Month: September 2016

Mornings arrive with an agenda. Nearly every day of my life contains entries into the schedule. Some entries I have chosen and others were chosen on my behalf.  With that, some days can overwhelm my heart before my feet hit the floor.

I was on my bed in the dark, late night hours, attempting to go to sleep last night. Instead, my mind wandered around in next week.  (I’m not discounting the fact that I may have been caffeinated from a glass of tea in the early afternoon. Still, I was WIDE AWAKE at 1:00 a.m.)  As I pondered the upcoming days, I began to anticipate some calendared items eagerly, while others made me anxious.

You need to understand, I am not a worrier.  In fact, I’m probably a little on the PollyAnna side; energized by people, and happily look forward to pending events, meetings, etc., but last night’s thoughts were different.

For whatever reason, as I was considering this coming week, my heart began to be overwhelmed by the content of my schedule. I knew I could not let my mind stay there and had to return to the present. So, I pulled out the Divine WMD.

You guessed it.  I began to pray.

Prayer is a WMD!

This weapon of mass destruction has the DIVINE POWER to tear down strongholds, overpower faulty human reasoning, and destroy false arguments.  That means prayer can demolish fortresses of the enemy!! Prayer cuts through the imaginations concocted from fear and abolishes the arguments that only make sense in the darkness of our minds.

I knew I had to take trepidatious thoughts captive, to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

My mind moved to thoughts toward the Lord and His kindness and unfailing love.  I began to thank Him for His mercy and grace.  I praised Him for His power in my life and for all He is doing in me, through me, and for me.  As soon as the words began to reach my lips, that sweet river of peace flowed over me and I began to float along the current that led me into rest.

In my time of prayer last night, and again this morning, I was overwhelmed by the greatness of Almighty GOD.   That although HE is GREAT, HE cares for the minutiae of my life.  HE instructs me, then strengthens me to follow through and carry out the tiniest of these details.

When I consider how marvelous HE truly is, my frustration about the temporal is completely removed and my heart is stirred to consider GOD and GOD only.  Because of WHO HE IS, HE is WORTHY of ALL our worship and praise.

Consider these words from Job about God: “He stretches out the northern skies over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.” (26:7, HCSB)

JEHOVAH GOD does not require support nor affirmation. HE is all the support we need.

 

Some days are like a beautifully tailored suit. They are like a smart blend of silk and worsted wool and lined smoothly like fine satin. They fasten and fit perfectly, remain pressed, and show no worse for wear. Other days simply come from together. The seams begin to unravel and piece by piece it frays away and soon we are pinning together the ragged edges of scraps from our day.

Despair. The morning dressed in radiant promise seems to have deceived us. We found ourselves zig-zagging through a day filled with lost buttons, weak thread, dull needles, and a broken zipper.

Immediately the enemy of our soul attempts to steer us against the grain and off the bias toward the fold of defeat and frustration. Our emotions on edge seem all too eager to allow our tired mind follow those loosely basted thoughts.

But God …

God, through His ever present Holy Spirit reminds us to look to Him. He reveals to us we are His workmanship and as we face the challenges of each day, He is weaving into us His own character. Our life fabric is being reinforced with the strong cords and glistening threads of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22).

When we lay our head down at night, we must ask God to help us pick up the torn and frayed scraps of our day and lay them at His feet.  He will. In fact, He told us to place our burdens on Him because He cares about us. (1 Peter 5:7) When we entrust those burdens to Him, we awaken at each tomorrow finding the opportunity to begin with a new and WHOLE day.  Yesterday’s sorrows are a memory and are not required to define how we approach today.

No matter the depth of our grief, sorrow, sadness, despair or the shallowness of our frustrations and agitations, God’s love, strength, kindness and compassion run deeper. Our Creator will always take us through the circumstance to the other side so we might begin fresh and renewed in Him.

We close each evening and greet each sunrise knowing this truth from Lamentations 3:22-25.

“The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him. ”

The key here is to seek Him.  Look to God in Christ and you will find Him.  It’s a promise from God Almighty and He always keeps His promises.

Words can carry a load of heaviness or float the recipient to a new realm with their encouraging lilt.

Our words begin with our thoughts. So feeding our thoughts is where it all begins.  When we feed our minds with right thoughts, subsequent speech is filled with encouragement and life.

