you are receiving from taking this easy way?  

Jesus is telling us in the Bible that the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life and few find it.  I think we can often reassure ourselves that something we are doing isn’t so bad because if it were, there wouldn’t be so many other people doing it.  This is the opposite of what Jesus is telling us.  We have so much anxiety these days because we want to fit in, we want to be like everyone else, we are worried about what people might think of us.  And yet, God is telling us that we don’t want to be like everyone else.  He is telling us that following the crowd is not going to lead us to life, it leads to destruction.  Jesus is telling us that the road to life is a difficult one.  It is full of hard choices and unpopular decisions.  Take a moment and consider how you are living.  Are you taking the easy road or the hard one?  I know for me, it is not just one or the other.  Sometimes I take the hard road, but then I get tired and weak and start taking the easy one.  I know this about myself and so I bring this to God and ask Him to help me say on the hard road, I ask the Holy Spirit to convict me when I am taking the easy road.  And yet, I still find myself on the easy road sometimes, more often than I would like if I am being completely honest.  If this is you too, that’s ok, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect.  He just wants us to keep trying over and over again to get it right.  He also wants us to turn to him when we get it wrong.  He wants us to apologize and then move forward.  He will help us find the narrow gate if we ask Him.  

God is giving us clues as to how to find the narrow gate all throughout the Bible.  Actually, it is not even clues, He gives us very clear instructions if we are willing to hear them.  Today he is saying, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven;”  I think verses like this are so powerful because they are a reminder to us that our actions do matter.  God does care if we judge others.  The verse doesn’t say, “don’t judge others, unless they put their information on facebook for all to see, and then it is ok to judge them.”  It says, don’t judge others, and you will not be judged.  It says the same about condemning and being unforgiving.  There is not context where it says it is ok to do these things.  I wonder if we would do these things less if we remembered this verse?  What if we put this verse up somewhere where we saw it often?  Would we do these things less if we remembered that if we do them to others God will do them to us?  

I know learning that God will forgive me in the same way I forgive others was definitely a game changer for me.  I don’t know that I was ever really particularly unforgiving, but when I learned this I learned how to be very forgiving.  Think about all the times we mess up and do the wrong things each and every day.  How do we want the Lord to forgive us?  Do we want Him to give it freely and abundantly, or do we want Him to hold every tiny thing against us?  Do we want Him to forgive and move past it, or continue to hold on to each thing we do and stack them on top of each other like a tower of sins hanging over our heads?  This is not the only time in the Bible that God references that He will forgive us if we forgive others.  We know that the Lord keeps His Word.  So, if we believe His promises, why wouldn’t we take at His word about this?  If we want to be forgiven, we must forgive.  If we struggle to forgive, ask the Lord to help.  If we don’t want to be condemned, we must not condemn others.  If we don’t want to be judged, we must stop judging others.  We might think that the comments we are making are not a big deal.  The Lord is telling us that they are.  He is telling us that we need to stop.  What if you placed this verse on your fridge for the next month, or even a week?  Would it help you do these things less?  Is it worth a try?  You future may depend on it.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, please help us to judge and condemn less.  Lord, we want you to forgive us so please help us to learn to forgive more easily.  Lord, show us where we are taking the easy road in our lives.  Gently convict us and show us how to get back on the hard road that leads to the narrow gate.  Lord, if we are not thinking about you and how we can spend eternity with you, please put that on our heart.  Lord you are amazing, you are so merciful and we don’t deserve you.  We don’t deserve your love or forgiveness and yet you give it freely.  We are so grateful, thank you!  We love you Lord 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.  Have a blessed day!!

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Take My Yoke Upon You

Matthew 11:28-30 “ Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

This is not the verse I was planning to talk to you about today, but after the night I just had I am hoping that the Holy Spirit will talk to me as He talks to you tonight.  I remember I heard a teaching on this verse once and they mentioned why farmers would use a yoke.  A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened around the neck of two animals and then usually hooked to a plow or a cart.  This yoke allows them to pull loads that they would not normally be able to pull on their own.  I think I also remember the person explaining that a younger animal is usually paired with a more experienced animal.  This way the more experienced animal can set the pace and teach the younger one.  This seems to fit so perfectly with this verse.  

The Lord is calling us, all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.  I don’t know about you, but this evening I am feeling pretty weary and my burdens are feeling pretty heavy.  The Lord is calling us and it says He will give us rest.  God is calling us to take up His yoke and to learn from Him.  That is such a great visual for me.  I got an image of this giant wooden yoke on the ground.  I go up and put my head in it and the God puts His head in and my burdens are suddenly weightless.  I wish it were that simple.  I wish we could just hand God our troubles and then we felt this enormous weight off of our shoulders instantly.  I think it can be this simple sometimes.  I think we get in our own way sometimes.  We want to hand our problems over to God and yet we also want to hold on to them.  We don’t want to completely release them, because then we wouldn’t be in control anymore.  

Have you heard of the expression, “Hitch your wagon to the right cart?” or “Don’t hitch your wagon to the wrong horse?”  Both of these came to my mind when I started talking about what a yoke meant.  I was thinking that if I had my choice of anyone to hook my yoke to, it would be the Lord.  There is no one else that I would rather rely on and no one more powerful.  I love the idea of taking His yoke and learning from Him.  The Lord has so much to teach us. Even in this verse He says, “I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul.”  How awesome would it be to find rest in your soul?  Can you imagine what that would feel like?  When I imagine rest in my soul I imagine a peace about all things in life.  I imagine I am stress free and have no anxiety.  I imagine I am filled with hope and joy.  

I really feel as though the Holy Spirit is reminding me of Rick Warren’s definition of joy and wanting me to share it.  I have talked about it before but right now I feel the Holy Spiriting telling me that I am not the only one that needs this refresher right now.  Rick Warren’s definition of joy is as follows, “Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.” Wow, yes, I did need to hear that tonight.  For me tonight, this is a reminder that joy doesn’t mean I am always happy about everything.  This to me means that it is ok that I am sad tonight about things going on and that doesn’t mean that the situation has taken away my joy.  I do know that God is in control of all the details of my life.  I am sure of it.  I am grateful for it because He does a much better job than I could do.

When I think about it, truly think about it, I do have a quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright.  Does that mean that I know how it is all going to turn out? No, no at all. Does that mean that I know when it will get better?  Nope, I don’t know that either.  However,  I do know that eventually everything is going to be ok.  Will it be exactly as I wish it would be, probably not.  But that is ok, because God’s plan is better than my plan and His ways are higher than my ways.  The last part of this definition is the part that we forget about a lot.  It says, “the determined choice to praise God in every situation.”  Wow, that is not something I always think of.  Then, even when I do think of it, I don’t always want to do it.  For instance, tonight was a rough night.  Do I want to praise God for tonight?  Not really?  This is where I think we get confused.  We think that praising God is about thanking Him for the situation we are in.  There are many ways to praise God without thanking Him for the specific situation.

For instance, even though it was a rough night I am thankful that I have kids to argue with.  Some people don’t and I realize that even when parenting them is difficult I am still blessed beyond measure that I have them.  I am grateful to the Lord for giving me amazing friends.  Friends that dropped everything they were doing to say a quick prayer just because I said I needed some.  If it wasn’t for the argument tonight I wouldn’t have had the amazing gift of peace that I felt immediately after they prayed.  That is something that I am not sure I have felt before.  I have heard people say that I felt your prayers and I always thought that was nice, but didn’t truly understand what they meant until this evening.  Not even 5 minutes after I asked my friends for prayers, this immediate sense of peace came over me.  That is definitely something to praise the Lord for.  We can also praise the Lord for being amazing.  He does so much for us and even if we don’t want to praise Him for the current circumstances, we can praise Him for being awesome and for the amazing outcome that we know He is working on as we speak.  

