The Mercy of God

Hey everybody!!! I just had to share this devotion with all of you today bit brought me to tears and reminded me of where God has brought me. Please READ!!

Click on the link below:

http://www.streamingfaith.com/index.php/prayer/devotionals/the-mercy-of-god/

Love y'all!!

http://enterthemindofmarquita.blogspot.com

Daily Devotion

Guarding Your Treasure Box

"Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you--guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us."  2 Timothy 1:14

All day long, I have been getting reassurance about being careful who comes into my company.  I had a conversation a while back with my spiritual mother about the anointing.  I realized that lately quite a few people had been draw to me, and truthfully I talk to anyone.  I just love people--disclaimer, in moderation and when I feel like socializing.  I have major mood swings and sometimes just don't feel like being bothered....  Anyway, I have learned that we have to be careful when we are working for the Lord, everybody that comes up to you is not going the same direction as you.  When we decide to live right and walk with the Lord, there will be all sorts of obstacles to come along to distract and ultimately take from you the gift that God has given you...even people.  Yes, God calls us to share the Good News for the salvation of the lost souls, but He does not tell us to tell everybody His purpose and plan for your life, nor does He say that you have to lose who He created you to be in that process.

I used 'treasure box' because it symbolizes many things.  God has put into all of us special talents, gifts, passions, dreams, goals and His Good News to share with the world.  He has also given us all a unique purpose.  However, along the way, due to the circumstances of life and our own disobedience, things are taken out of our box and replaced with despair, disappointments, discouragement, fear, failures, anxiety, doubt, and many more tools of the enemy.  One of them that is the worst to reside in our box is bitterness.  If we are not careful, we can allow our reactions and interactions with life and the people that come along the way to set up shop in our treasure box and ruin the rest of the gifts remaining in the box.  We put emotional baggage in that box, lack of trust, and everything that comes along and instead of getting rid of these things, we hold on to them, tighter than the more important gifts like patience, honesty and love.

The only way to see through these things is to use the Holy Spirit!!  Ask God to help you discern the meaning of things, and people's purposes in your life.  Sometimes we linger on a nice face or a seemingly nice opportunity which sets us back 5, 10, even 20 years.  We were not made for these things!! Just think about what stress, bitterness, and unforgiveness do to your body...its a clinically proven fact that forgiving releases us and helps us heal!  Think of the benefit of letting go of the dead weight that you've been clutching.  Think of what things you can gain when you clean out all the garbage...you can get the dreams back.  You can get the natural talents and gifts back that God has given you.

"With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith."  Romans 11:29

You can read more at:
http://enterthemindofmarquita.blogspot.com

--
"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17

Daily Devotion

Blocked by Fear

"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline."  2 Timothy 1:7

Have you ever had the feeling that you are stagnant?  Or that the things you are praying for aren't happening?  Have you considered whether you are operating in the spirit of faith or in fear? 

Fear is the roadblock when you don't have your license and registration on you, it is the big spider in the middle of the floor, it is rollercoaster that you have always avoided riding.  It's there, ugly as ever, staring you in the face.  And why? Because you have acknowledge that it is stronger than the faith you think  you have.  In your mind, its bigger than anything you've ever done, and its bigger than GOD.  That's right, it is because you gave the same power to it that you could give to God.  The same power that you could give to God to activate that little faith you have could have changed any situation for you.  Your fear can block your progress, and ultimately block God's flow in your life.  It can block you from hearing from Him on a particular situation because you allow your mind to feed on that thought you should have killed, I'm too weak or afraid to do this.  I'm too afraid to go forward or a personal favorite of mine, there are too many unknowns for me.  Well if the same prayers you prayed for a friend worked, won't your own prayers work for you?  If the same faith you are operating in on the behalf of another worked for them, why can it not work for you?  After all, it is your faith.

