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Loving My Enemies

Loving My Enemies

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I have always been one of those people who try really hard not to carry a grudge. I don’t want that kind of negativity anywhere around me. I would just rather argue it out, and move on. Unfortunately, everybody doesn’t feel that way. 

Now, even though I don’t hold a grudge, I won’t be hanging out with them either. I mean, it’s hard to be friends with people who don’t like you, right? I just know that I can’t let someone else’s bad behavior keep me from all that God has for me.

My pastor preached this morning that every time your enemies speak ill of you, it’s like dirt being thrown at you. And God will allow that dirt to be a stepping stone to elevate you. That woke me all the way up. I was so pumped. 1 Peter 3:9 says, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” 

Look, this says that if I don’t retaliate, and instead keep treating you right, I will inherit a blessing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anything coming between me and my blessings. So, if that means I have to keep speaking to you, and watch you ignore me…then that’s what I’m going to do, because I know that according to God’s word peacemakers are called His children. And I know that is who I am.

Until next time…

Be blessed

What Happens To Us Matters To God

What Happens To Us Matters To God

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God keeps blessing me over and over again, and not because I do everything right, or that I am so special. I know that I am special to Him. I’m not sure about a lot of things, but I am sure that God loves me. And I know it, because that’s what His word says.

It says that…at the moment I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I was redeemed, I was justified…I was changed, 

It’s still so amazing to me that God cares for me…that He cares for all of us. 

  • It matters to Him when someone hurts us. 
  • It matters to Him when we don’t live up to our full potential. 
  • It matters to Him that sometimes I still get afraid. 

We are His creation, and He takes great pride in our achievements. When we don’t do what God has called us to do we are living out of order, because if He says we are…we are, and if He says we can…we can.

God had a plan for all of us way before we were born. What we do matters to Him, and it should matter to us. We sometimes get so down on ourselves, especially when we compare our lives to other people. 

God doesn’t feel that way about us, and He doesn’t want us to feel that way about ourselves. God needs us to help carry out His ministry on the earth. Don’t get me wrong…God can do it without us, but He gave us specific gifts and He wants us to use them for the Kingdom. That’s what it says in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

So, that’s really all I wanted to say today….

You matter to God, and what happens to you matters to Him.

Until next time…

Be blessed

The Power in the Word “IF”

The Power in the Word “IF”

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I remember a message I heard about the power of “if.” That message really resonated with me, because lately, I have been battling with that very thing.

That word, if, symbolizes a struggle, right?

If I had waited…

If I had not waited…

If I had just finished school…

If I had taken that job…

If I could just lose 10 more pounds…

If….

I believe God is strategic in everything He does. He would never give us a dream, a vision or a plan, and not already have a way to bring it about. That’s not how He operates. He knows every hiccup, every doubt, and every fear that will cause us to stumble…the things that will make us back away from the promise. But, here’s the thing…even our cold feet won’t stop God from blessing us. It will not stop Him from bringing about the thing for which we were created.

Our God knows why He designed us, and believe it or not…He is pleased with who we are. He knows the struggles we will face. Guess what? He has already provided what we need, and it will show up at the exact moment we need it. 

In this season, we have to be prepared to move in line with God’s will. He is speaking, and He needs us to be obedient, to pray for one another, and to be in a position of service. God loves us with a passion, and He has promised to be with us every step of the way. God never stops leading and guiding us…sometimes we just stop listening, and we definitely have the tendency to stop following.  But He knows that about us too.

Today I just want to encourage all of us to keep trying, and know that if we don’t give up we will… 

Know our purpose, and walk in it. 

Become all that God has called us to be. 

Prosper and be in good health. 

We will live and not die, and we will declare the works of the Lord (Psalm 118:17).

I speak life over every area of our lives, and I declare and decree that we will be fearless and bold for the Lord no matter what.

Until next time…

Be blessed

Do You See What I See?

Do You See What I See?

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Ya’ll…I have to be transparent. I really want to speak from my heart this week. I have received so much revelation over the last couple of weeks. Our God is so purposeful in everything that He does. What He allows–He will definitely use. 

It’s crazy how God can take something as ordinary as washing dishes, or sweeping the floor to give you a life-changing message. I was cleaning and listening to this pastor online when God spoke through him, and He broke it down to me so clearly that I couldn’t help but see it. The online pastor said in part…”Look around you…everything you see on the outside is what you are feeling on the inside. That grief you are feeling is manifesting itself in your environment.” Now, what he said was not so earth shattering. It’s at the time that he said it. I had just finished saying that I needed to get my house in order (literally), and it was like God said…do you see it?

