Walk Boldly With Jesus

The Formula For Peace

Philippians 4:4-7 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Last Monday session 2 of our class was all about peace.  The title of the session was The Power of Peace.  It was a really good class.  I learned a lot about peace and how important it is.  I learned that we can impart peace on others.  Did you know that?  Did you know that you can give peace to others? In Matthew 10:7-13 Jesus sent the 12 disciples out to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God and also to heal people, cast out demons and more.  In Matthew 10:13 Jesus says, “ If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.”  The disciples were instructed to impart their peace, or the peace Jesus gave them, on the houses that they visited.

Deacon Joe, one of our teachers, talked about how he and his wife had a priest stay with them once.  He was coming into town for a conference or something and so they had him stay at their house.  Deacon Joe said from the moment the priest walked into their house they could feel a peace that wasn’t there before.  This peace that the priest brought with him stayed in their house long after he had left.  Have you every felt this sort of peace in your house before?  Have you ever had someone over to your house and when they were there you just felt more peaceful?  The reverse can also be true unfortunately.  Have you ever had someone over to your house, or even just been around someone and you felt less peaceful?  Have you ever spent time with someone and afterwards you notice you have less peace, you are more agitated, or more restless? I have definitely had the second one happen.  I have interacted with people who have been negative and then I feel negative. I am not a fan of that.

I do find it intriguing that we can impart peace to others.  Peace is something that can feel elusive sometimes.  Peace is something we all seem to strive for and yet not too many find.  Or at least that is how it seems.  I know a lot of people who are anxious.  I know a lot of people who are angry.  I know a lot of people who are anxious and angry.  I do not know a lot of people who are peaceful.  There is so much going on in the world and it is easy to see why people worry a lot.  It is easy to see why people are anxious and even why they are angry.  The world can often be an unkind and scary place.  Because of this we might start to feel as if having peace in our lives is a fairytale. We might think it is unattainable and just something people talk about but never really achieve.  Have you ever felt like that?  Honestly, have you?  Its ok if you have, I totally get it! There is so much going on right now in the world and it’s totally normally to not be at peace, or to not have peace.

I want to let you in on a well kept secret, you can have peace, even in the middle of chaos.  It’s true, you really can.  For instance, when I was struggling with my son being in rehab, things were very chaotic.  I did not know what was going to happen from day to day. I had to drive into Boston a lot.  I had a lot of appointments with various people.  Yet, through all of this, I had peace.  Not necessarily peace with the situation, but an overall peace that God was taking care of everything.  I knew this was not the end, that God had so much more planned for our son.  I had a peace that whatever was going to happen, it would be used for his good.  That doesn’t mean every single minute I felt at peace.  I definitely had days when I wanted to be through this storm.  I definitely had days when I was tired of the struggle, tired of it all.  It wasn’t smooth sailing the whole time and yet there was always this sense of peace, this sense of, “God’s got this.”

It is hard to explain, but it is possible, I assure you.  You don’t have to take my assurance though, because God tells us it is possible in the verse above, and He even gives us a formula, which is really cool because sometimes we are given a parable and we need to work out what it means.  However, in this verse the formula for peace is spelled out nice and simply for us.  Let’s take a look at the verse above.  It begins with, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone.”  Rejoicing in the Lord is always a good thing.  It is possible to rejoice in the Lord, even when you are in a tough situation.  You don’t have to rejoice for that situation, you can always rejoice for something else, like the sunrise, the nice breakfast you had, or even the fact that you woke up to a brand new day of life.  Whatever you want to rejoice for is up to you, but this verse is a great reminder to us to rejoice in the Lord.  It is also a good reminder to let our gentleness be known to everyone.  This part of the verse is telling us to be nice to everyone.

Right after that part is when we get to the formula for peace.  It says, “The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The first part of the formula is to know that the Lord is near so you don’t have to worry about anything.  I know, this is easier said than done.  However I think the rest of the formula makes it a bit easier.  The next parts says, “in everything by prayer and supplications with thanksgiving let you requests be known to God.”  Let’s break that down. We all know what pray means.  I think we are probably pretty good with the prayer part, especially if we are struggling.  Many people, even people who are not Christian, pray when they are struggling.  

Next is says supplications, this is a word I had to look up.  It means to plead humbly.  So God wants us to not only come to Him for help, but to plead to Him humbly.  If you are not sure what that means, in my eyes that means, to come to the Lord in prayer and ask Him/ plead with Him to help you through the situation knowing full well that you can do nothing without Him and all things through Him.  I get stuck on how to be humble sometimes, but I think it can be as simple as realizing we need God for everything.  We can’t do anything without Him.  

The last part of the formula might be the hardest part.  Asking God for help can be hard, but it isn’t always.   However, thanking God when you are in the middle of a storm can be extremely hard.  We often do not feel we have any reasons to thank God. Sometimes we are even angry at God for letting this situation happen to us.  We may blame God for our circumstances.  He understands this and doesn’t blame us for this.  And yet, He is calling us to ask Him for help, turn the situation over to Him, and to do this all with thanksgiving.  This isn’t an easy thing to do, but it is worth the cost.

What does God promise us if we can “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God?”  He promises us that, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Could you be thankful in the hard times if you knew that you would receive the peace of God?  I think it says, “Which surpasses all understanding, because it doesn’t make sense to have peace when there is chaos all around you.  It didn’t make sense for me to have peace when my son was in rehab.  Many people told me the knew I was more stressed and that I was just hiding it.  They could not understand that I was at peace with it.  Not because I accepted it and stopped fighting for our son.  I was at peace because I knew God was in control and that He would use this for our son’s good.  It surpasses all understanding because the world wants us to stay angry, worried and anxious.  The world doesn’t want us to have peace in the middle of a storm.  What do you want?

Do you want more peace in your life?  Do you want to stop worrying about everything all the time?  Do you want to be less anxious?  Do you want to have the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding to guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  What I love about this is that it is not telling us we have to guard our hearts and minds.  It does say that several places in the Bible, however, this verse is telling us if we bring all things to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, then the peace of God will protect our minds.  How amazing would that be?  If you want to feel more peace in your life, check out this formula, try to apply it to you life and see how much more peace you can have.  God did not create us to be anxious and worried.  Give peace a try, I know you won’t be disappointed.

Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who are listening to the episode today.  Lord, you are amazing and we thank you for giving us a formula for peace.  We just ask you to help us put it into action Lord.  Please show each one of us how we can put this formula into action in our lives.  Please have the Holy Spirit reveal to us where we could be doing this more or what step we are getting stuck on.  Lord, show us where we can be thankful in our current situation.  Lord, I know so many are hurting right now, I ask you to be with them and to comfort them. I ask you to show them how to implement this formula in their lives so they don't have to be so anxious and worried.  You are so awesome and you are offering us the peace of God to guard our hearts and minds, we accept Lord, please come into our lives and guard our hearts and minds with your peace.  Please wrap us up in your peace like a giant blanket that nothing can penetrate.  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 wanted to let you know about this new audio training I created.  It is about how to invite Jesus into your everyday.  Often times we want to pray, we want to spend time with Jesus, and yet we just aren’t finding the time to do so.  In this audio training I will teach you to invite Jesus into 3 of the most common tasks we do each day.  If you want to hear this audio training all you need to do is go to my website walkboldlywithjesus.com or you can click on the link below.  It will take you to a page where you can put in your name and email and the audio training will be delivered right to your inbox.  I hope you enjoy it.  Feel free to reach out to me and let me know what you think of it.  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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It Is Through Christ That We Defeat Our Enemies

Psalm 44:5-6 “Through you we push down our foes; through your name we tread down our assailants. For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me.”

This is something we can tend to forget.  We pray for God to help us out of our situations.  We pray for God to save us from our foes.  Then when we get away from them, we tend to forget it was God who saved us.  This verse says, “Through you we push down our foes; through your name we tread down our assailants.”  We do these things through God.  Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  It is through God that we can do the hard things.  It is not by our own power or strength.  It is not through our ability or our determination.  We have none of that without the Lord.  It’s like we know this, but then we it’s most important, we forget.  

When we are facing really difficult times that is often when we forget that we can do all things through Christ.  We forget if God is for us, who could be against us.  We take our eyes off Jesus and we forget that He is the answer.  He is our strength.  It’s easy to take our eyes off Jesus. This world is so distracting.  This world is so full of noise.  Anytime we want to focus on Jesus, our phone rings, or a notification goes off telling us we have a text message, we have a facebook message, or some other thing that can distract us. If we want to keep our eyes focused on Jesus we need to be very intentional.  In the mornings I wake up early just to spend time with God.  And most morning, aside from writing these podcast episodes we don’t get to spend a lot of time together.  I will sit down with my prayer journal and then my dog Aimee will let me know she is ready to go downstairs to eat and go outside.  Then I make my lemon water and Tony’s coffee and sometimes empty the dishwasher.  Then it is time to write the podcast episode if I haven’t already.  

Do you see how distractions can take our focus off the Lord?   What I started to do at the beginning of this year is I added saying the rosary to my morning routine and I do it when I am feeding the dog, doing the dishes, and making Tony’s coffee.  I have an awesome app that says the rosary and a really great explanation of each mystery.  I do not have my rosary beads in my hands but I do say the prayers with the app.  It is not perfect as I am not always paying the best attention, but it is getting me in the habit of saying the rosary every day and I can slowly get better at meditating more on the mysteries, the more I say them.  This was one intentional way for me to reclaim the prayer time that distractions took away from me.  

Sometimes our distractions are phones and computers and things that we can figure out how to ignore during our prayer time.  Sometimes are distractions are things we can’t ignore.  I can’t really ignore my dog if she needs to go outside.  I can’t really ignore the fact that I have to wake kids up for school or dive kids to work.  However, I can use that time to spend with the Lord, even while I am doing other things.  One thing the Lord has been really trying to get me to see, and I seem to be a very slow learner, is that prayer time doesn’t have to be perfect.  There are many ways to spend time with God and they can still be considered prayer time.  

We are much harder on ourselves than God is on us.  We have a picture of him sitting up in heaven on his beautiful throne and we think He is looking down from heaven upon us and shaking His head because we aren’t spending enough time with Him.  Or we think He is judging us because we didn’t say this prayer right, or we fell asleep during that prayer time.  What God has been trying to show me over the last couple years is that is not at all what He is doing.  God is up in heaven smiling down upon us.  He loves us so incredibly.  Anytime we fit any prayer in, He is smiling.  He is not up there saying, “Why was that only 5 minutes, when you know you have time for 10.”  He is up there saying, “Thank you my son or Thank you my daughter for spending your precious time with me.”  This doesn’t mean He doesn’t want to spend more time with us, it doesn’t mean He doesn’t want us to keep trying to spend time alone with Him.  However, it does mean He is not judging us for it.  If He is not judging us, why are we judging ourselves?  Be graceful with yourself.  Setting up a prayer time can be difficult.  Keep trying.  

The last part of the verse says, “For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me.” I know I already briefly touched on this but I wanted to stress the importance of these words.  We tend to want to save ourselves.  We ask God for help but then rely on our own strength, our own power.  We make all the calls, we do all the things, we proceed with whatever we think the next right step is and go full steam ahead.  Taking the next right step is not a bad thing.  It is something I often suggest when people don’t know what to do.  However, we sometimes skip a very important step before we take that next right step.  We often forget to stop and ask God what he wants us to do.  We ask Him for help and then don’t stop to listen to how he wants to help.  What if we changed this? What if we stopped and took a moment to ask God how He wants to save us from our current situation?  What if we stopped and asked God where to go from here?  

I can just imagine all the plans God has made for us to get us out of a situation and then we mess them up because we decide to act without consulting Him first.  I just refer back to this verse.  “For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me.”  We can’t do it on our own.  We can’t defend ourselves on our own.  We can protect our loved ones on our own.  And the amazing thing is, we don’t have to!  God is there for us.  He is our protector and our shield.  He is our refuge.  We can do all things through HIm who strengthens us.  We just need to ask, and then wait to listen to HIs reply.  Waiting is the hard part, but I know you can do it.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask for you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord we love you and we want to walk with you.  We want to rely on you, we just need your help.  We are sorry we ask for your help and then we don’t listen for how you want to help.  Please help us to trust you more and to listen more.  Help us to rely on you and not forget that it is through you that we are able to defeat our enemies.  Help us remember that through you we can do all things.  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 meeting your here again on Monday.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I.  Have a blessed weekend!

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Don’t Worry, I Will Explain It

1 John 3:8 “Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

I read this verse and thought, “Nope, I don’t want to go there.”  Actually, I read this verse and then read the next two verses after it.  1 John 3:8-10 says, “Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.  Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.” Ok, after hearing all that do you see why I didn’t want to touch this verse?  

First of all, I didn’t really understand it.  If I sin I am a child of the devil?  What does that even mean?  We all sin, don’t we?  Then it says Those born of God do not sin.  But wait, I am born of God and yet I do sin?  It is definitely confusing and not something I felt qualified to talk about. Secondly, I didn’t want someone to hear this verse , or read it in the transcript and then think they weren’t a child of God because they sin.  Because let's all be honest, we all sin.  So, I was happy to skip this one and go on to find another verse.  I felt the Holy Spirit stop me and ask, what does this verse mean?  What if someone already read it and didn’t stop to ask what it means?  What if someone is walking around thinking they are no longer my child just because they sin?