When I attended World Changers, whenever Dr. Dollar spoke on fear, he would refer to it as negative faith or perverted faith.  He said it was meditation on the wrong--the negative.  And that is exactly what it is.  If you spend so much time believing and focusing on what you will not get, I'm pretty sure you won't pay attention to the opportunities for you to take a step in the positive direction.  You will miss the opened door or window of opportunity for you to move forward.  Fear is a crippling, paralyzing thing, a tool of the enemy to keep you bound to the belief of 'you can't' forever.  Well if you use the tools that God has given you to overcome for the right things, you can allow yourself to move forward.  I didn't realize that I was blocking my own blessings until I started listening to what was playing in my head.  The tape recorder is real, and if you don't change what you are listening to--which is ultimately what you believe, you will be blocked in every area of your life.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love."  1 John 4:18
--
"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17

Daily Devotion #3

Believing the Lie

 

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."  John 8:44

 

We get victory in our testimony...so here goes part of mine.  Growing up I had to be one of the most insecure, lack of self-esteem having young girls.  I sought validation from peers and friends...and when I didn't get it, I was crushed.  Many times I was picked on (I now think largely in part of me being so smart, yep it ostracized me a bit) and I would cry because I didn't understand why, and yep I was a crybaby.  Even as I write this I start to tear up.  I have to thank God for my friend Camisha (smile) .  I will never forget this but in 8th grade there was a girl who will remain nameless that always had something negative to say about me (and in her case she had NO room to talk, looking all manly herself oops sorry lol :p ).  She wrote something like "Marquita Priester-worst dresser" and Camisha made sure I didn't see that...she instead wrote "Best Dresser".  We all go through that period of finding ourselves and I thank God that she was there to intercept that...who knows what would have happened then because by that time I had developed a smart mouth and had no problem fighting since I never got in trouble at school.

 

For a long time even into my adult years, I believed the lie that I had to compare myself to other people, on essentially everything.  School was almost the one area that I did not compare myself because I had always been exceptionally smart.  But as a young woman, I lacked the belief that what I saw in the mirror was acceptable and nagged myself about everything I could find wrong.  So when I got sick in college, it served as a wake-up call to the falsehood of the lie I believed and the key to walk out of the prison of self-hatred.

 

The devil is the father of lies.  A lie in definition is the opposite of truth, an un-truth.  It is also withholding, twisting words around (as he did with Eve in the Garden of Eden), or a gross perversion of the truth.  The devil perverts everything.  He plants that one thought, and feeds it with another thought, until we are so far gone (if we don't have the fortitude to catch it) that we believe whatever he said.  Its not okay to compare yourself to others because God created us all with unique purposes...we all have a different place in His grand plan.  We may have similar stories, similar roles, but when all those things add up under your name it becomes something different.  All of our stories are different, although we may be on parallel roads.  Stop believing the crap the devil tells you, like you aren't good enough--counter thought "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" Philippians 4:13, I will never get well--counter thought "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers them out of them all."  Psalm 34:19, I'm too weak--counter thought "But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world."

 

Remember that!!! YOU belong to God so stop giving yourself over to lies and be victorious.  Use your authority!!!!  Christ has already defeated the devil so act like you know!

 

"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith."  1 John 5:4

--
"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17

Daily Devotion #2

Living with Expectancy

 

'and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?"'  Matthew 11:3

 

Jesus tells us in John 14:14 "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."  I think sometimes we do not ask because we do not believe it will happen.  You think, well, it probably won't happen anyway so why waste my time.  I've learned lately that we have to expect great.  The Jews did not expect Jesus to be the Messiah, which caused them to doubt His miracles and His being the Messiah and so after His death, it was left up to the Apostles to preach the Good News.  One of my new favorite chapters is the 23rd Psalm. Verse 5 says this: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.  Do you get the promise at the end of that verse?  Our cup overflows!  Here's another scripture: Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the LORD of Heaven's Armies, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!  Malachi 3:10  God promises to open the windows of heaven with blessing upon blessing for you.  Of course with these promises, they are in conjunction to your obedience in the principle, i.e, being holy, repenting (doing a 180 from sin and sinning no more), tithing, etc.  But as a child of God we can expect God to be faithful to His Word even when we find it hard to believe.

