Walk Boldly With Jesus

I Am Whole

Colossians 2:9-10 “ For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily,  and you share in this fullness in him, who is the head of every principality and power.”

This episode will conclude our “I am who God says I am” series. I am whole is a struggle for many to believe. We have all sinned before, we all sin frequently probably. It can be easy for us to think that sin makes us less than. Especially if we have had a really difficult past. Maybe we have had a lot of relationships in the past and we didn’t show up as our best selves in them. Maybe we haven’t had a lot of relationships, but we have slept with a lot of other people. I think many people in this society feel used. I think we feel used by the other sex, used by our bosses, and used by big companies to sell more products. There is just this brokenness instead of the feeling that we are whole.

What just popped into my mind was all the teenagers right now and how easy it is to feel broken when you are a teen. You don’t look the right way, your hair isn’t perfect, your clothes aren’t perfect. Life can be really hard when you are young. A therapist told me the other day that 15 was the most volatile age for emotions. At this age, you feel your emotions more intensely than you ever will again. Our minds are so easily persuaded by the enemy. Why is it so much easier to believe the negative than it is to believe the positive?

I read a great article about this called, “Finding Spiritual Wholeness" by Leanne Payne. Click Here for the article.  I recommend you read the whole thing. What Leanne was talking about in this article is that God is perfectly whole and we are made in his likeness and image. She said, “When “sin” (That which is against God’s character) entered the world, so did our brokenness, along with our broken ideas about how we view ourselves, God, and others.  There is an intuitive knowledge of our personal brokenness that we are constantly attempting to fix, deny or protect.” Isn’t this so true? We are always trying to fix, deny or protect our brokenness.

You might be wondering why anyone would want to protect their brokenness. I have talked with plenty of people who want to protect their brokenness because they have become comfortable with that brokenness. They have lived with that brokenness so they have come to identify as a broken person. Changing that image would be hard and not something they believe they can do. One thing we don’t realize is that life is hard. Yes, it is hard to change and yet, isn’t living a sinful life also hard? Eating healthy can be hard, yet isn’t being overweight and struggling to get around hard too? Standing up to our loved ones and putting boundaries in place is hard, yet so is living without those boundaries in place. Quitting vaping is hard, yet so is living life addicted to nicotine and not being able to concentrate because you are thinking about the next time when you will get to hit your vape.

The article I read talked about how sin distorts how we look at things. Here are a few examples she gave: 

Sin perverts our perception of God: 

God is angry with me - “He hates my sin, he must hate me.”

God is disgusted with me - "I’m too dirty and damaged for Him to accept me” 

God is distant from me - “Why would he want to be with me when I’m like this?”

God is unfair - “This is just one big setup...I couldn’t stop if I tried.”

God is unhappy - “All the fun things are off limits!”

Sin warps our self-perception: 

We become foolishly great in our own eyes when we hide from the reality of our sin, like the emperor with no clothes.

We become worth - less in our own eyes when we become hyper-focused on our sins.

Sin degrades or elevates (to unhealthy levels) our perception of others: 

We tend to do the same thing with other people that we do with ourselves - We make them out to be greater or less than we are.  We serve them like gods or treat them like dogs.

Payne goes on to say, "Sin brings disintegration of self while righteousness (living congruently with the character of God) brings integration of self or spiritual wholeness.  This is one reason God hates sin so much - He doesn’t want our disintegration because He loves us!  It must be said that any and all “righteous living” apart from God doesn’t get us to wholeness, it gets us to self-righteousness - a horrible dis-ease that many Christians live with, and perpetrate on others.”

Now that we have talked about why we think we are not whole, let's look at what makes us whole. Do our actions determine if we are whole? Nope! Payne says, “Spiritual wholeness is not dependent on our actions but on an acceptance of God’s acting on our part in the life/death/resurrection of Christ.  Because of our faith in Christ and what He’s done on our behalf, God can pronounce us whole and, remain a just God even though we often go on acting broken.” Jesus died to make us whole again. He took our sins to the cross with Him. We are no longer broken. Yes, we still act like we are broken at times yet God has redeemed us and made us whole.

So, if God has redeemed us and made us whole, why don’t we feel whole? I think we don’t feel whole because we struggle to believe that He can forgive us for what we have done. We don’t accept that forgiveness for ourselves. We will be the first ones to convince a friend or loved one that Jesus loves and forgives ALL their sins, we just struggle to believe He will do it for us. I talked with a woman recently who had been to confession about a time in her life when she wasn’t proud of how she was living. Even though she had been to confession the enemy was still not letting her move past it. She kept thinking about it and believing that she was her past mistakes. She was believing that she was stuck in her past. Things won’t change because she is still that person. She wasn’t believing in the healing that took place during confession.

So many of us do this same thing. We believe we are our past mistakes. We believe if we did it once we will do it again. We struggle to believe things will change and we struggle to believe that God could forgive us. To reiterate what the author of the article said, “Spiritual wholeness is not dependent on our actions but on an acceptance of God’s acting on our part in the life/death/resurrection of Christ.” It is not our actions that make us whole it was Jesus’ actions. Jesus knew when He decided to die on that cross for us that we would keep sinning. He didn’t die for us because we were blameless or because He knew we were going to stop sinning. He died for us to make us whole and His sacrifice was complete.

The verse above says, “  For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily, and you share in this fullness in him, who is the head of every principality and power.” We were made in the likeness and image of God.  We share in the fullness of Him.  However, when sin entered the world, so did our brokenness.  God sent His only son to repair that.  He died on the cross to make us whole, let’s live our lives in honor of that. Let’s live into this truth that we are whole. We are no longer broken, Christ made us whole!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you and we thank you for giving us your son to die on the cross so we could be made whole. Help us to live in that wholeness Lord. Help us to accept your forgiveness and help us make it more about you than about us. Help us to stop listening to the enemy. Help us to be strong enough to reject his stupid lies. Open our eyes to his lies and give us the strength to renounce them and take away any authority they have. Lord, when we believe the lies, we empower the liar. We are done empowering the liar Lord. We want you to be the only one that has any power in our lives. 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. Next week I will be on vacation with my family. I am still planning to post each day, however, they may not be consistent with the time of day. If you want to listen and a new one is not posted yet it might be a great opportunity to listen to one of the old ones. What I like to do is randomly select one of the old ones and it always ends up being exactly what I needed to hear for that day. I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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I Am Healed

Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.”  