I am always humbled when the Holy Spirit reminds me of the purpose for this podcast.  It is not to talk about all the things I understand.  It is not to talk about things I really love talking about.  It is to help myself and you, all those listening, to understand scripture a little better.  My purpose is to help you walk a boldy with Jesus one verse at a time.  The only way to do this is to take difficult scriptures, ones I don’t understand and figure them out, examine them, research them, and then share that with you.  I may not alway get it right, but I do try my best and I ask the Holy Spirit to take care of the rest.  

I am sure I will keep needing to be reminded to stop and examine a verse if I don’t understand it because the enemy loves to try and stop me by telling me I am not qualified to talk about the scripture.  He tells me I don’t know what I am doing and so I can’t help others.  Do you see how he takes a kernel of truth and twists it?  He is right, I am not qualified and I don’t always know what the scriptures mean.  However, the way he twists it is because I am not sharing just my thoughts on it. I am researching and looking to those that do know the answers.  I am taking the time to explore the meaning and then sharing what I learned from those that are qualified so that you don’t have to take that time.   If something I say is confusing, or you still don’t understand the verse, I urge you to reach out and let me know.  I would be happy to explore it in more detail with you.  Or you can explore it on your own as well.  I just type “What is the meaning of 1 John 3:8” or whatever verse I am looking at in the search bar on the internet and usually a list of articles come up.  Whatever it is in the Bible we are trying to understand, there are probably plenty of other people that have come before us that have asked the same question.  Look for the answers they found.  I will put the links to two of the articles I read in the show notes in case you want to read the full articles.

Now that I explained all that, what did I discover?  What does this confusing verse mean?  From what I found, I understand it to mean that when we are sinning we are a child of Satan, meaning he is influencing those behaviors.  When we are following God’s ways, God is influencing those behaviors.  I feel the Holy Spirit just gave me an analogy that made me smile.  It is one that if you have kids you have probably said it and even if you don’t you probably heard your parents say it.  When our kids are not behaving I tell Tony they are his kids and when they are behaving I say they are my kids.  Of course they are all both of our kids all the time.  However, when I say that I am implying that his DNA is what is influencing the kids misbehavior and my DNA is influencing their good behavior.  It made me smile when this thought came to me because I could just picture God up in heaven shaking his head, looking at Satan and saying, nope, they are your kids today.  I know He doesn’t do this, but it made me smile remember all the times, Tony and I went back and forth, nope, these are your kids.  

One thing everything I read agreed on is that this verse is not determining your salvation.  This verse is not saying because you sin you are a child of Satan and you are going to Hell.  That is not the case.  It is not saying if you want to go to heaven you can’t sin.  It is not talking about your salvation in any way.  We are all born with a sinful nature.  Ever since sin enter the world, it has plagued us.  Sin entered the world because of Satan.  He brought it here and when we sin it is because of His influence.  It is because we are allowing his influence to shape our behaviors.  We are cooperating with him.  However, the ending of this verse says, “The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”  This means that although we were born with original sin and a sinful nature, Jesus was sent to destroy that.  If you have been baptized you are received the Holy Spirit living inside of you. Even though we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us we also have Satan trying to influence our behaviors, trying to get us to go against what God says.  One example I found in one of the articles talked about Matthew 16:23 when Jesus said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!” He was revealing the source of Peter's rebuke of Christ by which Peter demonstrated that he was representing Satan's purpose, not God’s.

I pray this explanations clears up some of the confusion surrounding this verse.  The verse is not saying you will go to hell if you sin.  It is not saying you belong to Satan if you sin.  It is saying that while you are sinning you are under the influence of Satan.  It is a good reminder as sometimes we can write off little sins.  We can say, that wasn’t so bad.  We can question, is that really a sin, does it really matter.  I think when we read this verse, it can speak to those situations.  If you are sinning you are cooperating with the enemy.  Does it matter if it is a little cooperation or a lot of cooperation, let me ask you this question.  If one of your loved ones was being influenced by someone who was sent here to steal, kill and destroy, would it matter to you that they were only being influenced a little?  God cares deeply about even our smallest decisions.  Instead of being offended by this verse, let’s take it as a warning to try harder not to be influenced by the devil.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who are listening to this episode today.  Lord we want to follow your ways, please help us.  We want to only be influenced by you.  Please help shield us from the influence of the enemy.  Please help us put on your armor Lord.  Lord, I ask you to help each one of us understand what this verse is saying and I ask that if we don’t understand it you will inspire us to go deeper.  Lord, we want to understand your Word.  We thank you for your word and thank you for giving it to us.  You are truly remarkable.  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 meeting you here again tomorrow.  I just want to remind all of you, if you haven’t gotten a chance to check out my book yet, I invite you to do so.  Or if you have checked it out I invite you to leave a review on Amazon or suggest it to a friend.  If you didn’t know I wrote a book, you can find it on Amazon.  It is called Total Trust, in God’s Safe Embrace. Thank you for all of you that have already purchased it I truly appreciate it!  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

Q. Does 1 John 3:9 Teach that Christians Must Be Sinless?

Can a Christian Be of the Devil? - 1 John 3:8, 10 (GraceNotes - no. 60) by Dr. Charlie Bing

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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!

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God Sees You!

Psalm 139:13-14 "For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

When I was reading this verse I got to the part where it says, “Wonderful are your works; that I know very well,” and the thought came to me, do we know this?  We know some of God’s works are wonderful, but do we know all of His works are wonderful.  I am sure there isn’t really a dispute over whether a sunset or a sunrise is wonderful.  I think most things in nature are pretty wonderful.  I mean, not necessarily tornados or hurricanes, but mostly nature is wonderful.  However, what about ourselves?  Do we see how wonderfully made we are?  The beginning of this verse says that it was God who formed our inward parts and who knit us together in our mother’s womb. God made each one of us intentionally.  He knit us together.  

Let’s think about that for a moment.  Have you ever seen someone knit something?  They need to be paying attention to what they are doing so what they are making turns out the way they want it to.  They need to be very specific in their pattern if they want it to come out looking like the idea they had.  They need to think ahead and make sure they have all the various color threads need.  They need to make sure they have all the supplies to make this thing they are making.  This verse says God knit us together in our mother’s womb.  I like that description because it depicts the care God took to create us.  He thought about every little detail before he created us.  He intentionally made you the way you are.  He thinks you are perfect just as you are.  

I was at a conference in January of 2020 and the main speaker talked about how she had been hosting these events for several years now.  She said she will never forget the first time she asked her audience, “How many of you hate your body?”  There was context, she was doing an activity called Stand Up For Your Sister, but anyway, she asked the question and over 90% of the women in the room stood up.  Ninety percent, can you believe that.  She didn’t ask if you just don’t like some aspect of your body, she didn’t ask if there was something you would like to change, she didn’t ask if you were unhappy with your body, she asked if you hate your body.  Hate is a very strong word, and yet ninety percent of all the ladies in the room stood up.  It seems as if we don’t know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  It seems as though we struggle with this idea.  