 

If you are struggling in some way, lacking in something, it is because you aren't expecting (or maybe you haven't tried God yet, meaning been obedient to His call, because He does call us all for unique and individual tasks as a part of the Body of Christ).  We walk around as Christians complaining about what we don't have but as the scripture says, you don't have because you don't ask! And you don't overflow because you don't expect it. 

 

As my spiritual godmother says, we have to expect God to blow our minds on a daily basis.  At first I did not grasp the brevity of what she was saying, why because I was barely believing or expecting the promises of the Word to come true for me.  But guys we must step out and trust the Lord.  Expect those mountains that you want moved to be gone because we are to believe in the things that are unseen. Turn whatever is the roadblock in your life over to Him and expect it to be moved.  Yes, every person can remind you of the things that you are dealing with, but until you get before God and expect Him to do what He says, wholeheartedly believing in Him for what He has said...you aren't really living.

 

"I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing." Ezekiel 34:26

Daily Devotion

The Power of Our Song

 

"I will praise the name of God with song And magnify Him with thanksgiving."  Psalm 69:30

 

God loves to hear us sing to Him.  Have you ever been in church and saw the effects of singing praises to God?  If you haven't I pray that God allows you to see it.  His Spirit flows and moves the masses; yokes are broken and handed over to Jesus.  Bonds and chains are destroyed and we are free to give God all the glory that is due to Him.  But its not just for entertainment as most use it for.  God gives us many things when we sing out to Him.  He comforts us, gives us victory, peace, joy, and freedom.

 

"Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and sound of a melody."  Isaiah 51:3  One of the things I did to get through this year was sing and cry out to God for His comfort.  Only in singing and crying was I able to get the comfort I needed from all the pain I had experienced.  God promises to comfort us because we are His children! 

 

"Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.  Suddenly, there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken. All the doors immediately flew open, and everyone's chains were unfastened."  Acts 16:25-26  In this story, Paul and Silas were wrongly imprisoned...but God!  But God freed them and save thousands.  He saved the soul of their jailer by them not leaving when they were freed.  "At the very moment they began to sing and give praise, the LORD caused the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to start fighting among themselves."  2 Chronicles 20:22  This is just one of the stories where praising the Lord with song led to victory over enemy armies.

 

"And the ransomed of the LORD will return And come with joyful shouting to Zion, With everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, And sorrow and sighing will flee away."  Isaiah 35:10  Peace is the gift God freely gives to us, and His joy is our strength. (John 14:27, Nehemiah 8:10)  When we sing, we realize both of these gifts.

 

"God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land."  Psalm 68:6  God frees us!  When Jesus died on the cross for our sins we WERE freed.  Not waiting on some other act or miracle, but it has already happened.  We are freed (even if you may be physically bound by something) from the weight of our sins.  We are free from condemnation, we are free from death as long as we are in Christ.

 

Just think about it though, we have the God-given power to speak and decree over situations...by singing praise to God, it moves Him on our behalf.  Why equip us with such a powerful tool if we cannot use it to glorify Him?  Don't stop singing!  Watch Him move heaven and earth for you.

 

"Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God."  Colossians 3:16

Daily Devotion

Transparency

 

O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.  Jeremiah 20:12

 

Growing up, when I was in my elementary through high school grades, my teachers used transparencies for our notes and sometimes quizzes.  They would prepare the notes for the class and put them up on the screen for all to see.  This was before school got all high-tech with the smart boards, which I did not see until college. 

 

Much like those transparencies, with the notes on them that could be wiped off with water, but dried on over time is our mind and heart.  The notes we have taken from the past on how to deal with people often cloud our judgment, and can prevent us from receiving a blessing or blessing someone else.  Our pain has become smudged with bitterness and we refuse to wipe it away.  Thank God for His healing waters, His Word, and His love that can erase anything!  Just like God casts our sins away forever, we can cast away unforgiveness, painful memories, guilt or shame.  We can make the choice to walk with God so that He can teach us to forgive...so that like in the verse above He can impact vengeance.  Once we give things over to Him, we are no longer stained by our hatred, we are washed and renewed--transparent in His love.  Whenever it was my turn to write a problem, I always hoped to get the new transparencies that were untarnished and clear...not weathered with age by time.  Don't let your hurt and pain leave you tarnished or worse yet, permanently scarred.  God sees through us into every nook and cranny, let His love heal you and then shine through to others.