In all the books about miracles and faith, the authors always talk about how important praise is.  I think this could be the secret ingredient that many of us are missing.  How often do we praise the Lord?  I mean truly spend time thanking the Lord for all He does and praise Him for being our almighty Lord and Savior?  What if we all tried to praise Him more this week and see how much better our week goes?  When you start to feel down, or get in a bad mood, think of 10 things you are grateful to God for.  The bible verse Luke 16:10 came to mind just now.  The verse says, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”  If we appreciate what we have and praise the Lord for it, God will entrust us with more.  What if the Lord is waiting for us to be grateful in our current circumstances before He moves us out of them?  Can we spend just 5 minutes today praising the Lord?  When I am finished with this episode I am going to listen to 5 minutes of praise and worship music.  That is another great way to praise the Lord.  If you can’t think of anything to say, you can always just listen to music.  I have heard many people say that singing is praying twice.  So if you feel as though you just don’t know what to say, sing a song, they have amazing songs out there that say all the things you want to say.  

Remember, all of us who are weary and those of us carrying heavy burdens, come to the Lord and we will find rest.  Take up His yoke and let Him help you carry your load.  Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you weren’t the only one carrying it all?  You are not alone.  God is there, He is offering you His yoke, reach down and pick it up!  Through the Lord we can find rest for our souls.  Who’s soul could use a little rest?  I know mine could.  How about yours?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, the devil is having a heyday with our families and we ask that you intercede for us. We ask that you show us how to kick him our of our lives once and for all.  Lord we ask for your protection over our families and give us the strength to keep fighting another day.  Lord we love you so much, you are so very amazing!!  You have given us all so much and we are so very grateful.  Lord we ask that you fill us with your love peace and joy.  I ask that you wrap your arms around each person listening to this today and give them a squeeze.  Help them to feel your love a little extra this week Lord.  I sense that I am not the only one that needs that this week Lord.  We ask  all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.  

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What A God We Have!

1 Peter 1:3-7 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,  and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,  who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials,  so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

God is so great!  He sent his only son down to die on a cross for our sins and through his resurrection we have been given a new birth into the living hope.  Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we are now able to go to heaven.  The verse says that our inheritance, which is to spend eternity with or heavenly Father, is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.  I can’t think of anything on earth that I can say the same about.  That is pretty amazing.  We have the opportunity to go to heaven, what are we doing with that opportunity?  Are we wasting it by living however we want to live and not paying any attention to what God wants?  

The message translation of this verse says, "Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.”  We have everything to live for, including a future in heaven- and the future starts now!  That seems like a call to action to me.  If we are not really living, what is holding us up?  Time waits for no one.  We all have a lot to live for, so why aren’t we truly living?  Why aren’t we taking full advantage of this life while we have it?  The line in the message translation that I love is “The Day is coming when you’ll have it all-life healed and whole.”  Isn’t that something to look forward to?  Doesn’t that sound amazing?

We live in a broken world.  In this world we get hurt frequently, we sometimes hurt others, this will not be the case in heaven.  In heaven we will be healed and whole.  We will get to spend eternity in the presence of our heavenly Father and Jesus.  Your life may seem long, you may seem like the idea of heaven is so far away.  However, our lives here on earth are relatively short if we compare them to eternity.  Isn’t doing the right thing here on earth, even if it is inconvenient, worth the eternal reward we will get in heaven?

The verse also says that we are being protected by the power of God.  I wonder if we all realize exactly how powerful God is?  He created the whole earth, He parted the Red Sea, He provided mana for the Israelites when they were in the desert, He flooded the entire earth, He healed the sick, turned water into wine, raised the dead.  The Lord has done incredible things with His mighty power and now His power is protecting you.  There isn’t anything that the Lord can’t do.  Whatever you are going through, the power of the Lord can protect you.  Have you asked him lately?  I asked someone yesterday what he could do for self care because his dad has dementia and isn’t the same person as he was.  He said he could pray about it as he really hadn’t been doing that.  My friend is not alone.  We all forget to pray about things sometimes.  We worry about them and we think about them all the time.  We assume that God knows we want Him to help in our difficult situation and so we don’t think to ask Him for that help.  Let’s try to change this.  Let’s try to stop and pray about anything that is worrying us, right from the beginning, instead of doing it as an after thought.

The verse goes on to say, “In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials,  so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”  The Lord is telling us that we can rejoice at the thought of Heaven and knowing that He is protecting us, even though we will have to suffer various trials here in this world.  This verse is saying that we have to suffer these trials so that the genuineness of our faith may be tested.  Think about the various trials you have gone through and you are going through.  Would you have responded differently to those trials if you knew that the Lord was protecting you and that they were just a test of  your faith?  If you read the story of Job, you can see that the trials he went through were definitely a test of faith.  He was a faithful and loyal servant of the Lord and the devil thought if he went through the unimaginable, he would stop having faith in the Lord.  He did go through the worst possible trials.  He lost his children, his land, his livestock, his friends, the people that once looked up to him, his money, the only thing he had left was his wife and his life.  He even came down with a terrible sickness that caused him pain day and night.  

Job did not give up hope in the Lord.  His faith did not waiver, even though he didn’t understand what was going on, he continued to talk to the Lord, and to believe in Him.  I wonder if we can say the same.  I wonder if we will change the way we respond to trials in the future.  If the Lord is telling us that He is giving us these trials so that we can prove our faith to him, then what can we do to show the Lord we believe and trust in Him?  First, we can continue to pray to the Lord.  Even if we don’t know what to say, we can just sit with Him.  We can just call out his name.  Whatever you can do in the moment.  Second, we can believe that He will protect us.  And if we don’t believe we can let the Lord know that we want to believe by saying what the father said in Mark 9:24 “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”  

I know going through trials if difficult and not pleasant for anyone.  Although some trials can seem impossibly long and so difficult to deal with, the Lord is there with you through it all.  He has not and will not abandon you.  Job felt as if the Lord had abandoned him, he questioned where he was through it all.  If you feel this way, it is normal, you are normal.  Life’s challenges are hard and we are all doing the best we can.  I am hoping now that we know the trials we go through are a test of our faith that we may be able to respond to them differently.  I am hoping that we can turn towards the Lord instead of away from Him.  I am hoping that asking the Lord for help and handing it over to Him will be our first thought instead of our last resort.  I will leave you with the question I asked earlier.  How would you respond differently if you knew you have had to suffer various trials,  so that the genuineness of your faith could be found?  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we are so grateful that you are with us through all of our trials.  Lord, we ask you to help us respond in faith when we are struggling.  Help us to continue to love you and pray to you even in the middle of our struggle.  Lord you are amazing and we can’t wait to spend eternity with you.  We are so grateful for our inheritance Lord and so grateful that you sent your only son to save us.  We are so lucky.  We love you Lord 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 on Monday.  Have a blessed weekend!