I love talking about the Lord’s healing.  I love talking about it because it is so amazing and also because I am not sure people believe He is still healing today.  I was at the Encounter Ministries Boston Campus’ summer intensive Tuesday night.  That night the topic was the Prophetic Word.  Wednesday night was going to be all about physical healing.  I was talking with a friend from the prayer group at this event and her neck was really bothering her.  She mentioned she would have to have the girls from the prayer group pray over her the next night at the healing service.  I told her we didn’t have to wait until tomorrow, let's do it now.  Just then one of our teachers came up to us so she joined in as well.  We prayed a few times with little change.  Then my teacher asked my friend if she believed Jesus could heal her right now.  My friend said absolutely!  My teacher said, “Pain be gone now!” We were praying quietly for a minute and my friend said, “Wait a minute,” and she tried to move her neck all around in circles and side to side.  She said the pain was all gone!  Praise God.

God is still healing people today.  He is miraculously healing people quickly and He is also miraculously healing people over time.  For instance, someone Tony works with had a stroke and was not expected to recover.  Now, 2-3 months later, he is leaving rehab and going home.  Is he 100% healed yet? No, but I truly believe he will get there.  Not every healing God does is instantaneous and also He does not heal everyone that we ask Him to heal.  I am not sure why this is.  When I ask Him He always tells me, “His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts higher than my thoughts.”  We aren’t meant to understand everything He does in this world.  

Aside from physical healing, what I feel the Lord wants me to remind you of today is that he heals us from our sins and our brokenness.  Because of original sin, we had a brokenness about us. We live in a very broken world and yet we don’t have to be broken.  God died for our sins so that we could be healed.  God wants us to live in that light. He wants us to realize our identity in Christ and not continue to live with this idea that we are broken.  Yes, the world is a broken place, there are many broken people, but we don't have to be one of those broken people.  We know Christ, and we can be in relationship with Him. The verse above is very graphic. “But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.”  He was pierced for our sins, take a minute and think about that.  Picture the Roman soldiers hammering nails into his hands.  Think about how much that must have hurt.  Then it says He was crushed for our iniquity.  Take a moment to think about the scourging.  Think about how much that must have hurt.  How much He must have wanted to scream out in pain.  I wonder if he wanted to say, “But it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it?”  He was not being scourged because of anything He did.  He took on our sins, our broken relationship with the Father and died on that cross so we could be free.  

What just came to my mind was that there is no way to repay Jesus for what He did for us.  There is no way to repay the debt that He paid for our sins, and He doesn’t want us to.  Jesus has forgiven that debt to Him.  He saved us knowing we would still sin.  He saved us knowing we would turn away probably 100 times before we got it right.  I don’t think this bothers Him as much as it does when we don’t accept His forgiveness.  When we don’t live in the freedom that He sacrificed to gain for us.  Jesus died so you could be healed.  You, yes, You!  

You, who are going through an abusive relationship right now.  You, who are living with or dealing with an addict right now, You, who are getting a divorce, You who can’t have children, You who are struggling to parent the children you do have.  Jesus died for each one of us and He wants us to live in that freedom.  He is there to help us through our circumstances.  He is there to lift us up when we need Him too.  All we need to do is to lean into Him.

He died to heal us, but we are the ones that need to accept that healing.  It’s kinda like if we had an illness and there was a medicine that could cure our illness and yet we refused to take the medicine.  The medicine is sitting right there on the counter, right next to the water and yet we refuse to take it because we don’t believe it will help.  We believe that our illness is worse than the doctor said it was.  We know that medicine can’t possibly help us because our case is too severe.  Does that sound silly to you?  Are you rolling your eyes and wondering why I think I know more than the doctor does?  

The same is true for us and our forgiveness of sins.  Jesus died so our sins could be forgiven, so we could be healed physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Jesus was repairing the relationship with our heavenly Father that original sin had broken.  He died for you.  Yes, he died for all of us, but He also died for each of us individually.  If you were the only person on Earth, He still would have gone through all of that for you.  Jesus knows what we have done.  He knows what we will do.  He did not die on the cross for some of our sins, He died on the cross for all of our sins.  There is nothing you can do that He won’t forgive.  There is nothing that has happened to you that He can’t heal.

When we do something and then we don’t accept forgiveness for it we are offending the Lord.  We are telling Him that His sacrifice was not enough.  Is this what you believe?  Do you believe that Jesus dying on the cross was not a big enough sacrifice to cover whatever it was that you did or that was done to you?  It does not make you greedy to accept God’s sacrifice.  It does not make you greedy to accept the forgiveness that God offers.  His forgiveness is freely given.  You don’t have to do anything to deserve it or to earn it.  It is already yours through your baptism.  He had you and your sins, your troubles in mind when He was on that cross.  Accept the healing.  Accept the forgiveness of sins.

One thing that has helped me accept God’s Word into my heart is to personalize it to me.  I will put my name in or switch words from “our” to “my”.  Sometimes we believe scripture is true.  We just don’t think it applies to us for some reason or another. Here is how I might read this scripture if I was struggling to believe it was for me personally.  “But he was pierced for my sins, crushed for my iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes me whole, by his wounds I, Catherine, was healed.”  If you struggle to believe you are healed.  If you struggle to believe all your sins, yes, even that one, can be forgiven.  If you struggle to believe Jesus died for you personally and individually, I ask you to write this scripture down on a sticky note and place it on your computer, your bathroom mirror, your shower, or wherever you will see it daily.  Make it personal and put it in your own name.  Even just changing the “our” to “my” will really change the feel of it.  “But he was pierced for my sins, crushed for my iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes me whole, by his wounds I, Catherine, was healed.” You can add your name, or just take the name out.  Whichever feels best for you.  Jesus loves you, He died for you, don’t lessen that sacrifice by refusing to accept the healing that comes from it.  You are healed, all you need to do is live into that healing!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we accept your forgiveness.  We accept your healing.  Please help us.  Lord, we ask that you come into our hearts and minds and clear any blocks we might have in accepting your healing and forgiveness.  Lord, we give you permission to work on our hearts please soften them.  We love you Lord, we are so grateful you sent your son to heal us and we are sorry if we haven’t been accepting that healing.  Lord we can do nothing without you and yet all things with you.  Please help 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.  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.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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I am Guided

Isaiah 30:21 “And your ears shall hear a word behind you: “This is the way; walk in it,” when you would turn to the right or the left.”

This is a great verse because it explains that we are guided throughout our lives.  However, it can also be misleading. Unfortunately, we can’t really take this verse literally.  We do not have someone whispering into our ears each step of the way.  Although that would be pretty cool.  Imagine if you didn’t have to wonder if you were taking the right steps.  Imagine if you didn’t have to worry about making the wrong decision because you had the Lord whispering in your ear telling you whether you were to turn left or right.

Although we don’t have someone behind us whispering in our ear at each turn, the Lord will lead us in the right direction if we take the time to ask Him and then listen to what He has to say. This can be tricky because many times we will be good about asking God what we should do but then not take the time to listen to His answer.  Other times we are so excited about one of the choices that we jump in and choose that one without even pausing to ask God what He thinks. When we do either of these things we are not giving the Lord a chance to guide us into the life He has planned for us.  