 

"So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord--who is the Spirit--makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."  2 Corinthians 3:18

Daily Devotion

Forsaking All Others

"If people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples.  So those who do not carry their crosses and follow me cannot be my disciples."  Luke 14:26-27

I'm sure everyone has heard the traditional wedding vows during a wedding or marriage ceremony, right?  Well just in case, here they are: I, (Bride/Groom), take you (Groom/Bride), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part. Well after you and your love are officially married, you no longer see yourself without that person.  You forsake all others in the name of your marriage.  In some marriages (and as is the natural order as God intended from scripture--my personal interpretation) no person comes above your spouse but God himself.  For the unmarried people like myself, that space is currently filled by my mother and immediate family.  I do not think there is anyone I love more than them other than God.  In the scripture above, Jesus tells us that we have to be ready to abandon all to follow Him--really meaning we are supposed to love Him more than anything.  And why shouldn't we?  He died so that we will not have to spend eternity without Him--in the true death of the soul. 

There is a song I absolutely LOVE hearing and singing--Lamar Campbell's More Than Anything.  The lyrics of the chorus say: I love you Jesus, I worship and adore you, Just want to tell you, Lord I love you more than anything.  This is the kind of love Jesus is calling us to.  We are supposed to love Jesus more than our fathers, more than our mothers, more than our spouses, more than our children, more than our siblings, more than our own lives.  I think the last part of that scripture is the most critical.  You see, all of those people comprise our lives.  Our jobs and careers, our travels, our salary, even our physical bodies encapsulate our lives.  We have to put loving God above that.  Luke 17:33 says "If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it."  So...what are you waiting for?  Don't you want a real love, a true and pure love?  God wants us to love Him with every ounce of our being...and don't you know that He will give us everything we desire, even more as long as it is within His will?

Daily Devotion

In Prepared Soil

"If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit."  Leviticus 26:3,4

When I was a little girl--and my momma can attest to this--I loved to grow things.  One of my teachers gave me a Chia bunny because she was my secret Santa in middle school.  We had a flower bed in our front yard with some flowers in it.  I would help my daddy pull up the weeds and prepare the ground.  I would take the flowers out of their temporary pots and plant the flowers, six inches apart like the directions said.  I watered them, and pruned the weeds with my daddy.  One time, I bought a pack of cucumber seeds and planted those.  I watched over those things like a mother hawk I tell you.  Sure enough, they started growing and growing until one day when I came home, the birds had been eating them!  and of course, I was devastated...but that's another story.

The purpose of this devotion is to focus on the preparation of the soil. There are several key players involved in growing crops.  First there is the soil--your heart and soul!  You need a good plot of soil (a willing heart) with direct exposure to the sun (Son ah ha!!).  Next it says to mix in "soil amendments and fertilizer"--I take this to mean the words of wisdom from other mature Christians, wisdom that God has given you, and wisdom that He has imparted to you through the Word--spoken, written and preached.  It says to always maintain no more than half amendments and half native soil--I venture forth to say that this means that God never wants us to lose sight of who He created us to be in the words of others.  Many people nowadays base their faith and their relationship with Him on the words of others.  Cultivate that relationship so that you can rightfully discern the truth for yourself.  This part is very important: till the soil with the amendments.  Mix it up!  Break up those dirt clods and remove the rocks out of the soil.  Remove any unnatural thing--branches, weeds, stones, brambles, anything that can choke your faith and stunt your growth.  I'll stop here because now you have been prepared.  The only thing that is left is to plant that Word, that vision, that dream, whatever it is that God has given you and let it grow.

