Daily Devotion # 2

The Not-So Innocent Bystander

 

"But you have desired the truth and you have shown me the hidden things of your wisdom."  Psalm 51:6

 

I wonder why it is so easy for some of us to lie to ourselves.  As a former victim, now victor!, I understand all too well how you can get caught up in the things that are happening to you, seemingly without your consent.  Life will throw curve balls, screwballs, and line drives at you and can catch you unprepared.  As each circumstance threatens to wither away at your faith, you stand and just allow it to happen, not intervening on your own behalf.  I call out to you right now to stop standing there as if you cannot do anything about things.  Recognize whose you are and call out to God in faith to change you from a bystander that has nothing to protect him or herself and into the mighty man or woman of God He is calling you to be.

 

Stop acting as if the world is out to get you.  Okay, lets be real, it is--the enemy is using the ways of the world, your weaknesses and fleshly desires to turn you away from God.  But its not like you cannot do anything about it.  You can pray--which is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal.  No matter how things may look to you on the surface, your prayers are being heard, your prayers are being answered.  They may not be the answers you want, but they are there if you are looking for them.  Stop acting as if everyone is against you...because that is not true!  Even if the whole world is against you--which it isn't, God has placed some people along the way to help you, if you are looking--God is for you!  And as the Good Book says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?" Romans 8:31 (NASB). 

 

I ask you to be real with yourself and see things as they are: you are not that innocent.  We all have a part in our mess.  Yep, I had a part in my bad relationship choices, I had a part in my health (as much as I would like to believe otherwise), I had a part in everything (well, as far as my adult years are concerned).  You had a part in picking that wrong guy, you had a part in picking that wrong job...whatever.  Its not like there were no signs and be honest with yourself by looking back.  God has shown you the truth; it is more so whether you are willing to look at it for what it is.  God wants us to be real with ourselves, and that starts by looking within and seeing things for what they are.  Life is not a drive-by shooting that you are just standing by...if anything sometimes you load the gun and shoot yourself.  Stop living like this and ask God for His divine wisdom and then ask yourself what is in your control, what can you change.   You are not an innocent bystander!

 

"If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking."  James 1:5 NLT

 

 

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"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
http://lifeinspiredbygod.blogspot.com/

Daily Devotion

Wrong Side of the Bed

 

Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.  Psalm 50:15

 

Good morning!  I hope that yours has begun much better than my own has.  Ever since the smoke detector went off at 5:30 this morning, I've been angry.  I mean it woke me up in the best part of my sleep...mind you I was supposed to be waking up around that time anyway.  I turned my heat on last night in anticipation of the temperature drop down here.  I knew it would be chilly this morning so I went ahead and turned it on, and ignorantly to me, it would start smoking when it started.  So then when I finally woke up later around 6:30, I was irritated.  Then my yorkie Parker was insistent on staying under my bed even though he is banned from my room lol...when I finally left the house there is traffic, then I make it to the highway only to have more traffic, then I make a detour to try and beat the traffic only to experience the jarring halt of a TRAIN!  So I'm sure you can imagine my intense distress.

 

So finally I broke down and had only a mini-pity party because I immediately realized, thanks God, what the enemy tried to do to me today.  I hadn't really prayed, I mean I spoke to God in anger of the things that were going on this morning.  But I had not thanked the God that woke me up this morning, the God that allowed my body to function to its proper intent, the God that allowed me to get to work safely without harm, the God who is the lover of my soul.  I had not prayed!  I know we all have those days when everything from the start seem to go wrong.  Some things that seem to be outside of your control and without sympathy--we all experience them.  Good and bad, saved and unsaved, we all have them.  But the beauty of this is that as a believer, if I am in tuned with my Guide, we can quickly readjust.  The Holy Spirit will provide you the tools to tune yourself up and get you back in the right place.

 

For me this morning, it took listening to Smokie Norful's 'I Need You Now'...because I desperately needed God to come and touch me in my weakness.  I had to listen to Kirk Franklin's 'Hold Me Now' because in the state I was in, I needed God right then and there.  I needed Him to hug me and tell me it was okay to have those feelings.  God loves us so much that He gave us His Spirit to re-center us when our center of gravity turns us into depraved headhunters.  I'm sure if I had not prayed, had not listened and cried out for God's help, somebody would have gotten hurt or told off this morning.  But I can truly say THANK YOU LORD because He is always there to hear my cry and start me over on the right side.

 

"He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them."  Psalm 145:19

Daily Devotion #2

Pushed to the Limit

"Get out of here, Satan," Jesus told him. "For the Scriptures say, 'You must worship the LORD your God and serve only him.'"  Matthew 4:10 NLT

I hate the hair scrunchies that get stretched out.  Because once you've used them too much, on that last stretch...POP!  And in my case I usually have to scramble to find another one or doctor on that one till I can get another one.  We all get to that place where we have been stretched, pulled, pushed, forced, and pummeled beyond our limits.  I realized last night (Thanks Dad bka God) that once we get fed up, we finally have the guts to do whatever it takes to get out of that situation.  It is at the point of being fed up, the cliffhanger syndrome, that we can have the courage to do whatever part God needs us to do.  That's right--after you have been pushed too far, used too much, trampled on and beat on too many times, you finally have had enough and are willing to do something, albeit anything to make your situation change.