Hearing the word of God is something we can all do, we just have to know how to do it.  In my Encounter Ministries class last night they went over the various ways that you might “hear” God’s word.  There are four ways:

See it: Sometimes people see visions and that is how they get their answers.  Sometimes you might see a word above someone's head.  You might see something that is not actually there in the natural world.  I know when learning inner healing our teachers told us sometimes God may ask us to do a prophetic act.  You might be praying over someone for inner healing and while praying you see that they have a spear through their heart.  You might feel as though God is asking you to take it out.  You are likely the only person who sees this spear.  That doesn’t make it any less real.  When you are looking for an answer from the Lord, ask Him the question and then close your eyes and see if He wants to reveal anything to you through your sight.

Hear it: Usually, when we hear God it is not God’s voice.  My teacher last night said she has heard the voice of God once, so that is pretty cool.  However, I think it is rare that you hear the actual voice of God.  In my experience, when I hear the voice of God He sounds just like my voice.  It is that “still small voice” in your head or in your heart that helps you know what you should do.  I am sure you have heard this voice before, however, you might not have known that it was God talking to you.  When you are seeking answers from the Lord, ask your questions and then sit quietly and listen to see what He has to say.  If you ask He will answer.  

Feel it: Sometimes the Lord speaks to us with our feelings.  There is a woman in our prayer group that feels things from the Lord very frequently.  She will get a word of prophecy and then will go on to say that she is getting this strong feeling from the Lord that He is sad and wants us to turn to Him more, or that He has this deep longing.  Last night, at the Encounter Summer Intensive we were doing a guided meditation using the parable of the prodigal son and she said she could just feel this overwhelming love that the Father has for us.  She said she has never felt a love like this before.  It was such a strong feeling.  When you are looking for answers from the Lord, they may come in the form of a feeling, so pay attention to how you are feeling when asking the Lord what He thinks.

Think it: This is when a thought just pops into your head.  Sometimes it can be when you are sitting trying to listen to the Lord, and other times it can just be out of the blue.  Have you ever been going about your day and all of a sudden you get this thought to reach out to an old friend?  Yep, me too!  This is the Lord prompting you.  A lot of times we ignore these thoughts.  However, when we obey and reach out to the person we find out that was exactly what they needed.  I had been thinking about reaching out to someone I had met on retreat for several months and I just never did.  I am not sure why I didn’t but eventually, she reached out to me and she was having a rough time.  I bet she would have really appreciated it if I had reached out when the Lord first told me to.  Last night this woman was walking out the door to come to the summer intensive and she got the thought to bring this specific prayer card with her, so she threw it in her purse.  The prayer card was a prayer about entrusting your children to God and not worrying if they will come back to the church.  Then at the Summer Intensive, one of the ladies shared that she was worried about her kids never coming back to the church, so the woman gave her this prayer card.  God has a plan and sometimes He will put thoughts in our head to help Him with that plan.  

The teacher, that was talking about these four ways to hear God’s voice last night, was saying that she was sitting in church one day and the Lord brought a thought out of nowhere about a funeral she was at where there was a teen suicide.  She did not understand why she would have this random thought in the middle of mass.  Then God revealed to her that the teenage boy behind her was contemplating suicide.  Sometimes you never know the impact of what you did for someone else.  Sometimes you might get a prompting to call someone and you do.  You could have a very nice conversation and yet you don’t feel like there was any great purpose in the call. However, we don’t know the effects it might have had.  There was a purpose for God putting that thought in your head, that I am sure of!

I hope that you find these 4 ways of hearing the Lord’s voice helpful.  If we want to grow in our ability to hear the Lord’s voice, we need to practice, just like anything else in life.  If you want to be better at a sport, you need to play that sport.  If you want to be better at cooking, you need to cook.  If you want to become better at hearing the Lord’s voice, you need to sit down and listen often.  I promise you the Lord wants to talk to you.  God didn’t just pick a few of His children to talk to, He wants to talk to all of His children.  He wants to sit down with you as you drink your morning coffee or tea and have a chat with you.  A real back-and-forth chat.  Your heavenly Father loves you and He longs to communicate with you.  Why not give it a try?  What do you have to lose?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to hear you communicating with us.  No matter the method Lord, we just want to have a relationship with you.  We want you to whisper in our ear and lead us down the correct path.  Tell us whether we should turn right or turn left Lord.  Help us to make time for you, to listen to you.  We want to hear your Word Lord, please help us.  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 seeing you again tomorrow.  If you are local and you want to join the Encounter Ministries Summer Intensive, it is not too late!  CLICK HERE to register for Summer Intensive. We are going over God’s prophetic word today and I know it is going to be amazing!  I hope you can join us!  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I!  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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I Am Strong

Philippians 4:13 “ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”


This is truly one of my all-time favorite verses.  I keep a list of all the verses I used as the central point of each episode as there are 31,102 verses in the Bible and I want to make sure that I am not always speaking about the same few that we all already know.  I try not to repeat a verse I have used already as the main verse of the episode.  However, sometimes if I learn something new about a verse or something fascinating I will repeat a verse.  I am sure I have used this verse several times before within the episode, so I  was surprised to see I hadn’t used it as a main verse. We will finish the “I Am What God Says I Am” series this week.  If you haven’t listened in a while we have already done: I am protected, I am forgiven, I am courageous, and I am His.  This week we will cover I am strong, I am guided, I am healed, and I am whole.

I love this verse because I think if we all embraced it, life would get easier.  If we all accepted this, and let it settle into our hearts, we wouldn’t struggle so much.  It is also a great reminder that we can do anything if we are doing it with the strength we get from Christ.  This verse came from Paul in a letter to the Philippians.  Paul has an amazing story. He has lots of amazing stories.  The way He became a believer in Jesus was amazing.  God wanted Him and one encounter with Jesus changed his whole life. Paul did not have an easy life, especially after He started traveling around and preaching about Jesus.  

Sometimes we can think we are supposed to have an easy life.  We believe in God and God will protect us so we get to just sit back and relax on easy street.  That is not what God promised us.   God promised He would be with us.  He promised He would send an advocate to guide us, but He never promised our life would be easy.  Actually, He said the opposite.  In Matthew 16:24, “Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  He is calling us to take up our own cross.  Our crosses will look very different from Jesus’ cross, thank goodness.  Your cross will look different from my cross.  Just because our crosses look different, doesn’t mean we don’t have crosses.  