In prepared soil you can do so much.  You can plant flowers that bring beauty, you can plant vegetables that sustain life, you can plant wheat and oats and barley that are used to make bread, you can plant vines, bushes, and trees that produce such good fruit!  I'm going to share my journal entry for this evening here.  I realized that I have been in a planting season.  For the last few years, my life has been in seeming to me constant turmoil and dishevelment at all of the upsets I have experienced.  Kidney failure and transplant, other illnesses, losses and deaths--all have served to till my soil.  I needed these things to break up all the hurt, pain, and suffering that I have experienced, to uproot all the negativity and things that were stealing the life out of me.  But God I have been sowing the Word in my heart.  I have had good, sound Christian counsel to water and fertilize my ground.  I have rejected all negative thoughts, words, and people from my life.  I have been guarding my heart.  I am ready to grow.  I am ready for all the seeds God has planted to grow.  I am ready to reap the bounty that awaits me.

I encourage you to stand strong in the midst of your trial because it is for God's glory.  I cannot describe the feeling of utter brokenness, but I know that I feel better now that God has pieced me together.  If God is breaking down those strongholds--those rocks--if He is uprooting those people, ideals, and past bitterness and negativity from you--those weeds, then embrace it and let God work.  Get some sound, mature Christians who can sow back into you and feed yourself on the Word.  Get prepared because God's word and will cannot take root unless you are willing!!!  I love you and good night!

"The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest."  Psalm 85:12

Daily Devotion #4

God Don't Like Ugly

"If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen."  1 John 4:20

I know that everyone's grandmother or great-aunt has said, "You know God don't like ugly now" or something along those lines.  I just read the book "God Don't Like Ugly" by Mary Monroe, and it had to be one of the most depressing stories I ever read.  It was about as depressing as "Precious" or "For Colored Girls" were.  But these movies depict the ugliness of humanity in the depravity these people experienced.  And truth be told, these movies and books are not fiction because life is like that.  Mothers hating their children and abusing them, people so cold-hearted that they cannot feel the pain of those around them.  God calls us to love each other as we love ourselves--but how can you truly love another human being when you were never taught to love yourself?  I aim to love myself more each day and turn that around and share it with others because that is what we are all called to do.  You want to see God--learn to love like He did!  The problem with the world is that it has been poisoned by hatred.  Any sign of difference serves as fuel for injustice.  God don't like ugly y'all and that means He doesn't like anything that will toxify your heart towards any outpouring of His love.  Have you ever noticed how all it takes to make a mean dog nice is love?  Sadly it takes the same to rehabilitate a mean person.  If you just keep on loving on that person, they will eventually have to see God for themselves and  only He can and will bring about a change in them.  You can't repay evil with evil.  When you look into the mirror, what do you want to see--God, who is love, or the ugly reflection of a person scorned?  Reflect love!

 

"Although you have never seen Christ, you love him. You don't see him now, but you believe in him. You are extremely happy with joy and praise that can hardly be expressed in words"  1 Peter 1:8

Daily Devotion #3

In The Quiet

"This is what the Almighty LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: You can be saved by returning to me. You can have rest. You can be strong by being quiet and by trusting me. But you don't want that."  Isaiah 30:15 GWT

I don't know about you, but I go to bed in complete darkness and quiet.  Why you say, I don't really know lol and maybe this has not a single bit of relevancy in the title haha.  But I do know that God calls out to us.  I do know that if we just be quiet sometimes, we can actually hear His voice.  We can hear the plan He has to deliver us and we can bask in His glory.  We can get our breakthrough at those quiet times at night.  God can reveal and make things plain that we would otherwise not see or hear. 

 

In the verse above, God is speaking through Isaiah to the children of Israel.  If only they would have turned from evil and been obedient to God's voice, what they could have avoided!  If they would have been quiet and trusted the same God that delivered them from the hands of Pharaoh, the same God that fed them every night with the bread of heaven and quenched their thirst from a rock.  Sometimes...all it takes is for us to be quiet and reflect on God's greatness and the things He has done in our lives.  If we would only think on the blessings we have!  I admit, I had to do that today because I had been thinking of all the reasons why I shouldn't do something.  But then I remembered who I am in Christ and what God continues to do for me every single day...all of that in a moment of quiet time.  It is in our quiet praise and worship, in the quiet times of reading and meditating on the Word that God can show us the way.  Think about it, can you really hear God with a lot of foolishness going on around you?  Can you really hear His voice?  Or do you even want to?  I had today off, and did not do a single solitary thing other than catch up on my reading and spend time with God today.  And I feel better than I have felt in a long time.  No worries and no cares, all because I got quiet.  So start getting quiet, set aside time first thing in the morning and in the evening to spend with God, read the Word, listen to praise and worship music so that you can get a word from God.  In quietness and confidence is your strength...why, because in quietness you can gain the confidence through a divine revelation from God.