Why do you think we struggle so much with accepting that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and that we are not an accident?  Why is it we can see the beauty in others, we can see the beauty in all of God’s creation pretty much, except the beauty of His creation in us?  Could it be the society that we live in or the environment we grew up in?  Definitely!  If we grew up thinking we were not enough, that is going to carry into our teen years and into our adult life.  Also, society has a very particular way they feel everyone should look and act.  There are impossible standards out there and we all feel we need to live up to them.  We feel no matter what we are doing, we are doing the wrong thing.  If we are a stay at home mom, society makes us feel like we are not contributing.  If we are a working mom, society makes us feel as though we are neglecting out children.  If we are a dad that works 60 hours a week so we can put food on the table we are a workaholic, but if we work 40 hours and can’t afford to put food on the table then we are not providing for our family.  Do you see how there is not way to win when we try to gain earthly approval.  You will never be able to be liked by everyone.  I heard Matthew Kelly point out one time, even Winnie the Pooh has people who don’t like him.  

There is one place where you are always accepted, you are always loved and cherished, in the eyes of your heavenly Father, your Creator.  God made you and when you are saying you don’t like things about you, you are saying you don’t like God’s creation.  God does not make mistakes.  He knew what He was doing when He created you.  He did it with intention and purpose.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made.  You were made for a reason.  You are perfect just as you are.  You don’t have to change a single thing about you for God to love you.  He loves you just as you are, just as He made you.  

I was typing up the the minutes from a prayer group meeting we had a few months ago and I came across a word of prophecy that I think the Lord wants me to share it with all of you.  I will end with His words, because who could say it better than God?  This is what He said, “My children, I, your father ask you to come and stand by my shoulder. I ask you to look through my eyes at yourself. See yourself naked and bare before me. See through my eyes. Let go of your shame, I see no shame in you. I have created you. I see you beautiful. I see you from your conception for all eternity in the radiance that I have made you. In the design that I have created you. In the perfection I bestow upon you. I pour my gifts upon you.  I ask you to love yourself, I ask you to forgive yourself. I ask you to see what I have given you. What I continue to give you. What I have prepared for you. You are wonderful in my eyes. I create nothing that is unworthy. You are worthy. You are worthy to drink from the chalice of my son's blood to eat of his body. You are worthy to be temples of the Holy Spirit, you are worthy to dwell with me in the place that I have prepared for you. Come to me. Come to me with joy. Drop everything that is not of love, of joy, of peace. I will never stop blessing you.”

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord I ask that you open our eyes and help us to see ourselves through your eyes.  Help us to see the wonder and the beauty that you created us to be.  Help us to not judge ourselves or others.  Help us to not hate ourselves or others.  Help us to love ourselves as you love us Lord!  Help us start to change not only the way we look at ourselves but the way we look at others as well.  Help us to see others through your eyes as well Lord.  We love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ powerful name, Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk Boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to brining you another witness tomorrow.  I think it will actually be a couple different people’s testimonies from my Encounter class.  I know you will love them.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

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Give And It Will Be Given To You

Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

I think this is a great verse and I think it is something to remember.  I remember when I was young and I saw my mom writing out checks for the offertory at church I thought she was not giving enough.  Now, remember I said I was young.  I would see her write a check for $5.00 or for $15.00, sometimes even $20.00 and I thought that wasn’t really a lot of money.  Now when I look back  I can see that was actually a lot that she was putting into the basket.  My parents had 11 children.  I only have 3 boys, who happen to be teenagers right now, and our grocery bill is so expensive, I can only imagine what it was with 11 children.  We lived in a big house because we had so many children and it was expensive to heat it and keep the lights on.  

When I hear the story in Mark 21:41-44 I always think of that day in church when I thought my mom wasn’t giving enough.  Mark 21:41-44 says, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts.  But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

My dad had a great job working with the state and my mom stayed home to take care of us kids.  Although there were a few times she did try to work outside the home also.  For instance, she tried to take a third shift job at Frito Lay so she could work while we were sleeping and then my dad would pick her up on his way to work.  Can you imagine that?  My mom took care of us all day and then worked at night.  The only reason she quit is because they had mandatory overtime.  If you shift was over and they needed you to stay, then you had to  stay.  This wouldn’t work for my mom as my dad needed to get to work and us kids needed to get to school.  I honestly am not sure when this was, so I am not sure how many of us still lived at home.  I would say at least the 5 youngest.  

Today, it is tough to make ends meet with a two income household.  I honestly don’t know how they did it with one income.  Actually, I do know how they did, with a lot of prayer.  Every time they realized they needed something and they didn’t have enough money for it, they would pray and ask God how He wanted them to handle the situation.  And God always showed up for them in a big way.  They were obedient in putting money into the basket each week, even if it meant they didn’t have enough money for other things.  I was about to say, they didn’t worry, but I don’t think that is true.  I think they did worry, and yet they also trusted that God would provide, and you know what, He always did!

I am sure I have told this story before but in case you haven’t heard it, my parents’ friend asked them to watch their 10 kids because they had something important they had to do together.  My parents didn’t even hesitate, they just said yes.  However, they were already worried because they didn’t know what they were going to feed their own children and now we added 10 more to the mix.  My parents prayed together and asked God to let them know what they should do.  They told God if they just had some spaghetti or something they could feed a lot of people.  No sooner had they finished their prayer when there was a knock at the door.  Their neighbor had a bunch of extra food because his father had to move in suddenly and his dad had just gone grocery shopping before the move and his neighbor had just gone grocery shopping as well.  They had no where to put this extra food.  

My parents graciously accepted and when putting the food away the realized that there was plenty of spaghetti and sauce to go around.  My parents praised God and thanked him for the wonderful surprise food that showed up.  They were talking and happened to say, if we only had some ground meat for the spaghetti it would be perfect.  I don’t think they even prayed for this, I think they were just talking to each other.  However, no sooner did that statement leave their lips then there was a knock on the door.  A different neighbor had gone out hunting and had brought home a lot of meat.  They filled their freezer and fridge with meat and yet they still had meat left over.  They wanted to know if my parents wanted it.  Again, my parents graciously accepted and they realized they had the ground meat they were looking for.  It was so amazing.  The Lord really is so so good!

I think relying on God is something that seems foolish to a lot of people today.  I remember when Tony and I were talking with neighbors one time we were discussing the idea of how much we give to the church and how much we give to the giving campaign that the military has.  I forget what it is called, but they did it every year.  Everyone was expected to give something.  I remember we were discussing how much we each thought was reasonable and I explained how much my mom gave, even though most months it was hard to even pay the bills.  They thought it was crazy, or bad financial management to give more than you really can afford to give.  I whole heartedly disagree with this.  My parents were being obedient to the church and trying to give as much as they can.  Some weeks were more than other weeks, but they did what they could.  