Paul was the Pope at one point.  We might think if He is that close to the Lord, then his life was easy.  Sometimes, oftentimes, the closer we get to the Lord the harder our life seems.  The enemy hates when we get close to the Lord, so he will try to block you every chance he gets.  The devil will make your life a living hell, and then try to convince you it is God’s fault, or if God loved you, why would He let this stuff happen to you?  The enemy can be really convincing too.  He can sound like He knows what he is talking about because He might through some scripture in there, or he will include just enough truth in his lies so that they seem credible.  This is a trick, don’t fall for it.  God is not the reason you are suffering and yet He can be the reason you make it through all that suffering.

Paul says right before the verse above in Philippians 4:10-13, “I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last, you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

The word that jumps out to me first is the word content.  Many of us struggle to be content.  If we are struggling financially, we wish we had more money.  If we are successful then we still strive for more, or we feel lonely at the top.  We live in a society that wants more and more.  I rarely talk with someone who is content with where they are in life.  Paul said he learned to be content in whatever the circumstances.  You might think this was easy for Paul because He was the Pope.  It was not, here are a few things Paul went through in his lifetime since turning his life over to God. Here is a list from 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 about all that Paul went through: 

“Are they ministers of Christ? (I am talking like an insane person.) I am still more, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and numerous brushes with death.  Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers;  in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure.  And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

Can you imagine?  I can’t imagine even going through a fraction of what Paul went through, and yet I have walked through some very difficult times and I am sure you have too.  I was not showing you all Paul went through so you could look at your life and compare it.  Comparison is the thief of joy.  I don’t believe we should look at our troubles and compare them to others because then we start to feel guilty for being upset about our problems when they seem so small compared to others.  You still have a right to be upset about your circumstances, even if someone else’s circumstances are worse.  

The thing to remember about Paul is that he was able to endure so much because he had the strength of Jesus, and so do you!  We all have the Spirit of Jesus living inside of us.  That was a gift the Father gave us when Jesus went to join Him in Heaven.  The verse today says, “ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” It says, all things.  It doesn’t just mean the easy stuff. I know you feel like what you are dealing with is too much.  I know you feel like you are alone and no one is there fighting with you.  I know you might not feel the strength of Jesus and yet He is right there with you.  When I look back I can see how the strength of Jesus got me through the hard times.  

When things were really bad in our house I never gave up hope.  I didn’t wake up each day feeling defeated or depressed, well, not on most days anyway.  I woke up feeling ready to try a new strategy.  Just the fact that I got out of bed was proof of Jesus’ strength.  There were long periods, years actually, where it was crisis after crisis in my house.  I would put out one fire and another one would be right there waiting to spring up.  It was a lot and I had times when I wanted to throw in the towel.  I definitely wondered what would happen if I ran away from it all.  And yet, I made it through.  I not only made it through but I changed the dynamics in our family.  It was super hard work and work I know I couldn’t have done on my own.  

You have the strength of Jesus inside of you and you are stronger than you think.  You can do this thing you are going through right now! You can beat cancer, you can raise your kids to be great adults, you can fix your marriage, you can help your loved one recover from injury/illness, and you can make it through this financial crisis.  Whatever it is, you can make it through because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.  You are strong.  There is a Winnie the Pooh quote that I think we should all embrace as truth, "You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” You are stronger than you seem.  You can do this hard thing, even when it feels like you can’t!  You’ve got this, you have the power and strength of Jesus inside of you.  You can do all things with Him!

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for every person listening today.  I ask you to bless each of them.  Lord, help us to feel your strength.  Help us to see the times in our life when we have relied on the strength of Jesus to get us through.  Show us the times when you were there lifting us and we didn’t know it.  Help us to turn to you for strength Lord.  Help us not to rely on our own strength but to look to you and surrender our problems to you Lord.  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.  This week is the Encounter Ministries Boston Campus Summer Intensive.  It is in Woburn MA from 6-9 PM Monday to Thursday.  If you are local and would like to come it is not too late you can register at the door.  It is at St. Charles Borromeo.  If you are not able to join us, I ask that you pray for us.  I ask that you pray for a successful event and that people get out of it exactly what they needed.  I ask that you pray for protection over it as I know it will be powerful and wherever God’s power is strong the enemy tries to come in and destroy.  Thank you in advance for all your prayers.  I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I!  Have a blessed day!  CLICK HERE to come to Encounter Ministries Boston Campus Summer Intensive!

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I Am His

Isaiah 43:1-2 “But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

When I was looking at the sheet of verses titled, “I Am Who God Says I Am” I saw that it said Isaiah 43:1 for today, which makes sense.  I am His is what God is saying when He Says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name, you are mine.”  We are the Lord’s, there are several places in the Bible where it talks about how we are His people, He formed us in our mother’s womb, He knew us before we existed, and so on.  That might even make a great Bible study, just looking at all the places where God says that we are His.  However, when I was reading that verse this morning I decided to read the verses that come after this verse as well.

What I realized is that the very next verse tells us not to fear, which I found interesting since that is what we talked about yesterday.  I didn’t want to talk about verse 1 without also talking about verse 2 because I think they go hand and hand.  I think verse 2 explains what verse 1 means for us.  In verse one God is telling us that we are His.  He is saying that he has redeemed us and summoned us by name and that we are His.  Let’s stay there for a moment.  First, God says that He has redeemed us.  Redeemed in the Bible means having been saved or delivered from sin or its consequences. I wonder if we understand what that means.  I wonder if we are even capable of grasping the vastness of that statement.  God has redeemed us.  This means that mistake that you made, the one that you keep beating yourself up for, God has already redeemed it.  This means that those sins that you have committed, you have been delivered from them.  All those negative things the enemy keeps whispering in our ears about ourselves, The Lord has already redeemed them, He has redeemed us, all of us.  He has delivered us from ourselves, from our sinful nature.

The next part says He summoned us by name, in other words, He called us.  Do you know what this means?  It means that God knows our name.  He knows your name and He knows my name.  He is calling us, not as a group, not as a whole, He is calling each one of us, by name, to Him.  Almost every week in Prayer Group we get at least one word of prophecy that says, “Come closer my children, again I say, come closer my children.” God is calling us to be close to Him.  He is calling us to sit with Him daily and have a conversation, pray with Him, and tell Him what is going on in our lives.  He is calling us to Him because He wishes to have a relationship with us.  

Earlier I said I think verse 2 explains what verse 1 means to us.  What I meant by this is that verse 2 tells us all the ways God will protect us because we are His.  He gives us an idea of the lengths He will go to just so He can protect His children.  That is what you are, you are a child of God.  The second verse starts by saying, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” This is telling us that God is with us always.  Even when we are passing through waters, He will be there.  He will not only be there but He will protect us from these waters.  He will make sure they do not sweep over us.  