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Where The Spirit Of The Lord Is, There Is Freedom

2 Corinthians 3:17 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

I saw this verse on Facebook today and thought it was a great one.  I have been helping to lead a Life in the Spirit Seminar and each week we learn a little bit more about the Holy Spirit and about the beginning of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.  There is a video teaching about different subjects and then one of our prayer group members gives a witness about how they have seen God working in their lives.  I have really been learning a lot.  Not just from the talks, but also from other people’s experience of how they have seen God in their life.  

The first week’s topic was God’s Love.  The witness was about a woman who was told she couldn’t have children and yet had two healthy children.  She was a woman who married the love of her life and even though the marriage ended, God was there with her through it all.  He provided miracles all throughout her life small ones and big ones, like giving birth to her children when she was told she couldn’t have kids.  This woman experienced a baptism of the Holy Spirit and she talks about how her life was changed after that.  She had this love and closeness with the Lord that she never had before.  She was filled with this sense of peace that although things weren’t always easy, she would be ok.  God would be there with her through it all.  The verse above says that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  This woman definitely experienced freedom for her worries.

The second week the topic was salvation.  The witness was about a woman who lost her father at a young age.  He was only about 60 years old when he was hit be a teenager and killed.  There was some speculation that the teen had been drinking but could not be proven.  This woman could not forgive the teen.  She was so angry that he took her father from his children and his grandchildren.  She harbored this anger for 20 years.  Forgiveness wasn’t even something she could think about.  She went to grief counseling, and they recommended she write the teen a letter, but not send it.  She couldn’t even think of doing this.  

Many years later a former coworker of hers lost her husband to a teen driving accident.  My friend attended this wake and asked her former coworker how she was doing.  The former coworker said she thought she was ready to write the teenage a letter of forgiveness, as it had been four months. My friend burst into tears and asked how she could forgive so soon as it had only been four months.  My friend’s dad died 20 years ago and she still harbored feelings of unforgiveness.  Her former coworker told her she needed to forgive him, for herself as much as for the boy.  How could she expect God to forgive her if she didn’t forgive others.  

The Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways.  If my friend hadn’t have ran into her former co-worker at this wake, who knows if she would have forgiven that young man.  My friend didn’t even notice how much her unforgiveness had blocked her relationship with the lord.  It took her another year to write the letter.  When she read it out loud to her husband she felt so free.  It was as if a huge weight she didn’t know she had been carrying had been lifted.  It enabled her to have a closer and intimate relationship with God.  She was finally free of the unforgiveness.

Last night’s topic was New Life.  It talked about how we have a new life when we accept the Holy Spirit into our lives and give Him permission to work in our lives.  When we surrender to God, amazing things happen.  For some, it is so hard to surrender everything.  For others, it is easy to surrender everything to God, and yet, when things get tough they take it back and try to do it on their own.  The witness for last night was about a member who was doing her best to be a good Catholic.  She attended mass and her kids went to Catholic school. She talked about how her priorities once she got married were her husband, her kids and God.  However, about 14 years ago her husband had heart trouble and was give 3-5 years to live.  She was told his heart would just stop and it would be sudden death.  She didn’t know what to do with this.  He was her best friend and her whole world.  How could she think about a future without him?

She was upset with God and questioned what she did to deserve this.  She allowed fear and anxiety to take over life.  She begged God to save them from this medical prognosis. She cried out why have you forsaken me.  There were many more years of hospital stays and ER visits.  She felt as though God was waiting on her, but she didn’t know what to do.  She started to go to daily mass and spent hours in the adoration chapel. One day she saw an advertisement for a Catholic Healing Service.  She begged her husband to take her and he did.  At this service she was taught about the power of the Holy Spirit and what can block us from the healing power of God and from hearing His voice.  They were lead through prayers of forgiveness, renunciation of sickness, sin, diseases, and negative emotions.  At this service her eyes were open to what had been blocking her.  The Holy Spirit showed her that even though she had been praying all those years, she hadn’t truly believed that God was hearing her prayers and that He would take care of them.  She realized that God had been suffering with her and He just wanted her to trust that He would take care of them.  At this service everyone was invited to come up one at a time to be prayed over.  When she went up she surrendered all to God and asked for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Suddenly she felt a gust of wind push her back, she was swept off her feet and knocked to the ground.  The Holy Spirit came upon her and she was filled with tremendous peace, love and joy.  Her sadness and stress were gone and she felt light as a feather.  She was free, from all her worries, sadness, anxieties, and stress.  She definitely was feeling the freedom that comes with the Holy Spirit.  

The reason I wanted to share these three witnesses with you today is because I don’t think we talk about the Holy Spirit enough.  We talk a lot about God and we hear a lot about Jesus and yet, the Holy Spirit remains a mystery to many of us.  We don’t know a lot about Him and so we tend to stick to what we know.  The Holy Spirit is available to all.  It is not something that you need to do certain things for.  It is not as if you earn the Holy Spirit by being extra Holy, or by jumping through all the hoops.  The Holy Spirit is available to anyone that wants it.  You can call upon the Holy Spirit at any time and it only takes a second.  “Come Holy Spirit come” are among the most powerful words you could say.  There are many prayers to the Holy Spirit.  There is one that I used to say often, although I must say I have gotten away from it and I want to get back to it.  I will end with that prayer today.  If you are looking for a way to invite the Holy Spirit into your life, say this prayer daily and then buckle up and enjoy the ride.  If you invite Him in, He will do amazing things in your life.  He will give you a freedom that you have never experienced before.  The power of the Holy Spirit will surprise you.  Wouldn’t it be great if you knew what God wanted you to do?  When you have a relationship with the Holy Spirit you will be able to hear God’s words more clearly.  There is so much I could say about the Holy Spirit and the benefits of getting to know more about Him and inviting Him into your life.  However, I don’t want to go on all day, so maybe I will do another episode later about this very important topic.  I am sure I will do many over the years.  I hope you enjoyed the witnesses.  They were condensed, but I am hoping to bring you their full story in upcoming episodes.  I will leave you with a prayer to the Holy Spirit.  

Oh, Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul…I adore you.

Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.

Tell me what I should do; give me your orders.  I

Promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me

And to accept all that You permit to happen to me.

Let me only know your will.

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.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Submit Yourselves to God

James 4:7-8 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

This is another one of those things that sounds much easier to do than it actually is.  Submit ourselves to God.  That doesn’t sound too hard, right?  It doesn’t sound hard, but have you tried it?  It is not easy to submit to God.  What does it even mean to submit ourselves to God?  Google's dictionary defines submission as "the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.”  I think there are two parts to this.  First, the action of accepting or yielding to a superior force.  This means that we would accept that God is in control.  We would do as He tells us to do because He is our superior force.  He created all things and He gives us a set of rules to live by and so we must live by them.  

The second part of this definition is accepting or yielding to the will or authority of another person.  Submitting to God would be accepting His will as our will.  It would me that we accept His will for our lives.  There are times when this is very easy.  When we get the job we really want, it is easy to accept it as God’s will.  When we meet the love of our life we can accept that it is God’s will for us to be with this person.  However, what about when things aren’t going our way.  What about when God’s will differs from our will.  What about if we don’t get a job because He has something better in mind for us.  Can you think of a time when you really wanted something to happen and it didn’t?  What about when you didn’t want something to happen and it did?  How easy was it for you to submit to the Lord’s will?  