But ask yourself, at that point, have you called on God, or used His word to change your situation?  You see here in the passage above, Jesus had been in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by satan.  So on the last straw, Jesus told satan to get away from Him--using His God-given authority and coupling it with the Word--He trusted and rested in God's promises, submitting all to Him, remaining in God's will for His life even after His resurrection.

Many days during these last few months I have cried tears from anger to my best friends and my mom, and even God.  I have quoted scriptures to myself, which worked to change my mood and mindset for that time frame, but nothing seemed to fully break it.  The enemy has been determined to deter me from this place that God is leading me to...by employing a 'by any means necessary' tactic--stopping me from writing devotions, some days blocking me from reading the devotions I get daily, putting up all sorts of road blocks, even knocking my feet from under me, so to speak.  And I finally had enough last Friday.  I have been pushed too far.  Its time for me to do something.

But in reading, I realized that I had neglected to do one thing.  I had not fully submitted my problems to God.  I had prayed about it, cursed satan, prayed for the people coming against me, employed a 'kill em with kindness' attitude, and even forgave each person.  In reading a devotion from Dr. Charles Stanley, I realized I had allowed my need to control and fix my problems (my problem solver syndrome in overdrive) to block me from fulling giving my issues over to God.  You see, I thanked God for the revelation and asked Him to continue to show me myself, but I had not fully submitted to Him to finish the process.

Once you get fed up, you submit to God.  You recall His Word and promises to you; you pray and pray and pray and pray some more.  You go to church, you link up with other Christians, and you pursue a deeper relationship with God.  But if you are anything like me, you forget to submit to Him.  James 4:7 says "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (NIV)  How could I expect the spawn of all things evil to really leave me alone when I'm still holding on to my problems?  With full hands you cannot grab hold of God's hand.

God told Paul in 2 Cor 12:10 that "And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me."  I was and am still weak but I tried to do God's job rather than letting Him strengthen me in my weakness to get through.  It took me getting fed up, sick and tired of being sick and tired (as the 'seasoned' folks say, lol) to finally open my hands.

I firmly try to live life by the Serenity prayer's first stanza:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

In living my life by this, I acknowledge things that are out of my control, and make an action on the things I can control.  But being in control also means knowing when something is outside of your control, when you have to take it to God.  Its only when you get pushed to the limit that we all cry out to God to fix it.  If we start taking things--scratch that, EVERYTHING, to God and get His will on the way ahead, we can always have the 'Upper' hand.

"we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body."  2 Cor 4:8-10 NASB

Daily Devotion

Devise Your Defense

Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

I know I have not written in a long time, and truthfully it was because my thoughts were on my own situation, and during my hiatus I have been able to draw closer to God.  However, He quickly brought to mind that this is something that I should be doing, because not only does it help me, but I have the fortune of helping others.  I pray that all is well with each of you and that God has been keeping you in the interim.

The scriptures referenced above are most frequently referenced when a pastor does a sermon or series on spiritual warfare.  They do prove most appropriate in that context because it tells you who your true enemy is and how God has equipped you to be a victor.  Lately I have had to realize just who my enemy is.  He has roamed about like a lion, jumping from person to person that unknowingly allowed themselves to be used.  Some close to me and not so close have all played the puppet and it has served as a discouragement to me.  But once I realized that it wasn't the people (rather it was their own sin that made them susceptible to being used by the enemy) but the enemy trying to keep me from my destiny, I had the heart to pray for the people and myself.  See as long as you are focused on what the person did to you and not how you may have played a part in contributing to what they did, you will not be able to see what God wants you to see.  I had to look at each situation in two ways: 1: that the enemy was trying to discourage me but 2: that I had helped to contribute to the situation!  In a defensive strategy, you cannot have any holes or else the other side will break through!

It took me going to God and asking Him to show me myself for me to forgive the people and actually come to a place of prayer for them.  But I had to really see through the people to the devil trying to knock me back to who I used to be.  So in devising your defense, you have to have your best player (Jesus) involved.  You have to know the playbook (the Word--the scriptures to confess and how to use them against your opponent).  You have to know your weaknesses (how you may be contributing to the situations that are happening; what sin have you not acknowledged in your life) and that is where you get your best player to fortify you at.  You must definitely recognize and know your opponent because you aren't fighting against that physical person, but as said above, against principalities and evil rulers in high places (the devil).  Listen to your coach (God) and don't be defeated--because your best player already won!

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."  1 Cor 15:57 KJV