I think this is important to remember because how many times in life have you felt like you were treading water?  How many times have you felt like you were going to drown?  This verse is meant to reassure us.  It is telling us no matter how high those waters get, we won’t drown.  We belong to God and He is here protecting us always.  We heard all those words of prophecy yesterday telling us not to fear anything because God is right there with us.  Now, today, we hear the same thing.  I get the feeling some of us are fearful about something now.  I am not sure what you are going through, or what you might be afraid of, and yet I know that God is trying to reassure you that whatever it is, He is right there with you and that you don’t ever have to be afraid because He will never leave your side.

The last sentence in this verse is an even more dramatic statement of God’s love for us, His people.  The verse ends with, “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” This is a pretty vivid picture and yet I think we can all think of a time in our lives when we felt like we were walking through fire.  God is reassuring us that although we may feel like we are in a fire, we may feel the heat of the flames all around us, He will not let the flames set us ablaze.  I am sure we hear this and we take it figuratively.  We think about the things going on in our lives and how it feels like we are walking through fire.  However, I want you to know, that God saved three of His children from a literal fire.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were three of God’s children.  They loved God and they wanted to serve Him and only Him.  Then King Nebuchadnezzar created a statue made of gold and said everyone needed to bow before it.  These three young men refused as they said they would only bow to the one true king, our Lord God.  King Nebuchadnezzar order these three young me to be thrown in the fiery furnace. God saved these men from being touched by the fire.

When King Nebuchadnezzar looked through the window to make sure they had died, he saw four people in the furnace instead of three.  God had sent one of His angels into the fiery furnace to protect them.  There is one line in the story of these three young men that I just love.  This story can be found in Daniel 3.  My favorite line though is found in verses 14-18, " King Nebuchadnezzar questioned them: “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you will not serve my god, or worship the golden statue that I set up? Now, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue I made, whenever you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, zither, dulcimer, harp, double-flute, and all the other musical instruments, then all will be well; if not, you shall be instantly cast into the white-hot furnace; and who is the God who can deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “There is no need for us to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If our God, whom we serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, O king, may he save us!  But even if he will not, you should know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue which you set up.”

Wow, can you imagine saying that?  Can you imagine the faith they must have had?  They knew God could save them from the flames of that furnace and yet even if God didn’t save them, they would still be faithful to Him.  I wonder if we can say the same.  I wonder if we would be willing to stake our lives on our faith in God.  God is telling us with this story as well as with the verses today that He will be there for us, no matter what.  He will protect us from drowning in the waters in our lives and He will protect us from burning in the fires in our life.  We belong to God and He will protect us from all that we encounter.  He is there with us each step of the way, even in those really hard times.  God wants us to come closer to Him and have a relationship with Him.  He wants us to share with Him all that is going on in our lives so He can help us with it all.  God loves you and You are His!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we thank you for protecting us from the water and the fire in our lives.  Thank you for calling us by name, thank you for redeeming us.  We love you, Lord.  Help us to draw closer to you.  Help us to learn how to have a relationship with you.  Help us not to fear anything because we have you in our lives protecting us.  We are so grateful for you and all the ways that you protect us.  You are so powerful and we are so grateful we are Yours.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk body with Jesus.  I worked a lot yesterday on getting the retreat ready to open for registration. I haven’t finished setting up registration but I do have the title and the description, so let me share that with you today as I am very excited about what I feel the Holy Spirit wants to do at this retreat.  The Retreat is called Heart to Heart Retreat: Embracing God’s Love at Every Stage.  The primary goal for this retreat is to pour God's Love into each of you. I feel the Holy Spirit is saying we all need to be filled up with His love so we can go out and fill others. This retreat will teach you how to hear His voice, abide in his love and cultivate a deeper more intimate relationship with Him. I truly hope you will all join me for this retreat.  It will be from October 7th to the 9th.  It will be in Easton, MA at the Holy Cross Retreat House.  I am so excited to share this weekend with you and get to know some of you listening that I might not know.  I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend!

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I Am Courageous

Joshua 1:9 “I command you: be strong and steadfast! Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord, your God, is with you wherever you go.”

Today is another verse that tells us who God created us to be.  God created us to be strong and steadfast.  Do you know what steadfast means?  Steadfast means resolutely firm and unwavering.  This verse is telling us that we can be courageous because God is with us wherever we go.  God is telling us in this verse that we don’t have to fear anything and we don’t have to be dismayed.  God tells us not to fear quite often in the Bible.  The phrase “fear not” is in the Bible 365 times.  That is one time for each day of the year.  I think this is something that God wants us to get and yet we still all struggle with it.  

I can’t think of a single person who is not afraid of something.  I think if we took the bravest person we know we would still discover they were afraid of something.  There are people who are afraid of everything, there are people who are afraid of almost nothing and then there are those in between.  Even if someone says they aren’t afraid of anything I bet if you asked them if they were afraid something might happen to their children, their pets, or any of their loved ones, I bet most would say yes.  If you asked them if they were afraid of not being able to provide for their family I bet most would say yes.  We are all afraid of something.  I think this is why the Lord has said “fear not” so many times in the Bible.  

He is still saying it to His people today.  He is saying it to you and me. We are constantly getting words of prophecy at prayer group that tell us not to be afraid and that God is with us.  Here are several words that we have received, and these all came within the same month.  I would love for you to listen to these words as if your heavenly Father was saying them to you personally.  Also, if any of them stand out to you or you feel like they are speaking to you pause the episode and write them down.  I pray that God speaks to each one of you through these words.  I pray that He highlights at least one of these for each individual person listening.  All of these either speak to us not being afraid or they explain how and why we know God is with us.  

I just got the feeling that we don't need to fear because He is the one that is in charge and He will make things happen in whatever way that He wants. He keeps telling us we're not God He is God.  He is saying He can use whoever He wants. Whoever is willing to be used he can use.

You are the anointing I send to the world my children. Smile that I send you. I send each of you. Be not afraid I am with you. My spirit will speak through you the words that I wish you to say. Just be the anointing I wish you to be. All can be. When I say you can, don't tell me you can't. Praise me, praise me, praise me, my children. Smile that today I send you.

I watch over you, my children. All of you are my children. I break the sword of the enemy who would come against you. You have nothing to fear for I am there for each and every one of you in each and every trial. I will never forsake my children or leave my children. I will defend you in battle. I have sent you the power of the Spirit and He will give you all that you need to do what you have been called to do.

My children take my hand. Realize that I am with you. Go into the world without fear. I am holding onto your hand. There is no need to fear I am your God. I will protect you, I will defend you. Smile that you are mine. Smile my children. I am with you till the end of time. Come closer my children, come closer so that I can reveal my mysteries to you so you in turn can share them with the world. I am your Lord, I am your God and I am all-powerful. I hold onto your hand. Move forward, move forward with joy for you are mine.