This verse tells us to submit ourselves to God.  If we want to do this we need to figure out where we are struggling and then ask God for help.  We can ask Him to help us submit.  He will always help when we ask.  If we are struggling to see how God wants us to submit to Him, then we can always just ask Him.  My spiritual director told me one time to model St. Teresa of Lisieux and explain to God that I am just a little child and I need Him to show me the way.  I need Him to show me or tell me what He wants me to do.  I want to follow His will, I just need directions, just as a child would   This really spoke to me.  I sometimes, oftentimes if I am being honest, I think I need to know what God wants from me.  I think I am just supposed to know.  It seems like everyone else knows, why don’t I know.  So, I try to guess, I try to listen and I try to do all the things just in case that is what He was wanting.  

However, what I try to do now is to ask the Lord to help me understand.  I ask Him to explain it to me as though I was a child.  I ask Him to make it clear to me and to give me the courage and strength for whatever He wants me to do.  We are all just little children in the eyes of the Lord.  In Matthew 18:3 Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” God wants us to become like children.  I think he wants us to be like children because there is something so pure about a child’s faith.  Children don’t get caught up in understanding every little detail.  They don’t ask all the questions.  Miracles are miracles because there is no explanation.  If there was an explanation as to exactly how it happened, it wouldn’t be a miracle.  Adults don’t really like to believe in things that they can’t see.  Children on the other hand, they love to play make believe.  They have no problem believing in things they can’t see.  If you are struggling to submit to God ask Him to show you how.  He has assured us that if we ask He will answer, so let’s ask.  

The next part of this verse says to resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Again, something that sounds so easy and yet is so difficult.  I would love to say I resist the devil.  The problem is, the devil is always disguised as something else.  For instance, he will be disguised as temptation.  You know that you should spend time in prayer or in silence and suddenly your favorite tv show is having a marathon and showing episodes all day.  You decide to give up sweets for lent and someone drops cookies off at your house.  You decide you are going to start running and it rains for a week straight.  Do you see how it is hard to resist the devil in these circumstances because you don’t know it is the enemy attacking you.  

Another way the enemy might show up is through distractions.  You decide you want to spend more time with your children and suddenly everyone in the family has something else to do, or your work suddenly gets really busy.  You may want to spend more time with your parents and then something comes up to prevent you from spending more time with them.  We find it hard to resist the other things that are getting in our way and so family time gets put off or pushed aside.  The enemy might also show up as anger.  We want to be peaceful and to not get upset over little things.  Then the enemy comes along and presents one little thing after another until you can’t take it anymore and get angry and you lose it.  

The enemy doesn’t want us to grow in holiness.  He will do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening.  He certainly does not want to flee.  If we want the devil to flee we have to figure out a way to resist him, all his temptations and lies.  How do we resist something that we don’t know is there?  One way we can resist the devil is to keep turning our eyes to the Lord.  We can keep asking Him what He wants us to do and asking Him to help us do it.  We can ask the Lord to open our eyes to see the devil and all his tricks.  We can try to be on the lookout for different ways the enemy may be interfering in our lives.  If things are not going well and you are not acting like you want to, the devil is probably involved.  If you feel you are growing further from the Lord, the devil is probably involved.

Another way to resist the devil is to do what the verse above says, “Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”  In my prayer group every week the Lord calls us closer to Him.  He is calling all of us closer to Him.  If we come closer to God He will come closer to you.  Then the verse says, wash your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts, you double minded.  I wasn’t sure what double minded in this verse meant.  When I looked it up it meant that our heart is split between God and the things of this world.  This is the devil’s way in.  This is his back door.  If we love the things of this world as much or even more than we love God, then that is all the devil needs to attack us.  The more we release our attachment to the things of this world, the less of a hold the devil has over us.  If we want to resist the devil we can ask God to help us, we can turn to Him and grow closer to Him, and we try to release our attachment to the things of this world.  

Releasing our attachment to things of this world is not easy.  We all have our favorite TV shows or our favorite foods we like to eat, and that is ok.  I am not saying that you can’t like anything that is of this world.  I am saying that our priorities should be God first and then everything else.  If anything is getting in the way of us doing the things we know we need to do, then that is the devil at work and we need to resist.  I have been being attacked by the spirit of distraction lately.  I will have time to write this book I am writing, or work on my podcast and the spirit of distraction will come and show me all these other more fun things to do.  I must resist.  

Did you know, in a weird way, when the devil attacks you, it is sort of a compliment.  It is confirmation that you are walking on the right path.  The reason I say this is because the devil doesn’t mess around with the Luke warm, he doesn’t mess around with those that are already headed to see him.  He only concerns himself with those that are headed to see the Lord, those that are favored and are trying to walk the right path.  If you are feeling like the devil is attacking you, take comfort in the fact that you are doing something right, or he wouldn’t bother with you.  Then turn to the Lord and keep trying to do the next right thing.  God is on your side and He will be your refuge and your shield if you ask Him to.  Come in close to the Lord and He will come in close to you.  He will put his arm around you and protect you from all harm.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we want to resist the devil and we want him to flee, please help us.  Please protect us Lord and shield us from all harm.  Help open our eyes to see the devil and all of his tricks in our lives.  Lord, we want to put you first, help us to see what is getting in our way.  Open our eyes to anything that is preventing us from growing closer to you.  Help us to know what you want us to do and help us to become like children.  Lord you are amazing and we love you so very much.  We are grateful that you are our God and that you take such good care of 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 again tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Child of the One True King!

1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

This verse is so powerful.  What great love the Father has lavished on us, isn’t that powerful?  Can’t you just picture the Father lavishing us with Love.  Or maybe you can’t.  Maybe you struggle to believe that you are a child of God.  Maybe you struggle to believe that the Lord loves you, and the thought that He lavishes love on you is something that you just can’t wrap your head around.  If this is you, you are not alone.  Love in this world is so complicated and a lot of things can get in the way of us loving and us feeling loved.  There is a song by Matthew West called “Hello, My name is.”  This song has the beginning line of the verse above in the lyrics, along with some reasons why we can’t feel this love.  I want to go over some of those lyrics with you.  Also, there is a link to the song in the show notes if you want to listen to it. (Click Here for song)

The song starts out by saying:

Hello, my name is regret

I'm pretty sure we have met

Every single day of your life

I'm the whisper inside

That won't let you forget

This is true for so many of us.  We struggle to feel God’s love because we have so many regrets.  Regrets over things we have done or things we have said; regrets over things we didn’t do and didn’t say.  When we have regrets, the enemy takes those and he whispers them to us over and over again so that we feel like we aren’t worthy of God’s love.  The enemy doesn’t let us forget about them.

Next, the song goes on to say:

Hello, my name is defeat

I know you recognize me

Just when you think you can win

I'll drag you right back down again

Till you've lost all belief

Does this sound familiar?  Things are going well and then we start to get a voice in our head telling us that things will go wrong.  Sure it seems like all is going well, but things always get messed up in the end.  Things have gone wrong so many times in the past that you start to think you don’t deserve to ever win.  You don’t deserve the happiness or the love that God has planned for you.  When this happens we can start to self sabotage.  We don’t even know we are doing it.  The enemy just keeps telling us that we have failed in the past so we will fail again.  He drags us back down over and over again until we have lost all belief, in ourselves and sometimes in God.