If you ask me there was no better way for them to spend that money.  Remember what the verse above said?  “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  My parents gave and it was definitely given back to them.  I have heard the saying, God will not be outdone in generosity.  Whatever you give to God will be returned plus more.  God did not give my parents pack the exact amount they gave in church, he gave them more.  Although they didn’t have a lot of money, they never went without the essentials.  God always sent people to help them when they needed it.  Some days we would go outside and there would be a box of random things on our porch, like clothes, food, toys, etc.  My parents did their best to give God all they had and He repayed them by providing for their needs.  

Are you giving all you can to church or other charities?  Are you being gracious and forgiving towards others?  Are you giving them the patience they require?  The verse above says, “Give and it will be given to you.” Are you doing this?  Are you giving?  If you want God to give to you, you must give to others as well.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this podcast today.  Lord, we ask you to open our hearts and to soften them to the idea of asking you how much we should give.  We ask you to soften our hearts to the idea of not just giving out of the abundance but giving even if it stretches us a bit.  More importantly than the giving, help us rely on you better.  Help us to trust that you will provide for us, that we don’t have to do everything ourselves.  Lord, we thank you for this.  We thank you for always providing for us.  We love you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ powerful name, Amen!

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

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The Beauty of God’s Laws

Psalm 119:18 "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.”

I heard this verse yesterday at prayer group and I thought it was interesting.  I liked it because sometimes we can’t understand why God has certain laws.  Especially if they are laws that go against what society says is the right thing to do.  We live in a world that justifies things as ok, just because so many people are doing them.  My son told me yesterday that 2.55 million middle schooler and high schoolers vape.  He said 14% of high schoolers vape.  Basically he was trying to tell me that it is normal and not a big deal.  I know he is a teenager and this is how teenagers think.  I remember his brother telling me that every kid vapes.  I am sure it felt that way to him.  Although, if you think about it, even though 14% is way to high of a percentage of our teens to be vaping, that still leaves 86% that are not.  So the fact that they think “everyone” is vaping is not quite true.  Although whether it is actually true or not does not change their perception.

Teenagers do this a lot.  If there friends are dong it, then it seems like “everyone” is doing it because everyone they hang around with is doing it.  Also, I am sure they see people vaping in class or in the bathroom.  You wouldn’t think kids could vape in class as you wouldn’t see someone lighting up a  cigarette in the middle of class.  However, with how easy vapes are too conceal and with fruity flavors, there is little smell and also very little smoke.  It’s not just vaping either.  One of my other sons talks trash to his friends while playing video games.  I hear him say the rudest things and when I ask him about it he says they are all saying the same kind of stuff.  Another one of my sons says he types insults back and forth with his friend.  It is strange to me as I don’t understand why.  They say it is “normal” and that is just what kids do.

So far I have been talking about teens and we all know teens say, “everyone is doing it.”  This is typical for a teen, I am sure I am not telling you anything you don’t know.  However, are their things in your life that you do and you aren’t sure why you do them?  Or things you know that you do because everyone else does them. Or maybe that isn’t why you do them, but that is the justification for doing them.  Have you ever done something that was wrong and then tried to think of someone else you knew that did the same thing so you could justify it to yourself?  I know I did this when I was watching Game of Thrones with Tony.  It was a good show and I really liked the story line and yet there was way to much sex in this show.  I knew while I was watching it that God did not approve.  I justified it thinking about all the Catholic people I knew that had watched it.  I justified it by thinking about all the people around the world that watched it.  An average episode had 32.7 million viewers.  How could something so many people were doing, be wrong?  

I ask how it could be wrong and yet I knew in my soul it was wrong.  Does that ever happen to you?  You are doing something you know you shouldn’t do and you just feel something deep inside telling you not to do it.  This is why I like this verse.  The verse says, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.”  God’s laws are not meant to be a punishment.  They are meant to be guardrails for us.  They are meant to help keep us on the road to heaven because God loves us and wants to spend eternity with us.  God’s laws are meant to keep us from eternal suffering.  Which one of us wants eternal suffering?  Any takers?  No, I didn’t think so.  This verse is asking God to show is the wonderful things in His law.  It is asking Him to show us the beauty of it.

Things are easier to do if we know the why. If we can understand why we are being asked to do what we are being asked to do we are more likely to do it.  For instance, do you remember when your parents said, “Because I said so.” or maybe you remember when you said that same phrase to your children?  How did that work out for you with your kids?  How did it work out for your parents with you?  In my experience it does not work out as well as when I explain what I need the kids to do.  They want to understand there is a purpose to what I am asking them to do.  

Sometimes we don’t understand why God is asking us to do things.  There are reasons and I am pretty sure there is an explanation for everything God has asked us to do.  I know at least in the Catholic Church, we have a book called the Catholicism of the Catholic Church.  This explains why we believe all we believe.  However, not all of us have read that.  I know I haven’t.  Although now I am listening to a little bit of it each day as Father Mike reads it to me on his podcast and then explains what he just read.  It is a great way to learn more about why we have the rules we have and believe the things we believe.  I know for me, the more I learn about the why, the more I want to follow God’s laws.  The more I learn about them the more I realize God didn’t give us these laws for His benefit.  They are not arbitrary and they are not just meant to make our lives harder.  Each one has a purpose and all of them together are mean to keep us in relationship with God.  

Have you ever gone bowling with kids and you put the bumpers up so they can’t get a gutter ball?  If you don’t know what I am talking about, bowling alleys have these rails that come up and cover the bumpers.  What would happen if you didn’t put the bumpers up?  In my experience, every time the kids throws the ball, it goes into the gutter.  This makes the game very frustrating for them as they can’t seem to make any progress.  They don’t have any fun because they don’t get to knock down any pins.  I feel like God is saying life without His laws would be the same.  If everyone was just doing whatever they wanted without following any laws, we would be very frustrated and we wouldn’t get anywhere.  God’s laws point us in the right direction and help us stay on track.  They are there to help us enjoy life more, not to limit us and take away our fun.  