My children you are like little sheep. You wander off for that next patch of juicy grass and I call you back. You wander over the top of the hill and you get caught in the briars and I find you. I know where your traps are. I will always search for you. I will always find you and I will always bring you back. But I ask you frequently, many times, to look over your shoulder and check on me to make sure you are near me. Often during the day look at me, listen for me, watch me. Stay near me and you will grow strong and healthy and you'll be my cherished one and you will do my will.

This verse came to mind as we are praying and all I could see is the real fullness of God's glory. He doesn't give us dim glory, He gives us blazing glory.  He doesn't give us a weak Spirit, He gives us a courageous Spirit. He doesn't give us a dim light, He gives us a blazing light to bring to this world that God is so great and so full and he shares ALL of his fullness with us. With Him there's plenteous redemption so let's not just expect little let's expect a lot, more than our minds can possibly comprehend because He is big.

And my children, my darlings you think you are what your roles in life have made you be. You think you are what people have called you and told you you were. But please come to me in prayer and silence and listen to what I call you. I call you beloved, cherished, friend, child. You are my sheep, you are precious. You are my warriors, you are my disciples, you are my voice in the world right now, you are my hands, you are my feet. You have such a noble call and you don't realize it. You have so much power at your disposal and you don't use it. Don't be stuck in what the world has told you but be liberated in what I tell you.

Wow, those were all-powerful.  What I feel the Holy Spirit telling me right now is to leave you with those so you can read through them or re-listen to them again.  There is so much in there and yet I feel the Holy Spirit is saying that we don’t have to focus, understand or read through all of it.  Listen again and see what stands out to you.  There is plenty in there that speaks to the fact God made us courageous.  Which word speaks to you the most?  Which one did you really need to hear today?  I would love it if you would reach out to me through an email at [email protected] or through social media and let me know which of the words from our heavenly Father touched you the most today.  You are courageous because you have the Lord God almighty right there by your side every step of the way!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Wow, Lord, you are amazing.  After all these years, I still cannot get over the fact that you want to talk to your children.  When I think about all the ways we turn away from you and all the terrible ways we treat you, I would think you would want to ignore us.  You not only take care of us and protect us, but you also want to have a relationship with us.  Those were some pretty powerful words you gave to the prayer group and that you gave to me to share with everyone.  I pray everyone listening truly hears Your words and I pray they find a home in their hearts.  I pray they don’t just hear them with their ears, I pray they hear them with their heart, mind, and soul. I pray there is something for everyone in those words above.  I pray people listen and relisten to them until they become a part of them.  I pray they copy them down from the show notes and re-read them anytime they feel they need to be courageous or they need the reminder that they are not alone and you are right there with them.  

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I wanted to let you all know that I am getting closer to opening the registration for the retreat I am hosting.  I am coming up with a title and a description that tries to explain how amazing the retreat will be.  What I can tell you now is that it will be filled with God’s love, and my prayer is that everyone that comes gets filled up with the Love of God and also deepens their relationship with Him.  I hope you will all join me!  More details to come shortly. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

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I have two witnesses for you today.  I do not know either of these people.  I saw one of the witnesses on the Encounter Ministries Facebook page and then I saw the same witness on another friend’s page and I felt like that was the Holy Spirit telling meet share her story.  I think her story is especially good because so many people struggle with food allergies these days and I am not sure it even occurs to us to ask for a healing from that.  I am not sure we even believe that is something that can be healed.  It probably doesn’t even enter our minds.  However, for this young lady, it was life-changing for her.  The first witness is Megan and she is talking about her miraculous healing and how that lead to her new job working for encounter ministries online campus.  I will be relaying her witness to you and I will also put a link in the show notes of the podcast and the comments section of my Youtube channel so you can watch her give the testimony if you want to.  It is so good watching her explain it.  You can see the excitement and the gratitude on her face.  CLICK HERE to watch her testimony!

Megan was at a regional Encounter Ministries conference in Seattle in 2019 and she was suffering from celiac disease, eosinophilic esophagitis, she had so many food allergies, she could really only eat a handful of foods and be ok and she also had major depressive disorder.  She had been Catholic her entire life but she had never really truly met the Lord.  At the healing service, the Lord took away everything that she was allergic to, the celiac disease was gone the depression was gone and I no longer had eosinophilic esophagitis.  

In encounter ministries, we ask people to test to see if they have been healed.  Test to see if the pain is gone.  Test to see if you can do something that you couldn’t do before the prayer.  For instance, if you couldn’t raise your arm above your head because of a shoulder injury then after the prayer try and see if you can raise your hand over your head.  This added step to test if the healing has occurred gives the person praying and the person who has healed a chance to step out in faith and test the healing.  Megan wasn’t sure how to test this healing as it was about allergies to food and she was at a conference.  She asked a friend how to test it and they recommended she seek inner healing.  During the inner healing session, she got to ask the Lord if He did in fact heal her at the conference.  And she heard Him say Yes, over and over again yes.  

After she left the inner healing session she went to the only restaurant she knew in this small town in Texas and she ate everything she had ever been allergic to on that plate.  She ate gluten, wheat, soy, eggs, dairy, tree nuts, and peanuts and there was not one reaction.  She drove four hours home praising the Lord the whole time. She had depression for so long and she woke up the next morning filled with joy.  She had no idea where all this joy was coming from and why she was so excited and joyful.  She then went to a summer intensive and then a friend convinced her to sign up for the 2 year online course.  She became aware for the first time of her identity as a beloved daughter of Jesus Christ and the authority that He gave us and she was so excited to go deeper and deeper into their rich content.  She is now working for Encounter School of Ministries as their Associate Director of the online school.

The second witness today is Sean.  He is another Encounter Ministries student.  In this witness, he is talking about an incredible grace he received during an encounter ministries class exercise.  There are so many Encounter Ministry testimonies because there are so many amazing things going on with this school.  I think one reason for this is because they are allowing the Holy Spirit to work through them and they are teaching so many others to do the same.  The Holy Spirit is on the move in a big way right now. I love sharing these testimonies because we are all suffering in some way.  The more I share the more chance there is for you to see yourself or your situation in one of these witnesses.  If God can do it for them, He can do it for you too.  Again, I will be telling Sean’s story and then I will place a link for the actual video so you can watch him tell it if you want to.  I think you should watch the original video as no one tells our own testimony better than we do.  CLICK HERE to watch his testimony!