Then the song goes on to say:

Oh, these are the voices, oh these are the lies

And I have believed them, for the very last time

Hello, my name is child of the One true King

I've been saved, I've been changed, I have been set free

Amazing grace is the song I sing

Hello, my name is child of the One true King

This is a verse that we may want to write down and read often.  I know I say this about a lot of verses from scripture and you may have a lot of post it notes or index cards.  I really think this one could help us all when we are feeling defeated, or when the enemy is telling us lies.  As much as we want to believe that God loves us and that we are His children, sometimes the things of this world get in our way.  Sometimes we let the enemies lies get to us and convince us that we are not worthy, that we are not loved, that we are unlovable, and so many other things that are not true.  For me, when I heard this song, I love it.  I have listened to it a million times or so.  Well, that may be a slight exaggeration but I have listened to it a lot. And guess what?  Now I hear this chorus run through my head when I need it to.  When I start to feel down on myself I literally tell myself, “Catherine, you are a child of the one true king!”  When I hear this, I can’t help but smile.  When I start to doubt myself, when I start to have regret, or when I feel any of the enemy’s tactics I tell him, sorry but I am a child of the one true king.  You’ve got nothing on my God, He is my one true king.  I have even started saying this to my friends when they are struggling.  When they are feeling down and also when they are feeling attacked, I remind them who they are and whose they are.  They are a child of God, the one true King and He won’t let the enemy hurt them.  He won’t let the enemy win.

The song goes on to say:

I am no longer defined

By all the wreckage behind

The One who makes all things new

Has proven it's true

Just take a look at my life

We all have things in our past that we are not proud of.  We have all said and done things that weren’t great.  Whether we did them on purpose or not, none of us are perfect.  We live in a broken world and this means that we hurt people sometimes.  Regardless of what you have done in your past, you do not have to be defined by it.  I think it is good to reflect on any areas that you are not proud of.  If there are things you regret in your past, then take stalk of them and hand them over to the Lord.  Ask Him to help you forgive yourself.  Ask Him to help you move past them.  We can not change the past no matter how much we want to.  If we want to find peace with our past mistakes we need to turn them over and ask God for help.  As these lyrics say, He is the one that makes all things new.  I also like how the lyrics say that he Has proven its true, just take a look at my life.  I think if we all took a look at our lives over the years, we would see plenty of examples of how God showed us His love, how He protected us from things, how He saved us from things.

The song ends with:

What love the Father Has lavished upon us

That we should be called His children

Hello, my name is child of the One true King

I've been saved, I've been changed, I have been set free

Amazing grace is the song I sing

Hello, my name is child of the One true King, yeah

These are the words from the scripture verse about.  Can you imagine how much the Lord loves us to call us His children.  Think about how much love you have for your children.  Now, time that by a bajillion and that is how much our heavenly Father loves us.  My hope is that when you start to doubt this, you remember this song, you remember this scripture verse and you remember that you are a child of the one true king.  You remember that you’ve been saved, you've been changed, you have been set free.  You are not who you were and you don’t have to let your past mistakes define you.  God has saved you, changed you and set you free from everything.  All you have to do is live in this freedom.  Don’t let the enemy drag you back to your old self.  Anytime he starts to whisper lies in your ear just tell him, “I am a child of the one true king, I am not listening to you.”  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we are so grateful for all the love that you lavish on us.  We are sorry if we find it hard to accept it sometimes.  Please help us with this.  We want to freely accept all that you have to offer us.  We want to live in the freedom you have given us.  We don’t want to live with any chains that the enemy tries to weigh us down with.  Please help us release anything that we need to release to live in your freedom.  You are so amazing and you give us so much, help us to accept it.  Help us to know that we are your children and that you love us.  Help us not to believe the lies of the enemy.  We are grateful for all you do for us Lord.  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.  Have a blessed day.

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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God of My Salvation

Micah 7:7-9 “But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.   Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.  I must bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he takes my side and executes judgment for me.  He will bring me out to the light; I shall see his vindication.”

I really like this verse.  In the very first line he is saying no matter what others are doing, he will look to the Lord.  When I heard this I instantly thought of Joshua 24:15 which says, “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” These two men are both saying the same thing.  They are declaring that you can do whatever you want to do, but they are going to serve the Lord.  Joshua even goes a step further and says his whole house will serve the Lord.  

Next, it says that he will wait for the God of his salvations; he is sure His God will hear him.  This is important because later it talks about how he must bear the indignation or the Lord, because he has sinned against him, and yet he has no doubt that the Lord will hear him, that the Lord will be his salvation.  I wish we all knew this and could firmly say it as Micah did.  The Lord will hear us, even though we have sinned against Him. We are His children and He won’t stop listening to us. He has promised that He will never forsake us.  He is a God who keeps His promises.  If He says something it is truth.  We can take it to the bank as some people say.  His word is His bond.  Micah is saying He will look to the Lord and he will wait on Him.  

This next line might be my favorite one of this verse.  It is hard to say because there are some great lines in this verse, but this one is so good.  “Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.”  The reason this is my favorite is because it shows a bravery and a boldness that many of us struggle with.  Micah is not backing down from his enemies.  It seems like often times we cower from our enemies.  We sit back and we hide and we hope that they can’t see us.  If they can’t see us then they can’t hurt us right?  We can just wait for the Lord sitting here behind this bush and not engaging. Micah didn’t cower from the enemy, he stood up to the enemy and told him not to get too excited because even though it looks like he may be defeated he wasn’t.  

Micah didn’t seem to have any doubt that the Lord would rescue him.  He was so confident he stood up to the enemy, looked him right in the eyes and said, nope, don’t rejoice yet!  You may think you knocked me down, but I always get back up.  You may think you dragged me into the darkness, but the Lord will be my light.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could all tell the enemy this?  What if we were all brave enough and confident enough to shout this out when we are struggling and when we feel defeated?  Ok, maybe shouting it out might be too much for where you are right now, but maybe you could remember it?  Could you write it down and read it everyday so when the enemy attacked you could remember that the Lord is your Savior. He will pick you back up when the enemy knocks you down and He will be your light when you feel you are wading through the darkness.  

It may look like the enemy has won, but the Lord always wins.  This is something that we must all remember, we are on the winning side.  Yes, we are in a war between good and evil, and yes we need to fight with everything we have, and yet, the ending has already been written.  Good triumphs over evil.  We may find ourselves stuck in dark times, but we don’t have to worry that the Lord will leave us there.  We can be confident, just as Micah was, that although we may have gotten ourselves into some trouble the Lord will come and be our salvation.  We have to be strong while we wait as the enemy will try to throw everything he can think of at us while we wait.  He will do everything in his power to bring us down, and yet He will not succeed, the Lord will save us.  

The next part of the verse says, “ I must bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he takes my side and executes judgment for me.  He will bring me out to the light; I shall see his vindication.”  This next part is something that we don’t really like to think about.  However, I think it is important to know that sometimes the Lord does get angry with us.  We are not alway great at living the way He asks us to live and we are not always great at doing the things He asks us to do.  I think there is such a powerful honesty in this part of the verse.  I must bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him.  Micah knows that He has sinned and he is owning it.  How often do we do the same?  Are we owning up to it when we sin?  Are we repenting and going to confession?  Are we having a conversation with the Lord and letting Him know that we are sorry?  

Micah is saying that he understands that the Lord is angry and He deserves it.  He is not defending what he did, or making excuses.  He is saying that he was in the wrong and so, he will bear the Lord’s anger until the Lord takes his side and executes judgement for him.  He recognizes and accepts that God hands out the judgement.  It is not for Micah to decide what the judgement should be.  God will execute the judgement.  Then it says that the Lord will bring him out to the light and that Micah will see the Lord’s vindication.  Vindication means the act of clearing someone of blame.  The Lord takes our sins and then He makes them disappear.  It doesn’t just say he is waiting for the Lord’s forgiveness.  It says he is waiting for the Lord’s vindication.  He is waiting for the Lord to clear him of it all.  He is waiting for his slate to be wiped clean.