 

"This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it."  Isaiah 30:15 NLT

Daily Devotion #2

Birth Your Gifts

 

"Let love be your highest goal! But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives--especially the ability to prophesy."  1 Corinthians 14:1

 

God has given each of us as believers special gifts and talents.  I know some of my gifts.  Because of my personal life experiences I can relate to people and give them an encouraging word or advice.  But that was not something that I wanted to do or asked God for.  I asked God to tell me what He wanted me to do and that I would do it, and sure enough, I received the recognition of His gifts and talents within my life...things that He wanted me to use to bring glory to His name. 

 

Sometimes life causes us to experience what is similar to childbirth.  The trials I have had thus far have cause me great pain, with some still hurting.  But in the midst of that, God has allowed me to birth being able to minister to many different people.  You see, we are as different as night and day sometimes, yet just alike.  We all experience trials and tribulations--that's LIFE people.  Life is not always easy. In those situations, God calls us closer to Him.  He wants to use us, if we are willing.  In 1 Corinthians 12:1, Paul calls away from being ignorant about spiritual gifts--because each of us have a purpose in the kingdom.  We are all a part of the body of Christ with a unique purpose and plan that we are to fulfill.  Walk forward in whatever God is calling you to, birth your gifts even if it hurts because it is all for God's glory.  Remember physical difficulty and mental suffering is only a temporary thing when you are in the will of God because we have a greater reward awaiting us!

 

"By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence."  2 Peter 1:3

Daily Devotion

Lest We Forget

 

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."  Ephesians 2:8-9

 

Hi everyone!

 

I've been getting a swift kick--dose of reality--lately for not being obedient to what I have been called to do.  But thank God for Jesus that He forgives me!  God knows that I will fall and He has definitely picked me back up time after time.  I was thinking today of all the times God has literally saved my life.  Most of you only know about my kidney transplant--but God has kept me from the grasp of the enemy many times before and after that.  As the scripture above says, it has been through the grace of God that I am alive.  I have had my spirit man murdered and revived, my soul and intellect assassinated, and experienced many a near-death situation.  But if it had not been for the grace of God--as the Amplified version puts it, that unmerited favor upon my life, I am sure I would not be here.

 

I think about this today because recently in the lives of those close to me and my own life, there have been many losses of life.  For me, this last year has been tumultous, with the death of my cousin to kick it off, following with the decline in health and passing of my daddy, to the death of my cousin's fiance', to now my mom's best friend and my aunt.  I recognized that God is a just God and I do not question His plan.  But instead, these things cause a reflection and remind me of all the blessings, the grace and mercy that He has shown to me.  Even when I don't deserve it, God has favored me.  I say this today because we live in a difficult world, where things closely mirror the wickedness illustrated in the times of Noah, where it is unrealistic to reach out to your brother or your sister and get love from them.  But lest we forget those personal struggles that God has delivered us from, lest we forget how we survived days, weeks, months, even years for some without ever having to want for anything.  Lest we forget, that ultimate sacrifice, the one that assures that we will see His glory someday.  I know after having a successful--wait, miraculous--kidney transplant, having survived near car crashes, near plane crashes, misdiagnoses, discouragement and doubt--I know that is nothing but God's grace; it is only His favor that keeps me going and covered in the midst of so much that hopes to see my failure.  Nothing that I have done can earn that grace; it is truly a gift!  Just as is being alive to live another day.

 

Remember who sits on the throne and don't forget what God has done for you.  You could so easily not be here tomorrow.

 

"So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it."  Romans 9:16

--
"No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of God and their righteousness is of me," says the Lord.  Isaiah 54:17