Sean was a compulsive note-taker which doesn’t sound bad, but it can be really debilitating at times.  He also has this really odd obsessive thing where if he is in a conversation and forgets what he will say, he can’t just let it go.  He will spend 30 minutes pouring over it trying to remember.  Sometimes he would still be thinking about it days later and it really stole his peace. He had this going on when he started Encounter.  Week after week he encountered new revelations and new graces.  A very powerful one was when a classmate was praying over him and she received an image that he had the anointing of St. Peter to jump out of the boat at the first sign of Jesus.  When she said that he started crying and he got a grace of instant surrender in that moment.  Now when these obsessive thoughts come to him, he can move on instantly.  He can be fully in the present moment, fully at peace.  He can have new eyes to see.  He can see Jesus in the people that he talks to.  He can speak what people need to hear in the moment to lead them to Jesus.  

Last week he received the grace of joy.  He was at a Chamber of Commerce event and even though they aren’t usually full of laughs.  He found himself with a group of strangers and they found themselves laughing and being joyful.  When he got to work the next day, he had claimed victory over his workplace the night before, the tellers were laughing for no reason. He works at a bank. The most beautiful thing was that none of it was rooted in emotion or even gratitude for the healing.  It was rooted in who he is and who God is because God is faithful and Sean is His.  

Sean’s father passed away when he was 3 years old.  Sean had an image last week of himself with God the Father in a green field Sean was 3 years old and God was running after him, chasing him, playing with him, and throwing him in the air.  He was teaching Sean his strength in Him.  What God wants to do in all of us is to plant in our hearts that to be His son or His daughter is to be free.  He told Sean at that moment that this is the new normal, this peace, this joy, this boldness, this is the new normal.  This is just the beginning.  

I hope you will go and check out both of these videos.  They are very powerful.  I hope when you listen to these witnesses each week you realize they are coming from normal everyday people like you and I.  There is nothing extraordinary about these people.  God did not choose them because they were the best, he chose them because they were willing, they were seeking and they said yes.   You can too!  We had a prophecy from the prayer group that we were just looking at the other day.  Here is what we felt the Lord said to our group and He is saying it to you too. “My children, I have called each of you and I continue to call you. I have chosen you because of your great love and your hearts that are willing.  I have not chosen you because you are the wisest, speak eloquently or perform the best. I chose you because you are small in the sense of being humble, knowing who you are, knowing that you need a God and Savior, and willing to accept me as that.”  There you go, straight from the Lord himself.  He isn’t choosing people because they are the best. He is choosing people who are humble, who love Him, and who have willing hearts.  He chooses those that know they cannot do anything on their own and yet with Him there is nothing they cannot do.  Is that you?  Do you want to be used by God?

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I am Forgiven

1 John 2:12 “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven on account of his name.”

I decided to stick with some of the verses from the “I Am Who God Says I Am” Challenge from my Big Life mentoring group.  I have talked about many of the verses however the next one that I had not talked about before is 2 John 2:12. I particularly liked this one because I am not sure this is one that most of us would agree with.  Do you believe you are forgiven?  I recently learned something that I thought was so interesting.  I was at a meeting and we were talking about the difference between Redemption vs Salvation.  

The way they explained it was to picture that you are in jail.  Redemption means someone has been paid for your freedom.  This means you have been redeemed.  You are now free to go, free to leave the jail in which you were held captive. However, the salvation doesn’t come until you leave the prison. You need to be the one to accept that redemption and walk out of the door.  That is the hard part, that is the part that we struggle with a lot.  We might understand on some level that Jesus died for the sins of the world and yet we struggle to believe that he died for our sins in particular.  

Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins?  Do you believe there is nothing you can do that won’t be forgiven if you repent?  Do you believe you don’t have to earn your forgiveness?  This is something else that we struggle with.  We think we have to be good enough to be forgiven.  We mess up and then we think we need to fix everything before we turn to the Lord and ask for forgiveness.  This couldn’t be further from the truth. There is nothing you have to do to be forgiven other than to be sorry for what you have done.  You can’t earn your forgiveness, Jesus already paid the price for you.  He paid a high price and when we try to earn our forgiveness we are essentially saying what He paid wasn’t enough.

Father Mike was just talking about this idea of earning our forgiveness the other day on the Catechism in a Year podcast when he was talking about the sacrament of reconciliation.  When Catholics go to confession, we confess our sins we say we are sorry to God for having sinned against Him, we receive absolution for our sins and then the priest gives us a penance.  Sometimes when we get the penance we think that it is not severe enough.  For instance we confess we committed a mortal sin and the priest says that we should say 5 Hail Marys and 5 Our Fathers.  We don’t see how that could possible atone for our sins.  That’s the thing, we are not atoning for our sins, our forgiveness is freely given to us because Jesus died on the cross.  He already atoned for our sins.  Penance is meant to help us turn our hearts back to God. Just as our sin was an active choice of turning away from God, penance is an active choice of turning back to God.

What penance is meant to do is to help us get back on track.  In an ideal world your penance would have something to do with what you were struggling with at the time of confession. For instance, if you are struggling with being kind to your family, your penance might be to say three kind things to each one of them before going to bed that night.  If you are struggling with pride your penance might be to say the Litany of Humility.  This would be in an ideal world, however, there are not enough priests and the priest might not always be able to come up with a creative penance that has to do with your specific struggle or your specific sins.  If you are given a penance that doesn’t seem to “fit the crime” so to speak, remember that you are not earning your forgiveness, you are not trying to buy it, it has already been purchased for you.  I read an article about doing penance after confession and it said, “Just as sin wounds (or breaks) our relationship with God and makes our souls sick, penance is medicine that helps us turn our hearts back towards our Creator. Confession removes that sin from our shoulders. Penance helps us move towards a more holy future.”

The verse above says that our sins are forgiven on account of his name.” I mentioned earlier that sometimes we think we need to fix things before we confess what we have done.  We think we need to be perfect before we approach God and tell Him what we have done.  Romans 5:8 tells us, “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  He didn’t wait till we stopped sinning.  He didn’t wait until we had all our ducks in a row, He didn’t wait until we had life all figured out.  He died for our sins while we were still sinners.  This shows us how much God loves us and also shows us that He doesn’t want us to wait until we are perfect because that day will never come.  God told Paul that His power is made perfect in our weakness.  

We think we need to be perfect for God and yet God doesn’t require that of us.  He would rather we come to Him in our weakness and our brokenness.  If we are perfect we don’t need God.  If we could do it all ourselves we wouldn’t need God.  God is not there to watch us do all the work ourselves and then forgive us or love us after we have figured it all out.  He is there to help us figure it out.  He is there to guide us and to lead us in the right direction.  We can’t change the really hard stuff without God’s help.  We can’t forgive others without God helping us change our hearts.  We can want to forgive and yet God is the one that is in charge of conversion of hearts.  He is the one that forgives us and helps us forgive others.  We need him all along the process.  