I looked around my home and I saw for the first time in a long time how disorganized my life was becoming. How I have been letting things go. I clean because I have to clean. Otherwise, the dust bunnies would take me over. The things that I have fixed are the things I have to fix. And although I am comfortable in my home, I do not always feel peaceful here. This pastor also said to stay current by doing things as simple as washing your face, cleaning your home, cleaning your car, and even for women– organizing your purse. He said that doing these things will help us stay present in the here and now.

OMG! That may not mean much to most of you, but to me it spoke volumes.

Look, the last couple of years have been so hard that just getting up every morning was all I could handle. But I know that the things he said were spot on. The Bible even speaks of the things we carry. One verse says that we should guard our hearts, because out of it flows the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). Whatever you meditate on will come out. If you are sad…sadness will come out. If you are happy…happiness will come out, and if you are grieving…your grief will come out.

The good thing is that God doesn’t leave us in our mess. Everything that has happened over the last couple of years is behind us, and a new day is here. God is in the blessing business, and I want everything that He wants for me. We have the opportunity to begin again, and I do not want to blow it by allowing grief to dictate how I am living. What about you? What is in your heart that you can let go of, turn over to God, or learn to be at peace with?

Today, let’s begin the process of letting it go…for real this time.

Until next time…

Be blessed

God’s Favor

God’s Favor

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Living in God’s favor is amazing. I am so excited about what God is doing. I am determined to claim all of the promises that belong to us. Everything that has happened over this past year is behind us, and a new day is on the way. God is in the blessing business, and I want everything that He wants for me. We have been given the opportunity to begin again as many times as we need to, and I don’t want to blow it by dwelling on what could have been. For me, living in God’s favor means that I am in the center of His will, and that I not only know His promises, but I am also living His promises.

This week, I want to focus on the promise that says we are more than conquerors. One of my favorite scriptures is from the Book of Romans, and it says, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39).

God’s favor says that being more than conquerors is knowing that whatever happens; God has already worked it out. It says that nothing…no problem, no situation, and no concern can come between the relationship that we have with Him. He has to be number one, because when He has first place in our lives…we never have to worry about what place we are in His.  

Until next time…

Be blessed

Hold On To Your Peace

Hold On To Your Peace

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My prayer every day is that God will allow me to be a blessing to someone, and He never disappoints me. And it doesn’t have to be anything big. Sometimes it’s just smiling at someone, or holding up the traffic to let someone merge in. Little things that really don’t look like much, but could turn someone’s whole day around 

I was thinking about that recently, because I was out dI’riving, just trying to take care of a few errands. As I rounded the bend trying to merge over into traffic, the other driver sped up so that I  couldn’t get in. Thankfully, the person behind him had a little more grace, and slowed down so that I could get in. But I was so angry. I had to talk myself down, because I couldn’t understand why the other driver took it as a personal attack. I wanted to catch up to him to give him “the eye,” but God reminded me about the grace I had just received (I hate when He does that)…sigh. And on top of that, why was I taking it as a personal attack on me? That person didn’t know me, he never even turned in my direction. 

It made me think about the scripture in Matthew 7:3 when Jesus says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank that is in your own eye?” Even though I didn’t like it, I had to admit that it was kinda funny. Here I am praying every day to be a blessing, and at the first sign of someone else’s bad behavior, I was ready to throw it all away, and lose my peace…over nothing. 

It just goes to show, there will always be opposition. But we can’t allow things or even other people to dictate how we respond. We control our response…especially when it comes to our peace of mind. No one can take that. But we can definitely give it away.

Until next time…

Be blessed

Take the limits off God

Take the limits off God

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So, last week I talked about how we can sometimes short-circuit our destiny, and it made me think about a time when that happened to me. I was at a Women’s Ministry meeting at my church and at a certain point in the meeting, the Director asked us to share our testimonies, words of encouragement, etc. Well, if anyone should have a testimony it should have been me. I was the brand new author of a book entitled, “Let My Life Be A Testimony.” I should definitely have had something to share, right?

I sat there feeling like I was going to burst, because God had been so good to me that I didn’t even know where to start, but that night, I didn’t share–almost no one did. The Director had to go around the room and just point out the different ways that she knew we had been blessed. That was so embarrassing. I will never forget that. The sad thing is that I spent many years after that doing the same thing.

That experience taught me that walking in my destiny was going to take some work on my part. First, I needed to believe that I deserved a better life. That God saw me, and had a plan just for me. Then, I had to stop working against myself. What I mean by that is that I had to be bold enough to walk in the path God was laying out for me. When God moved me to share, I had to stop second guessing Him and just do it. I have learned to trust that God will never lead me down a dead end. If He moves me to do something…someone, somewhere, needs it.

We have to stop trying to figure it all out by ourselves, and take the limits off God, He will show us things that we never even imagined and take us to places that we never thought we would go. And guess what? That’s only the beginning. He has so much to show us if we let Him. 

Until next time…

Be blessed!