Although, our idea of what is fun could be tainted by the world we live in.  We see everyone doing things that seem fun and we want to do them even though we know we shouldn’t.  The time we spend on this world is so small compared to eternity in the next life.  The enemy wants us to focus on the here and now and not worry about the future.  We need to be thinking about the future.  We don’t need to obsess about it, but if we want to spend eternity with our heavenly Father, as He wants all of His children to do, then we do need to make good choices now.  Again, this is why I love this verse.  We are asking our father to show us the wonderful things in His law.  Basically we are asking Him to help us see His laws in a new light. Give us new eyes to see the laws, help us to see how great they are instead of looking at them like a burden.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode today.  Lord we love you so much and we want to spend eternity with you.  We thank you for your laws and we ask that you show us how wonderful they are.  Help us to see them through your eyes Lord.  Help us to see they are for our benefit and not for our punishment.  Help us to see they are to keep us safe and not to control us.  Help us to see they are from a loving Father.  Your laws were made with love and I can’t get enough of that.  Lord, you are so amazing. You have thought of everything and we are so grateful.  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 meeting you here again on Monday.  Remember Jesus loves you, and so do I!  Oh, also, happy St. Patrick’s Day if you are listening to this the day I recorded it.  This St. Patrick’s Day might be a bit different since it is a Friday during lent.  Corned Beef and Cabbage might not be possible today, but you can always have it another day.  Have a blessed weekend!

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Bury Your Old Do-It-Yourself Life

Romans 8:12-14 “So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!”

The translation I used this morning is the message translation.  I don’t usually use this translation, however, when I heard this verse with the translation yesterday on the Big Life Devotional Podcast by Pamela Crim, I knew it was the one I wanted to share with you.  I think the other versions are good to, I just think this one says it so plainly it is hard to miss the message.  The verse starts off by saying that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent.  I think this is hard for us to imagine.  Do you know what the verse is talking about when it says, “this old do-it-yourself life?”  I imagine it means all the things we try to do on our own, without inviting God into them.  

I remember when I was on a retreat one time I felt as if I heard God tell me, “You are looking every where else for answers but not to me.”  I was confused at first because of course I had asked God for help, of course I prayed about my situation.  But what he revealed to me is that yes, I asked Him for help, but then I proceeded to try and figure the solution out on my own.  I read every book I could on marriages or on parenting.  I asked everyone I knew and really listened to what they had to say.  I was really good at listening the my friends, the books, the professionals and implementing their advice.  However, I wasn’t taking the time to sit with God and listen to Him.  

I would talk at God, maybe to God, but not with God.  It wouldn’t be a back and forth conversation.  I would lay all my problems at His feet, ask Him how I could fix them, and then end prayer time without listening to how he wanted me to fix them.  Have you ever done this?  Have you ever talked at God? Have you ever laid all your problems at His feet and then picked them back up again and carried them into your day?  I think that is what this verse is talking about.  We don’t have to do everything ourselves.  God wants to help us.  He wants us to give Him our problems and then trust for Him to take care of them.  As I am writing that I am thinking, that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything.  I believe God likes it when we partner with Him.  I don’t think God was telling me not to read any parenting books.  What He was telling me was to spend time with Him every single morning.  I started journaling every morning.  I would wake up 30 minutes before I needed to be up with the kids and I would write to God.  I would tell Him all that was on my mind.  I would tell Him the things I read about and ask which things He thought I should try.  I didn’t really know too much how to listen to His voice, but just journaling and talking through things with Him was beyond helpful.  

I have since learned how to take time and listen to God and it has been amazing.  There are lots of ways you might here God talking, not actually hear his voice, but know what He is saying to you.  One of those ways is sitting still and just listening.  If you ask God to talk to you and then you are still and listen, the things that come to your mind could be from God.  His voice usually sounds a lot like your own voice as that is what if familiar to you.  For instance I asked God to help me figure out what I could do to help my son Ryan who is struggling right now.  I was quiet and listened and then the idea to have Ryan invite his friend to boxing with him so they can both work out their troubles on a punching bag instead of other unhealthy ways.  Was this definitely from God, who knows, but I asked God for a solution and one came to me so I definitely think the Holy Spirit gave me the idea.  

When you are listening for God’s voice, it will most likely not be a booming voice coming from the sky, like those movies that have a narrator.  God is usually much more subtle than that.  It is usually a thought that is put in your head.  You have to be purposefully listening or you might miss it.  Although having said that I can think of a few stories when God was trying to tell someone something and they didn’t want to hear it so they were not listening and He had three different people, strangers even, give them the message they needed to hear.  I believe God is longing for us to spend time listening to Him.  I believe He wants us to come to Him to listen each day.  However, if there is a message He needs you to hear, He will get your attention somehow.  

The next part of the verse says, “The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons.”  This is referring to your “do-it-yourself” attitude.  That is not serving you.  There is nothing in that for you.  Do you remember you life before Christ?  Maybe you didn’t have a life before Christ.  Maybe you have believed since birth.  Maybe your parents taught you about God your whole life.  When Catholics talk about this they usually say, “I am a cradle Catholic.”  When you hear this they mean they have been Catholic their whole life.  Even if this is you, do you remember a time before you really understood what it all meant?  Do you remember a time when you felt you were on your own and you had to do it all yourself?  Do you remember a time when you knew all about Jesus and yet you lived your life how you wanted to, instead of how He wanted you to?  

For some of us this is a specific day and time.  We know exactly when we turned our life over to Jesus and there was no turning back.  For others, it is more like a roller coaster.  We turn to Jesus, then we turn away, then we turn back, then we turn away.  What this verse is saying is that we need to say goodbye to our old life.  The one where we do it all ourselves.  The one where we are too busy for God.  The one where we feel alone and unloved.  The one where we do whatever we want to do.  In other translations it says the one where we live according to our flesh.  This means we listen to what our body wants us to do instead of what God wants us to do.  However, it is time to say goodbye to that old life, it is time to bury it and get on with our new life.

The next three words are awesome.  “God’s Spirit Beckons” How great is that?  God’s Spirit, you know, the one that raised Jesus from the dead, beckons you.  How crazy is that?  God’s Spirit is calling out to you, calling you to come closer to God.  The reason we don’t have to do everything ourselves is because Jesus died on a cross for us and then went up into heaven to be with His dad.  He didn’t want to leave us alone so He sent the Holy Spirit to come be with us.  He sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in His ways.  If we listen to the Holy Spirit, instead of our flesh, we will have life and we will have it abundantly.  If we listen to our flesh we will die.  

The last line in the message translation says, “There are things to do and places to go!”  God has amazing plans for your life.  He really does.  Maybe you are in a season right now where that is really hard to believe.  That’s ok, you don’t have to believe it, I will believe it for you.  I know it to be true.  God wants to shower His children with love and abundance in all things.  He wants to ridiculously bless you.  If you are struggling right now, please hang on.  I don’t know God’s timing but I know if you are struggling right now, then He is not finished with you yet.  God does not want His children to suffer.  God has places for you to go and things for you to do.  This is true even when we can’t see it or don’t understand it.  His plans can seem like they come out of no where.  For instance I remember saying, several years ago, “Why am I the only person in my family that can’t write?”  My siblings and parents all have such talent in that area and when I try to come up with a poem or a story, nothing would come to me.  Fast forward several years and I am writing a podcast episode daily and I have written two books.  God is a mystery and yet it all makes sense in His eyes.  