I truly wish that every single person listening to this episode could believe with all their heart that when you sin and when you repent, then the Lord wipes your slate completely clean.  This is the truth and yet it is hard for some of us to believe.  It is easier for us to believe that we have sinned and so God couldn’t possibly love us.  We have sinned so God can’t forgive us.  We doubt in God’s love and forgiveness because we doubt in our own worth.  I hope you can hear this, YOU ARE WORTHY of God’s Love.  YOU ARE WORTHY of God’s forgiveness.  There is nothing you can do that God won’t forgive if you ask Him to.  Let’s all be more like Micah and have a confident faith that the Lord will pick us up when we fall and that He will be our light in the darkness.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we know that you have already won and that the enemy will not bring us down.  Please help us remember this when we feel like we are drowning.  Please help us to call out to you when we feel like we are in the darkness.  Lord you are so wonderful.  You pick us up when we are down and you are our light when we are in the dark.  Lord, we know their are times when we   have to bear with your indignation because we have sinned.  We thank you for showing us your vindication.  You are so mighty and powerful and we are so grateful that we are on your   team Lord.  We are grateful that we have you as our refuge and our salvation.  We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

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

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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Where is there a god who can compare with you?

Micah 7:18-20 “Where is the god who can compare with you—wiping the slate clean of guilt, Turning a blind eye, a deaf ear, to the past sins of your purged and precious people? You don’t nurse your anger and don’t stay angry long, for mercy is your specialty. That’s what you love most. And compassion is on its way to us. You’ll stamp out our wrongdoing.  You’ll sink our sins to the bottom of the ocean. You’ll stay true to your word to Father Jacob and continue the compassion you showed Grandfather Abraham—Everything you promised our ancestors from a long time ago.”

I decided to use the message translation today as sometimes it is nice to take look at what the Lord is saying in His scripture in everyday terms that we use often.  Usually I use the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition.  However, I do sometimes use other translations.  This morning felt like a message translation kind of morning.  I liked this verse when I heard it yesterday because it talks about how great our God is and how He is unlike any other god.  In today’s day and age we don’t really hear about a lot of other God’s.  However Micah is an Old Testament prophet and back when He lived there were a lot of other Gods.  People were worshiping all sorts of Gods.  Gods of light, fertility, water, you name it and there was probably a God for it.  However, in this verse Micah is talking about how great God is and how the other God’s can’t even compare with Him.  I also like how it goes into detail on why our God is so great.

The first thing Micah talks about is something that a lot of people have a hard time believing about God.  God can wipe our slate clean of guilt.  He can forgive our sins and then never think about them again.  This is not something that is difficult for God.  If you turn to Him and you truly repent for having sinned, He forgives those sins, wipes your slate clean you never thinks of them again.  It is like they didn’t happen.  He does not secretly hold them against you.  This is something that do as humans and so we find it hard to comprehend how God can just forgive and forget.  

When people come to us and apologize for the things they have done, we can sometimes struggle to forgive.  Sometimes we don’t want to forgive and sometimes we want to but just don’t know how to forgive.  When you find yourself in this circumstance the best thing to do is to pray about it.  Ask God for help to forgive the person.  Forgiveness is super important, not for the person asking, but for you and for your soul.  The other thing that we struggle with is the wiping the slate clean.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could forgive the sins and then wipe the slate clean?  This is hard for us because we want to protect ourselves.  We are afraid if we forgive and forget then the person will do it again and we will get hurt again.  This is something that can happen.  I am sure it even happens to God.  

If we sin against God and then we truly repent, he forgives us and wipes our slate clean.  However, we are human and so even if we were truly sorry we will inevitably sin again, it is in our nature.  Each time we sin, we hurt our relationship with God.  So, even though we keep sinning God is still willing to wipe our slate clean each time.  Maybe we should try to do this as well?  It won’t be easy.  We have a strong instinct within us to protect ourselves.  I don’t think this is a bad instinct.  However, I do think that if we pray to God for help and we try to forgive more we would be happier and less stressed.  Also, think about how different your relationships would be if you could truly forgive and forget the past sins of others.  When I say forget, I mean, don’t hold their past sins against them. Don’t throw them in their face time and time again.  If they have repented and you have forgiven them, they we should try to wipe the slate clean.  They get to start again, like a do over.  I know this won’t be easy, but what if we all gave it a try?  How much greater would the world be with more forgiveness in it?

Next, he goes on to say, “You don’t nurse your anger and don’t stay angry long, for mercy is your specialty. That’s what you love most. And compassion is on its way to us.”  This is another thing that is so great about our God.  He doesn’t stay angry long.  Yes, He does get angry, we have seen that enough times in the Bible, but God doesn’t stay angry, He is quick to forgive.  When I read the words, “you don’t nurse your anger,” I thought about how easy this is to do. This is for sure something that many of us do.  If we get angry about something we can let it consume us.  We think about how upset we are, how thoughtless the other person was, or how unfair the circumstances are.  Instead of trying to find a way to be less angry we allow these angry thoughts to take over our thinking.  We pay close attention to them and we let them control how we feel.  In some cases we may think about how we can get revenge on the person that we are angry at.  Can you think of a time when you have nursed your anger?  When you let you anger take over?  How did that turn out?  How did you feel when you were nursing your anger?  I am guessing you didn’t feel too good as anger is not a feel good emotion.  We would feel much better if we could quickly pass through anger and move on to forgiveness.

I love how the verse says that mercy is God’s specialty.  This is another thing that we have a hard time believing.  We find it hard to trust that God has mercy on us.  It is hard for us to believe because we find mercy hard for us to give.  We think if we struggle with mercy then God probably does too.  Why would He forgive us and have mercy on us when we can’t even have mercy on ourselves?  God isn’t like us.  He is God, He is our creator.  He loves us and gives His mercy freely to us.  Even though we might struggle to have mercy on others, we tend to have more mercy for our children.  They are our kids and we love them.  We have mercy when they mess up because they are our children.  This same thing can be said for God.  We are His children.  He loves us and shows us mercy, He does not struggle with it.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could all make mercy our specialty?  Maybe we could try to have a little more mercy to those that anger us?

The last two things that Micah talks about in this verse is the Lord’s compassion and the fact that He always stays true to His word.  These are both really important as well.  What comes to mind when I look over this verse is that Micah is giving a road map of how to be more like God.  God created us to be in His likeness and image.  Our job here on earth is to be God’s light to others.  He wants us to make Him known to one and all.  How do we do this?  How do we make sure that others know God?  One way would be to reflect God in all we do.  If people look at us and they see God’s light shining through, if they see His peace and His joy, they will want to know Him.  If we know what God is like, we can do our best to adopt these characteristics.  

Today we learned that God does not nurse His anger.  He forgives our sins and then moves on, He does not hold our past sins against us.  We learned that mercy is His specialty and that he buries our sins at the bottom of the ocean.  This means, that our past sins will never see the light of day again.  They are gone forever.  We also learned that God is full of compassion.  And finally, we learned that He is always true to His word.  When I look at this list, I think that these things are doable.  They are not things that will be easy to do, but they are things that we are all capable of doing if we try.  I think if you are listening to this episode, you are already someone who tries to be compassionate to others.  This is not something new that we learned today.  Everyone that knows the Lord our God knows that He is compassionate.  Compassion itself isn’t hard.  The hard part is to have compassion for everyone.  Compassion for some people comes easy and for others we have to try harder.  It is something we can do though.