The one thing I want to leave you with today is that your sins were forgiven when Jesus died on that cross.  You don’t have to earn your forgiveness, you just have to accept it.  You have to walk in that freedom that comes with forgiveness.  If God has forgiven your sins and yet you are still walking around in a prison of your past mistakes then what do you think that says to the Lord?  It says that you don’t believe Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to cover your sins.  It says you think you know more than God does because He has said you are forgiven and you aren’t accepting that forgiveness.  God has already paid your debt, He has already unlocked the door to your prison, all you have to do it walk out the door and live in that freedom.  Can you do that today?  Can you finally walk out of your prison and accept God’s forgiveness?

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we ask you to help us accept your forgiveness.  We are tired of living in our own prisons Lord, show us the way out.  Change our hearts and our minds so we can accept that you love us so much you sent your only son to die for our sins, even while we were still sinning.  Help us to walk in that freedom you bought for us.  Help us to forgive others as well.  You are the best 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 bringing you a witness tomorrow.  I would like to encourage each and every one of you listening to do a witness for Witness Wednesday.  I know you may be thinking that nothing miraculous has happened in your life and that may be true and yet I think if you really examine you life you will see ways that God worked all things for your good.  You might also see when you were in a really difficult situation and God gave you the strength to get through it.  You also could just tell your story.  We all have a story and even though it may not seem that spectacular to us, we never know what telling our story could mean to someone else.  We don’t know how what we say could change another persons life.  Please pray about it and considering sharing a witness with me and everyone listening. CLICK HERE to contact me. Also, you could go to walkboldlywithjesus.com and go to the contact me part of the website.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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We Are Protected

Psalm 18:32 “God gives me strength for the battle. He keeps my way secure.”


This verse came to me from a challenge that we received in Big Life mentoring this past week.  Pamela Crim gave us a list of 14 Bible verses that tell us who God says we are.  Our job was to read one verse each day and to pray with it.  Read it out loud and really think about what it says.  She encouraged us to go online to look up the verse in many different translations.  Have you done that before?  Have you taken a verse and then checked the other translations to see what words they use?  I do this often and I am always surprised with the words the various translations use.  I know they are all saying the same thing and yet some just hit me more than others.  If you haven’t tried this before, or you haven’t done it often, might I suggest you give it a try?  I think you will find you like reading the various translations.  The website I use to do this is Biblegateway.com.  However, there are several different ones you could use.

Today’s verse tells us that we are protected. It begins with the sentence, “God gives me strength for the battle.” This is important to know as God does give us strength for our battles.  Sometimes we look at the fight we have ahead of us and we are sure that we don’t have the strength to fight it.  We might be looking at a really long custody battle, divorce proceedings, a long medical journey, whatever it may be and we know we aren’t strong enough for it.  Have you ever felt like this, like the road ahead is too hard, too long, too steep, too painful and that you just don’t have the strength for it?  I get it, life is hard.  I know so many who are struggling right now.  So many who have way more to handle than any one person ever should.  

The important thing to keep in mind is that we are not in this alone.  You are probably right, your situation is more than you can handle on your own, which is why you are lucky that you are not on your own.  You have your heavenly Father who is providing you with the strength you need each day.  I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like He is giving you enough strength.  Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you have enough to keep fighting and yet with each new day comes a renewed strength.  He is constantly filling you up so that you can fight your battles.  You might not feel as if you are full of strength and yet you do keep going, you do keep fighting so you can see He is giving you strength.

He keeps my way secure. I think this means that God always makes sure there is a way.  God is a way maker and so we don’t have to worry about coming to a point where we are stuck at a dead end where there is no way out.  I know it feels like we get to this point sometimes.  I know we can reach a point where we can’t see a way out.  The way out is not always one that we can see or that we can understand.  God can make a way where there isn’t one.  This can happen in several different ways.  

I read about a person who was getting sued because he did not read the contract carefully and he was going to lose everything.  He knew he didn’t really have a leg to stand on as he did sign the contract and yet he prayed for God to intervene anyway.  The lawsuit just went away.  It was like it never happened and he never heard anything more about it.  There have been people who have been told they or their family member was going to die. They had some illness, like cancer, and there was nothing else the doctors could do for them.  Their family members prayed anyway and God healed them.  He took away their illness completely.  That is a way forward that we didn’t see ahead of time and we might not have even believed it before seeing it.  

I have heard many stories of people who were stuck in a situation and couldn’t see any way out of it.  There have been numerous times when my parents were in situations where they couldn’t see a way out and yet they trusted that God had one and he never let them down.  One of these is when they were asked to watch a friend’s 10 children on top of their own 11 children.  They new it was important to this friend and so they said yes.  However, they didn’t really have any food to feed their own children, let alone 10 others.  They didn’t let this stop them from saying yes.  They new that even though they couldn’t see a way that the Lord would provide a way because He always does.  

My parents prayed for an answer to this problem they had and before they were even done praying there was a knock at the door.  One of their neighbors was at the door asking if my parents could use some food.  You see their father had just moved in with them unexpectedly and they didn’t have enough room in the cupboards for all his food as he had just gone grocery shopping before realizing he would need to move in with them.  My parents gratefully accepted.  They noticed that there was pasta and sauce in the bags.  They were talking about how they could have spaghetti if they only had some ground meat.  The next thing they know there is a knock at the door and it is a different neighbor.  This neighbor was asking if my parents could use some meat?  You see this guy had just gone hunting with a friend and they filled their fridges and freezers and still had some meet left over that they just didn’t have the room to store.  Guess what was among this meat they were given?  Yep, you guessed it, ground meat.  They now had plenty of food to feed not only their kids, but the 10 they were babysitting as well.

This is not something they could have seen coming.  The path was not neatly laid out in front of them.  They said yes to watching the kids even though they didn’t know how they would feed them.  I think God likes it when we do this.  I think He likes it when we step out in faith knowing that He keeps His promises.  I don’t know if my parents knew this specific verse or not and yet I do know they trusted God to protect them and to show them the way out of their situation.  You can do the same.  You can trust that God is protecting you.  He is giving you strength for the battle and keeping your way secure. That is a promise you can stand on.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to know we are protected by you.  Help us to feel that protection.  Help us lean into you and not to worry about what might happen.  Lord, help us to trust that you have secured our way.  Help us to step out in faith knowing you will provide a way even if it is one we can’t see ahead of time.  Help us to trust you Lord.  We love you, you are amazing!  You have always come through for us in the past and we know you always will.  We are so grateful 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 Bodly With Jesus.  I look forward to meeting you hear again tomorrow.  Just a reminder if you want to be receiving my newsletter you can sign up on my website walkboldlywithjesus.com. (Click Here) Remember Jesus loves you and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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