If you don’t know the amazing things God has planned for you, join the club.  We usually don’t know them until we are living them.  However, if you are stuck in a pit and can’t see any light, know that there is light.  Reach out and talk with someone about it.  Nothing changes if nothing changes.  Talk to God, and take the time to listen.  One trick I have for listening to God’s voice, which I learned form Fern Gorin at the Life Purpose Institute is to write a letter to God and then ask God to answer your letter back to you using your pen.  Then you write whatever comes to mind.  Don’t question it, don’t think about it, just write every thought that comes into your mind.  This has been such a blessing to me.  Listening to what God has to say and then having the written record so I can go back and reread it anytime I need encouragement has been amazing.  If you are struggling right now, give this letter writing a try.  You will be amazed at what you hear from God.  He is so encouraging and loving.  He says the kindest things.  If you are getting thoughts that are not kind, know that is not from the Lord. He only says things that build you up and encourage.  God loves you very much and He doesn’t want any of His children to suffer.  He is with you!

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening  to this episode today.  Lord, help us to live by the spirit and not by our flesh.  Help us not only turn to you but actually take the time to slow down and listen to you.  Help guide us and lead us into the amazing life you have for us.  Help us to bury our old do it yourself life and live into a Spirit led life.  Lord, you are amazing and we love you tons!  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 meeting you here again tomorrow.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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 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!

Today I was thinking about recounting some more of the testimony that Pastor Jim Baker gave us during class.  I thought that would be good because he has seen such amazing miracles.  However, if you haven’t seen amazing miracles in your life they may be hard to believe.  Especially last week’s witness as it is hard to believe that people were raised from the dead.  Even if you can believe that the things did happen it is hard to believe that you could make them happen.  When we hear miracles like raising people from the dead we tend to think they are super holy people who have been healing people for years.  This is not the case. The people I talked about last week were everyday people just like you and me.  They attend a church that talks about miracles, they pray for miracles and so they see miracles.  My prayer for each on of you listening is that when you hear about how God is working in people’s lives during these Witness Wednesdays it will plant a seed in you.  Each and every week you listen to another episode about a miracle happening in someone else’s life it will water that seed that is planted in you.  Eventually that seed will grow and you will start to believe that a miracle could happen in your life, and hopefully you will start to believe that God could use you to do a miracle as well.

You might have heard that and thought that God couldn’t use you, that you are too broken.  Broken people are exactly who God uses, so you would be His ideal candidate.  Today I thought I would witness about what happened at my Encounter Ministry practicum on Monday night.  This quarter in my class we are studying physical healings.  We learned a prayer model of how to pray over people for physical healings.  Monday night we invited people to come to class and we broke up into teams of three and we prayed over people for  a healing.  I said earlier how when we hear about miracles, we think it is people who have been healing for many years.  This is not the case with those of us in class.  Our quarter is 8 weeks long and this was week 6.  One of the people on my team had never prayed over anyone for healing before.  The other two of us had done it some.  None of us were experts.  

The first person who came to us was needing healing of stomach pain.  He gets very anxious and stressed at work and has a lot of pain in his stomach because he is so tense.  We prayed over him and two of us saw a vision of knots being untangled and going away.  He said he felt cool or heat, I can’t remember which, in his stomach where the woman had her hand.  He said the pain went from a 6 to a 4.  It did not go lower than that the next few times we prayed, however, he said he did feel this sense of peace come over his whole body.  He said he felt so good after we prayed.  We prayed for God to continue his healing that night while he slept and to help him not worry about work so much.  The pressure would still be there, but that God would give him a sense of peace about it all.  One of the ladies on our team received a vision of his angel just wrapping it’s wings around him.  It was beautiful.  Praise God!

The next person we prayed over was a woman who had a lot of things going on.  Scar tissue in her brain, something going wrong with her pace maker, something with her thyroid, she keeps teetering between pre diabetes and type 2 diabetes and she had a frozen shoulder.  We prayed for everything that she needed prayers for.  The one thing we could actually test was the frozen shoulder.  After you pray over someone for healing it is good to ask what is different now.  Has the pain level decreased?  Is there something you can do now that you couldn’t do before we prayed.  This is just a little step of faith and yet and can make all the difference.  Sometimes you stepping out in faith and trying to move that arm, or trying to see, trying to walk, whatever it is, is the thing that completes the healing.  

The woman could only lift her arm a little bit.  She had very little rotation in it as well.  We prayed specifically over that arm that it get unfrozen, that anything holding in there would be released.  We prayed a few other things in Jesus’ name and then asked her to try and move it.  She had more movement but still very limited. We prayed again for her shoulder and arm and asked her to lift it again.  She could lift it at least to shoulder level now.  We prayed one more time and we asked God to continue to heal her arm on the way home and while she slept.  We asked God for a complete healing of that arm.  When she left us that night she was not completely healed but she did have a lot more movement in her arm.  Praise God!

Next we prayed over another classmate who had ankle trouble.  He has plantar fasciitis and his ankle has been pretty weak.  He said when he wakes up in the morning it is hard for him to walk.  It takes him a while to get down the hall because of the pain.  He was not having any pain right now so we weren’t able to ask if the pain level had gone down or not.  However, after we pray, we ask people what is going on in their body?  Do you feel anything?  It can be normal to feel heat, coolness, or tingling, however these are not required for a healing to take place.  They are a physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit, however the Holy Spirit can heal without these manifestations.  Our classmate said when the woman was holding onto his ankle he felt a coolness, almost like her hands were ice packs.  The Holy Spirit was definitely doing something.  Two of us praying over him saw a vision of healing taking place.  We do not know if he was healed as it only bother him in the morning, but I will let you know after I talk to him next Monday at class.  

The last person we prayed over was one of the ladies on our team.  She has been having shoulder pain for quite a bit of time now.  She has been prayed over for it but it won’t seem to go away.  It is not a super sharp pain but it is a dull ache that is always there and is so frustrating.  It also hinders movement of her arm.  She can raise her arm, but not as smoothly as the other one.  It takes work to get her arm up in the air.  This is particularly frustrating because she loves to praise and worship God and yet she can’t raise both her arms.  We prayed over her arm and shoulder.  She did get some more movement and she was able to lift it higher.  We prayed again and she could lift it higher.  When we were done praying she could lift is just as high as the other one but it was still a bit of work.  It wasn’t a smooth movement like the other arm is.  We prayed for God to continue the healing.  I believe the pain had gone away.  I don’t think she had any pain. Praise God!  I will check back in with her and update you when I find out if the pain is now gone.  