The ability to let go of our anger will be something harder to accomplish.  Having mercy can be difficult as well depending on the circumstances.  If we truly want others to know God then it is important that we be an example.  I know that these things will be hard and at the same time I think Micah laid out a pretty simple, but not easy, roadmap for us.  If we work on increasing these characteristics we can become a better example of God to one and all.  God is happy to help us whenever we ask Him.  He will transform our hearts and minds if we ask and if we let Him.  So why not ask?  Why not try to become more like Him?  We may think that we can never change this much and this is true if we are trying to do it all on our own.  However, with God, all things are possible.  If we truly want to change, He will change us.  Let’s at least try, what have we got to lose?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  We ask that you help change our hearts and minds Lord.  Help transform us to be more like you.  Help us to become better examples of your love.  Lord, we want others to see you when they see us.  We want to bring others to you.  We want to be living examples of your word Lord.  Help us to forgive, have mercy and be compassionate.  Help us to be all the things you want us to be.  Give us the desire to change if we aren’t quite there yet.  Give us the courage to change and the knowledge that we can change if we want to because you are with us.  We love you Lord, you are truly amazing.  We are so grateful for all the ways that you love us and take care of 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 seeing you again on Monday.  Have a blessed weekend!

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A Home with Our Lord and Jesus

John 14:23-24 “Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”

I thought this scripture verse was appropriate today because on Tuesday nights I am helping to run a Life in the Spirit Seminar.  This is a 7 week course on how to live a Life with the Holy Spirit.  How to invite the Holy Spirit into your daily life, and live more fully in Him.  Each week there is a talk on a different subject.  This week the talk was on Salvation.  This is not something that people like to think about.  We like to do whatever we want to do and we don’t really like someone telling us what we should do.  We don’t really want someone telling us what is right and wrong.  We figure we are grown ups and we can make our up our own minds what is right and wrong.  

The problem with this is that we don’t always make the right choices.  Also, we don’t always use the best logic to come up with our decisions.  Sometimes we aren’t using any logic at all, we are just doing what feels good in the moment.  Do you think it would be a good idea to let our children decide what is right and wrong on their own?  Without any teaching or modeling, we just let them make all the decisions about what they are going to do.  Do you see any problems with this?  I do.  They don’t have enough experience with life to decide what is best for them.  For instance, if we let kids decide what to eat for every meal it would be candy and soda.  If we let them decide if they wanted to brush their teeth and shower, it would be a no.  However, these things are not good for them.  All of their teeth will fall out if they only eat candy, drink soda, and don’t brush.  The need guidance and sometimes, often times, they need us to make the hard decisions for them.  

We could argue that the reason we need to guide them and tell them what to do when they are younger is because their brains are not finished developing yet or because they don’t have the life experience to know better yet.  However, we are adults and so we can make our own decisions because our brains are fully developed and because we have life experiences, and the guidance of our elders to help us learn.  However, we still don’t always make the right choices.  I bet if you take  even just one minute you can think of a time when you or another adult you know, spouse, sibling, friend or coworker has made a truly terrible decision.  One that you knew, the second they told you, that it was a bad idea and it wasn’t going to end how they though it would.  Yet, they are an adult and they get to make that bad choice and you just sit on the sidelines and watch.  Isn’t that so hard to do?  Doesn’t it just stink when we know someone is doing something that is going to end up hurting themselves and there is nothing we can do about it.  Can you think of a situation where this has happened to you?  When someone you loved was headed for a disaster and there wasn’t anything you could do about it?  

Now let’s take a moment and think about how God must feel.  There are 7.9 billion people on this planet.  Can you imagine having that many children to look after?  Can you imagine watching each one of them making decisions on their own and then you have to watch the fallout?  God loves us more than we can even imagine.  More than we could even love our own children.  He loves us with a perfect love.  If it hurts us to watch a loved one make a terrible choice to head down a wrong path, think about how many times that pain must be multiplied for God.  It would be so much easier if God just took away our free will and we just all followed Him and loved Him because we had to, there was no choice.  The problem is, if you do not have a choice, then it is not real love.  So, even though it is hard, and we probably break His heart a million times a day, God gives us free will.  We get to make the choices that we think are right for our family.  Here’s the catch, just as it is with our kids, we also have to deal with the consequences of our choices.  

Do you know how terrible you feel when you have to give your child a consequence for a bad choice them made.  Or, when you have to watch them deal with a natural consequence for their choice.  I know they learn from these consequences and it is better for them in the long run, but it breaks my heart to see them upset.  I bet God feels the same way.  Can you imagine what it must feel like to have your children completely turn their backs on you?  Can you imagine what it would feel like for you to give them everything and for them to hate you, condemn you, and not even know you.  This is a reality for God every day.  Of the 7.9 billion people on this planet, only 2.5 are Christian.  That means that less than a third of His children recognize Him.  That has to be hard to see everyday.  

The verse above says, “Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”  Jesus is telling us that if we love Him we will obey His teachings.  Also He is saying that if we do this His Father will love us and Jesus and His Father will come to us and make their home with us.  How amazing does that sound?  How great would it be to share a home with the Lord our God and Jesus?  It doesn’t say He will build us a house, it doesn’t say we can hang out.  It says They will build their home with us.  What would you give to live at home with God and Jesus?  What would you do?  

Some people think that the Catholic Church has a lot of rules.  Maybe this is true, but the rules are there for our own good.  You know how sometimes when we set rules for our children, like it is not good for you to watch too much TV.  Our kids don’t understand.  They think we are just being mean or over bearing.  However, we know that too much TV is not good for our kids.  This is similar to the rules that God sets for us.  We may not understand how He is protecting us from ourselves.  We may not understand the purpose of the rules, and yet just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean they aren’t good rules.  Our heavenly Father knows a lot more than we do.  He has been watching humanity since the beginning of time.  He knows what we will do before we even do it and so He knows what guidelines to put in place to try and keep us on the straight and narrow.  

Think about how long we are in this life for.  Let’s say we live a long healthy life, we are here for about 100 years.  Then what?  Then we live for an eternity in the afterlife.  Isn’t it worth a little struggle, a little sacrifice now, so that we can live eternally in the presence of our Lord and Savior.  Whether we like it or not, God does give us commandments to live by.  He gives us rules and guidelines to follow.  He tells us everything we need to do to get into Heaven.  Are we listening to what He is saying?  Are we following His commands?  Are we aware that we need to do this?  I have always been someone that responds better to a reward.  I hear that the Lord will love me and build His home with me if I follow His commands and I instantly want to know what I need to do to make that happen.

