Don’t Kill The Messenger

Receiving a message of truth can be difficult sometimes, especially when it calls us to make a major life change.  We may be stuck in unhealthy, or even sinful, habits. God may use someone to speak a word of truth to us after He has made repeated attempts to get our attention. God is very fair and loving. His aim is not to shame us but to heal us. He has gone to great lengths to make a way of salvation and restoration for us but sometimes we just don't get it. When Jesus walked the earth, many people did not see Him as the Messiah, especially the religious people of that time. They found His message to be offensive. Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Matthew 23:37). 

Throughout history, God had made attempts, over and over, to save Israel from being destroyed by their own sins. Every time He sent a messenger of truth, that messenger was met with resistance and sometimes even death. The prophet Zechariah is a perfect example. II Chronicles 24:20‭-‬21 says, 'Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God: ‘Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He also has forsaken you.” So they conspired against him, and at the command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord.' I now understand the saying "Don't kill the messenger." Our deliverance can come through a messenger of truth if we are willing to receive and have an open heart. Jesus Himself is constantly trying to get His message of truth to us but sometimes we are not willing. He may send someone to shake us up so we come to our senses. It may even feel offensive. But God is not concerned about our feelings. He is concerned about our soul and spiritual health. The temporary comforts of the flesh will not help us when we stand before God on judgment day and give an account for our lives. 

Prayer 

Heavenly Father, thank You for always correcting me in love. Your desire for my life is for good not evil. Open my ears to hear Your message of truth. 

Shut The Door

We all have weaknesses that plague us in life. The issues of the fleshly carnal nature are something we will contend with until we finally meet Jesus face to face. But we don’t have to be overcome by these weaknesses while here on earth. Jesus made a way for us to take authority over our own flesh by giving us His Holy Spirit, His Word and His blood. ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭6‬ says, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” When we shut the door, that implies that we mean business with God. It’s one on one with Him and we can be transparent and confess all that plagues us. 

The only way to overcome the flesh is to live in the truth. And the only way to live in the truth is through intimate time with God. Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” We need to open the door to Christ and accept His invitation and then shut the door to all other distractions. When we do this, we are allowing the power of God to transform us into the image of Christ. All He is asking for is a willing and yielded heart. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for giving me all that I need to be an overcomer in this life. I accept the invitation of Christ and I open the door of my heart so I can be transformed and renewed.

Carry Your Cross

In this day and age, we hear a lot of different preachers teaching specific themes on the Christian life. Some preach a message of prosperity and others preach a motivational message for self-improvement. The more I seek to be closer to my Savior, I realize that there is only one theme that matters, the Cross. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). But how do we carry our cross in a practical sense?
When we say no to temptation, we are carrying our cross. When we forgive others, we are carrying our cross. When we obey the voice of the Holy Spirit, we are carrying our cross. When we receive the fullness of the sacrifice of Christ, we are carrying our cross. When we do all these things, we trample on the face of the enemy and we walk boldly carrying our cross. You see, we don’t carry our cross by ourselves. Jesus Himself gives us His strength to carry our cross. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” The power of the Cross is in us through Christ. In the process of carrying our cross, we are overcoming sinful habits and mindsets. We are ever mindful of the sacrifice that Christ made in order to set us free from bondage. 

Prayer
Heavenly Father, fill me with the desire to carry my cross for Your glory alone. My life is not my own. My one purpose is for the life of Christ to be in me.

Why vs What

We’ve all been there. Something negative happens in our lives and we ask “why”, “why me”, “why now”. My husband and I went through a very traumatic experience in 2019. He became very ill with an infection in his heart and developed sepsis. He needed open heart surgery to replace two of his heart valves. He came within an inch of death. While he was in the hospital, we had a very deep discussion about all the events that had occurred leading up that moment. There were so many mistakes made by certain medical professionals. We were ignorant to the signs and symptoms of sepsis and congestive heart failure. In the end, we turned our eyes upward to God and determined that there is something we needed to learn from this terrible situation. So our question became “what” not “why”. What is Your plan, God? What do you want us to learn from this? 