One thing that just came to mind so I want to mention is that sometimes you can receive a healing at a service like this and then when you go home and wake up the next day you might feel the pain again.  This is the enemy trying to take away your healing.  He can’t take away what God has given you though.  If you have pain or some sort of regression from you healing.  Rebuke that.  Say, “Nope, not today Satan.  God healed me and I claim that healing.  I reject any pain, I reject anything that might get in the way of that healing.  God healed me and we are in agreement with that healing.”  Keep claiming the healing.  It is yours forever, don’t let the enemy take it from you.  

I hope you are enjoying these Witness Wednesdays.  Testimonies are so crucial to faith building. The scripture is also important and that is why I do the daily devotionals.  If we want to walk boldly in faith we need to hear about all God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit did in the Bible and we also need to hear about how the Holy Spirit is still alive and well in each one of us.  The Holy Spirit is still doing amazing things every day and the more we hear about it the more we will believe.  Being bold is not easy, it takes courage and it can also take practice.  You can begin walking boldly with Jesus one tiny little baby step at a time, He will be right there with you holding your hand.  He would never let you fall.  He is a good, good Father! I hope you all have an amazing week!

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Are We Held To Higher Standards?

Luke 12:47-48 “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

I thought this was really interesting when reading it this morning.  I thought it was a great reminder that we are held accountable for the things we know.  The more we come to know and believe about Jesus, the higher the standard we are held too.  This verse is saying that if you know God’s will and yet you choose not to do it, you choose to ignore God’s will, you will be punished more than you would if you didn’t know God’s will and went against it.  This probably doesn’t seem fair to some of us.  I remember I was at a Bible study in England and we were talking about something in the Bible, I am not sure what, and we ended up talking about this very thing.  

We were talking about sin, I think.  One of the prerequisites for something being a sin, at least in the catholic church, is that you have to know it is a sin.  If you eat meat on Friday during lent because no one ever told you that you couldn’t eat meat on Friday during lent, then it isn’t a sin for you.  I remember someone else saying, what I was thinking.  Wouldn’t it be better to not keep learning about the Bible, about God’s laws?  Basically, can’t we just live in bliss in our ignorance?  Why would we want to keep learning about God’s will and God’s laws if it is going to make our life harder?  Someone else asked, “Why are we held to a higher standard? That doesn’t seem fair, we are the ones trying to do the right thing and yet we have to work all that much harder.” I totally understand what this woman was saying, it doesn’t seem fair.  It seems like if we are trying to live life the right way, that should be good enough, we shouldn’t have to get it right all the time.  

I agree, and I don’t think this verse is saying that we need to get it right all the time.  It is not saying that we need to be perfect.  That is what grace is for.  What I believe it is saying is that we need to try to follow God’s laws and God’s will.  I think it is also saying that we can’t hold those who don’t know the laws responsible for following the laws.  Would you hold a one year accountable for not talking yet when they just don’t know how?  No, it is the same concept with non believers.  They don’t know how amazing God is, they don’t know Jesus died for their sins, they don’t know any of it so they can’t be held accountable for following God’s laws.  

If this is how we are thinking then it makes sense to us to think that our life would be easier if we stopped learning more about God, if we stopped learning His laws and His ways.  However, this verse does not say they won’t be held accountable, it says they won’t be held as accountable.  Their punishment won’t be as severe because they didn’t know better but there will still be a punishment.  This is because they are making a choice to stay ignorant.  They are making a choice to not learn about God and His ways.  There are opportunities every where you turn to learn more about God.  There are lots of churches, there are countless online resources, from websites to podcasts and everything in between.  There are so many more movies now that are religious in nature.  There is a whole TV series about Jesus’ life called the Chosen.  Even just watching that you would learn so much about Jesus and who he is and what He taught.  

There is no excuse for not knowing about God.  Every person has a responsibility to learn as much as they can about Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit.  Walking around in ignorance is not a good option.  I know on the surface level that seems like an easier way of living, maybe even a better way of living because it may seem like there aren’t so many rules.  However, they may be living without the rules, but they are also living without the grace, they are living without the sacraments, they are living outside of a relationship with God.  I wouldn’t trade my relationship with my heavenly father for anything, would you?  Would you still want to be held at a lower standard if it meant you would be outside of a relationship with God? When we look at what is fair and what isn’t we should look at all they are missing out on.  

The reason we are held to a higher standard is because God gives us what we need to rise to the occasion.  He gives us the Holy Spirit to help us follow the laws, He gives us grace when we mess up.  However, we also have others watching what we are doing.  If we are Christian then we are representing God and all other Christians.  People will look to us to see what a Christian is like.  If we say we are Christian but we don’t live our lives like Jesus taught us to then we ruin the reputation of all Christians.  We might have people who look to us to see how they should be living.  They may say, she doesn’t go to church, so I don’t have to go to church.  She is Christian and yet she gossips, so I guess gossiping isn’t so bad after all.  Do you see how by saying you are Christian, but then not live according to how Jesus taught us, you could be inadvertently causing someone else to stray for God or to sin.  


Matthew 18:6 says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”  God takes our role as role models and mentors seriously.  If we are going to claim to be Christian than we should act like it, we should live our lives accordingly.  We should be good representatives of Jesus so that if someone looks at us and how we are living they will see that we know Jesus and that He is directing how we are living our lives.  We are held to a higher standard because we have been give the Holy Spirit to help us sin no more.  We have been given the grace to get it wrong and yet repent and try again.  Growing in our faith, growing in our knowledge of God and of our faith and of what God expects from us is so much better than living in ignorance just so we aren’t held as accountable.  With more knowledge comes more grace, more fruit of the Spirit.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, you are amazing and we love you.  We ask that you help us to follow your ways.  We ask you to help us be good role models.  We ask you to help us continue down the path of learning all about you and how you want us to live.  Lord, help us to release any feelings of unfairness.  Help us to follow your ways filled with joy knowing you love us and shower us with your grace.  We are so grateful for 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 bringing you another witness tomorrow.  I would like to ask each one of you listening to consider giving a witness.  If you are not sure what you would say try to answer one of these questions.  What hard times have I been through and how did God help me through them?  What things in my life worked out so perfectly I know it had to have been God arranging it?  When have I been in a situation where I wasn’t sure I was going to make it but I did?  When I look back over the years where can I see that things worked out perfectly even though at the time they seemed anything but perfect? These are just a few ideas to get you thinking.  Your witness/testimony can be about anything you like it to be about.  I know each and everyone of you has a story because God works in all of our lives.  If you don’t really know what to say and would rather do an interview style witness, we can do that too.  I am so passionate about Witness Wednesdays because I know how important testimony is to the building up of faith.  Please consider stepping outside of your comfort zone and sharing your story.  I will meet you here again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

www.findingtruenorthcoaching.com

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