The apostle Paul taught in his letter to the Ephesians that our language should always be that which brings encouragement to the listener. He stated we are not to use unwholesome words.  In fact, the Amplified Bible puts it like this,

“Do not let unwholesome [foul, profane, worthless, vulgar] words ever come out of your mouth…” (Eph 4:29)

This is a very clear message.  We are never to use speech that pollutes the air.

In our society, we are inundated with unwholesome speech. Until the 1980s there was no profanity allowed on the airwaves.  In fact, there were (and still are) laws in place prohibiting the use of such speech in public.  I’m not sure we could ever enforce those laws again.

There are words now used publicly, even in church services, which were once considered vulgar and would have led one to trouble. They still are vulgar but have lost their punch because of their common use.

I have a couple of words which are my pet peeves, as I’m sure we all do. I believe it is unfortunate the use of these words has become so widespread in Christian circles. In all honesty, I think many Christians have no idea of the origin of these expressions and sincerely don’t realize what they are actually saying. Others most certainly know and simply consider their life as being “under grace” and it’s all good.  However, the Bible is very clear that we will be held accountable for the words we speak. EVERY. IDLE. WORD.

Sobering, right?  Those of us who are born again will stand before the judgement seat of Christ. We will be JUDGED. Yep, that’s what it says, JUDGED, by the works we do and the words we speak after we become Christians.

So, how are we supposed to talk?

Let’s look at the remainder of the verse from Ephesians.

“… but only such speech as is good for building up others, according to the need and the occasion, so that it will be a blessing to those who hear [you speak].”

This teaches we are to only use our words to encourage others. We are to use every occasion, even a reprimand, to bless the listener.  That means we can even correct someone (employee, child, etc.), with the right words and we will not make an enemy of them.

Paul also teaches us how to have right thoughts that lead to right words.  In his letter to the Philippians he says to fix our minds on things that are true & pure, honorable, noble, lovely, peaceful, admirable, reputable & excellent.  When we fill ourselves with these thoughts, our speech will be filled with the same.  This is reinforced in Matthew 12 when Jesus quotes from Proverbs 4, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Our challenge: Do we fill our minds with the right things? Do we then use our words to encourage, help, and bring LIFE to others?

 

In case you have not noticed, it is election year (smile). The United States has the world talking about something important, LEADERSHIP.

LEADERSHIP is a big word, not because it has ten letters, but because it is weighty.

Although a certain position may require its holder to have authority over others, leadership is much more than a held position or title. Leadership requires wisdom to first lead one’s self, then bring others along for the journey. Leadership is influence and one of the most influential leaders ever to live is Jesus Christ.

Pause on that for a moment.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus taught us about leadership.

A leader has a mission to move from where they are to a desired destination, the fulfillment of their vision. That leader is taking himself or herself to that place and influencing others to come along with them.

Jesus knew His mission. His journey on this earth was to reveal the love of God for all people by sacrificing Himself to be the Savior of all mankind.

Jesus fulfilled His mission in steps.

Jesus first left the comfort of His home, the familiar. Along His journey He selected twelve people He would mentor and become His inner circle. He revealed His identity as the Son of God, the Messiah. His twelve disciples followed their leader and learned from Him, gleaning knowledge, wisdom, and understanding about Jesus and His teachings. They took everything they learned back to their respective communities and began to influence others to follow them in the pursuit of being like Jesus.

If we are to influence others to come along with us, like Jesus, we first must have a vision or destination in mind. Knowing where we are going, we use our past experiences–positive and negative–as lessons for moving into our destiny.  In this, we must take the lessons and leave the rest because we cannot move forward while hanging on to what was or where we are.

Next, we must choose our comrades wisely.  Selecting whom to bring along this journey includes only those who desire to join forces with us and go all the way to the fulfillment of the mission.

Seeking knowledge, wisdom and understanding from the Lord is essential. Leaders must ask, “What kind of influence do I have?” “Am I influencing people in a positive way?” “Am I leading them to a positive result?”Selecting our path requires wisdom in order to influence and lead others in the right direction. So while they are walking with us toward our success, we are leading them on a path enabling them to achieve their own success.

Jesus spoke to His disciples in a way that would give them true understanding. Our words disclose what is in our heart, revealing what influences us. Leaders feed themselves on what will build up and encourage themselves and others in the work they want to accomplish. We need to be keenly aware of what we feed our souls through our eyes and ears. What I allow to influence me is what I will speak into other people and how I will influence them.

LEADERSHIP connects people to their potential, in Christ, to reach their divine purpose. True LEADERSHIP helps people make the VineSweet Connection and connect to a fruitful life.