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.” We knew that God loved us and had not left us. In hindsight, I can now see how God used this situation to bring my husband and I closer. I feel that my faith in Him is stronger. We are both more in tune with our purpose, which is to love God and love others more deeply. We are more eternally minded because we know that our day of entering eternity may come at any moment. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for putting eternity in my heart. My focus is not on the temporal things of this world. My focus is on Your eternal purpose for my soul.

The Ways Of God

It seems that one of the biggest questions that people have is “why is there so much suffering in the world?” and “why doesn’t God do something about it?” Some Christians may get upset at people asking such questions and demand that blind trust in God is all that is needed. But I think that these questions are important. We need to ponder more deeply on the ways of God. The Bible says that God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). There is a reason for everything that happens in life. The challenge that we face as humans is that our vision of the big picture is limited. The big picture encompasses what is past, present and future. It involves the free will of man and the holy unchangeable character of God. While we are here in this temporary earthly world system, we have a kind of tunnel vision. We can only understand what seems to impact us personally and see through the lens of our own personal worldview. 

When Job was suffering trials and being tormented by satan, he questioned God and challenged His justice. Job wanted an explanation of why this was happening to him. God’s response was an unveiling of His divine wisdom. God asked Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4). God went on to reveal His greatness and power of creating the earth and everything in it. He expressed His character and nature. God is justice, mercy, love, truth, righteous and holy all at once. He knows the past, present and future all at once. It is not a matter of either or. He is not one sided or one dimensional when He acts. He is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. There is a divine purpose for all that He does and all that He allows. The bigger picture is eternity with Him. Jesus said, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” ‭‭(Matthew‬ ‭16‬:‭26‬). The temporary suffering on earth becomes insignificant when we think about our future in eternity with God. All that God does is meant to draw us to Himself, the source of true life…eternal life.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, fill me with Your thoughts and Your ways. I want to be eternally minded. Heaven is my true home.

Healing

The world purports to have a cure for every ailment. But it seems that with every “cure” there is a negative side effect that causes more problems. Most of these so-called cures are temporary band-aids on a large gaping wound. This is because the root cause of our ailments are not addressed. This applies to both physical and emotional ailments. Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world that bombards the body and mind with toxicity. Processed foods and toxic chemicals in the water and air are killing the human body. Toxic media is deteriorating the human mind and soul.  
However, Christ came to bring healing and freedom. Isaiah 53:5 says, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” Regardless of the root cause of our ailments, Jesus has come to bring healing and restoration, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. Pursuing any other way of healing results in negative side effects. God has given mankind natural and spiritual remedies for every illness. We just need to ask God for the solutions. This does not mean that we will never get sick and never die. The natural aging and dying process will happen. The Lord will call us home when it is our time. The greatest healing is receiving a new glorified body when we arrive in heaven, where there is no pain or sorrow. 

Prayer
Heavenly Father, Thank You for the promise of heaven, where we will receive complete healing and eternal peace. Give me wisdom on how to live a healthy lifestyle while on this earth, until the day You call me home.

Faithful Word

We can always count on God being faithful to His Word. ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭138‬:‭2 says, “I will worship toward Your holy temple, And praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your Word above all Your name.” God is truth. He cannot lie because His very nature and character is truth. When He says something, it exists in the universe and never changes. This is such a complex yet simple thing to understand. To grasp the depth of God’s truth is beyond our human comprehension yet we can understand one thing, He is faithful to His Word of Truth. 

God has spoken His Word over all of us from Heaven. He has put His Word in written form (the Bible) so we have it in tangible form. He wants us to know His Word so we can get to know Him. When we know His Word, we know exactly what to expect from Him. He never changes His ways. This is so reassuring in a world where we can’t take anything at face value. Unfortunately, the father of lies (satan) is steady at work trying to deceive mankind into distrusting God. Regardless of what satan tries to do, God’s Word stands forever. When God says it, it comes to pass. Believe it. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I thank You for being true to Your Word. I can fully rely on You and trust You with all my heart.