Some people respond better to consequences.  They strive to do what they need to do to avoid something bad happening.  If this is you, let me just take a moment to remind you of what happens if we don’t follow the Lord’s commands.  If we do what we want, and decide that it is our life and God can’t tell us what to do, and we don’t follow His commands, then maybe we get everything we want in this world.  Maybe we have a truly fun filled, live by seat of our pants life where we get to do everything we want to do.  However, what about when we leave this world?  What then?  If we spend our life telling God we don’t want to do what He wants us to do, or if we are too busy for God in this Life, what comes next?  How will we spend our eternity?  I think you all know the answer to that question.  It is not something we like to think about, but it is a fact. It is something that God talks about in the Bible.  It is a consequence that He has warned us about and yet many of us not paying attention.  I have included in the show notes a link to the video I watched on Salvation by Ralph Martin. Video on Salvation (CLICK HERE) It is really good and I highly recommend for everyone to watch it.  It really gets you thinking about what is important in this world.  Do we want to end up spending eternity living in a home with the Lord and Jesus?  If so, all we need to do is follow His commands.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to make the right choices in our lives.  Help us to choose you and life everlasting with you.  Lord, we know that sin leads us to death and we don’t want that.  We want you to love us and build your home with us.  Lord, we know we need your help.  We know we all do things that you do not like.  We hold on to past resentments, we refuse to forgive, we don’t treat others like we would want to be treated, and many other things.  Help change our hearts, help give us the will power, grace and strength to do the right thing.  Lord we love you!  You are truly amazing and we are so very thankful for all you do for us.  We are grateful for the patience you have for us as I know it is probably very frustrating how many times we mess up.  Help us to mess up less Lord.  Help us to keep our eyes on you. 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 seeing you again tomorrow.  Have a blessed day!

Video on Salvation (CLICK HERE)

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Do Not Worry About Your Life

Luke 12:22-31 “He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.  For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.  Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?  Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!  And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.  Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."

Wow, I am always struck by how powerful these verses are.  No matter how many times I hear them I am still moved by them.  They are so simple and yet so profound.  Like much of the Bible they contain so much in a few verses.  The Lord is constantly telling us not to worry about our life.  Why is this so hard for us to do?  Or not to do I guess?  Why do we feel we need to worry about everything?  Many of us don’t want to worry.  We feel as though if we had a choice we certainly wouldn’t choose to worry.  So, why is that our go to?  Why are we so anxious all the time? Why do we worry so much?  Why is it so hard for us to trust that God will take care of things, take care of us?  

This verse brings up a lot of really good points that we may not usually think of and yet if we did, it may help us to worry less.  The first thing it talks about is that we don’t have to worry about what we will eat.  It then asks us to think about the ravens.  They don’t have a kitchen full of food. They don’t have a pantry that they can go to each day to get food out of.  Each day they go out and get enough food for that day.  They don’t worry whether they will find food or not.  God gives them all the provisions they need for that day, one day at a time.  If He is making sure the birds are fed, why wouldn’t he make sure we are fed.  We are His beloved children.  If we make sure to feed our children, why do we doubt that God will make sure to feed us?  Did you know that when God was providing mana for the Israelites in the desert, he provided just enough for that one day.  When they woke up there was a substance on the ground called manna.  This was what they ate.  God provided just enough for that one day.  If they tried to take extra for the next day they would wake up and find it had spoiled and worms were eating it.  They had to trust that each day God would provide their meal for that day.  We could use some of that trust in our lives today.  

This next line is one that I just love.  The verse says, “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?” I love this because it points out to us how useless our worry is.  What are we gaining by worrying?  Are we adding hours to our life by worrying?  No, I would argue that we are subtracting hours because the time you spend worrying is time not being spent on fully living.  You cannot fully be living in the present moment if your mind is distracted by all your worrying.  Also, worry and stress are not good for your body.  It may take time off your life by causing health problems if you are constantly worried or stressed about things.  Did you know that 90% of what we worry about doesn’t even happen?  We worry about things that might happen, and most of the time they don’t happen.  I have a secret for you, if they do happen, you will have plenty of time to worry then.  If your worrying can’t change the outcome, if there is nothing you can do but worry, then why worry, you will have time to worry if it does happen.

The next line says, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!”  I find it interesting that He mentions they don’t “toil or spin.”  When talking about the ravens He said they don’t “sow or reap.”  I find it interesting that He points out that they are not doing anything and God is providing for them.  Maybe it is just my interpretation, but what I hear God saying here is, “We don’t have to earn our food or our clothes.”  God does not take care of us and give us provisions because we do all the right things.  In both cases above he is saying that they don’t do anything and yet He provides for them.  It also points out that if He does that for the flowers and the birds, how much more would He do for us.  This is a recurring message that God keeps pointing out to me over the last few months, maybe longer and I just didn’t notice.  He keeps telling me, “you don’t have to earn my love, you already have it.  I will take care of you regardless of whether you deserve it or not.  You are mine and I am yours.  I don’t need anything from you, I don’t need you to do anything for me.  I just want you to BE with me.”  

The part of the last line that I am not a fan of, and yet God says on more than one occasion in the Bible and Jesus seemed to say often when He walked the Earth is “you of little faith!”  It seems no matter how many impossible things we see God do, or the disciples saw Jesus do, we struggle to believe He will do them for us, or that we can be His instruments.  We worry about all these things that God said He will take care of.  We worry that we will have enough food, even though God tells us right here in this verse that we don’t have to.  We worry that we will have enough money to buy clothes and God is saying, I’ve got you.  You don’t have to worry.  Why does He have to keep saying “you of little faith?”  When will we learn?  When will we trust?  What do we have to do so that we can hear him say, “you of great faith?”  This is what I am longing for, this would be my one wish if I met a genie in a bottle.  I would wish that I could have the faith of a mustard seed that God is always talking about.  

The Lord gives us an answer to these questions of why we worry in the ending of this verse.  “ And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.  Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”  We worry because we are striving for the things of this world.  We are stressing over worldly things instead of spending our time striving for the Kingdom.  God tells us right now that if we spend our time striving for the kingdom, then he will take care of everything else.  I know this to be true because I have seen it with my own eyes.  My parents have always strived for the kingdom of heaven.  Even when they were teenagers, which is a time when a lot of us struggle with the church and following the rules, they were striving for the kingdom.  They would go to daily mass together sometimes as teens.  They would go to Sunday mass together.  When we were growing up they often had to rely on the Lord for food and clothes as I am one of 11 children and although my dad had a great job, it is expensive to raise 11 children.  

I wish I could say that my parents never, worried, but they are human, so this is not the case.  However, even while worrying they still prayed and relied on the Lord.  They always kept their eyes fixed above and the Lord always came through.  We never went hungry and we always had enough clothes.  We would get bags of clothes dropped off at our door because everyone knew we didn’t have a lot of money.  I swear the Lord would perform a miracle of multiplication every time my mom would cook.  She would use 2 cans of tuna to make tuna melts for all of us and wouldn’t run out of tuna.  I would watch her cook and think that there was no way that would be enough food for all of us and then we would always have left overs.  There is not a doubt in my mind that God provided for us in a supernatural way and I there is also not a doubt in my mind it is because my parents kept their eyes focused on Him and even though they did worry sometimes, they always knew He would provide.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we don’t want to worry, please help us not to.  Please help us to hear these words today in a different way.  Please help them to penetrate our heart and our mind and for us to understand what they mean.  Lord, please give us a supernatural understanding of what you are saying with this verse.  Help us to trust that you will provide all we need for any circumstance.  Please help us to have more trust and more faith.  Help us to also understand that we don’t have to be perfect, we don’t have to earn your love or your provisions.  All you want from us is to be with you and to keep our eyes fixed on you and not on those things of this world.  Help us to do this Lord.  We want all of this, we just need your help to make it happen.  We are weak and you are strong.  We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  Please help us to do all things Lord.  We love you so very much and we are so grateful that you provide for us even though we don’t deserve it.  We ask all 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.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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