Know who you are in Christ Jesus Pt. 1

How important is it to know who you are in Christ Jesus? It is of great importance for each of us to realize and understand our place in Christ so that the enemy cannot enslave us. Not knowing who we are as a child of God makes us vulnerable to the tricks and schemes of the devil. Deception enslaves and places shackles on God's people. The only way to know who you are in Christ is to know His Word and to understand what is the lie and what is the Truth! Our worth is not in and of ourselves but who we are in Him. Our true identity is who our Creator created us to be. Our Creator knows each of us intimately and desires us to know Him intimately. Our Heavenly Father who created us and knew us before the foundations of the world loves us very much. His desires for us are for our good and not our harm, to give us a hope and a future. He desires for us to know His love, joy and peace in our lives as well as His freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom! Whom the Son sets free is free indeed! May your joy be full just as mine is, said Jesus. We must each be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and the only way this is possible is to know who we are in the eyes of Christ!

What does God's Word say about us and Himself and who we are in Him? Here is a few things: I did not give you a spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid for in this world there will be troubles but I have overcome the world. I will never leave you nor forsake you, I am with you always even until the very end and then I am still with you. I have come to heal the broken hearted and set at liberty those who are held captive. I am the Great Good Shepherd and my sheep hear my voice, and I call them by name and they follow me.

The question is, are you following Jesus "the great good Shepherd?" Is He truly the Shepherd of your life? If He is, then you will know the freedom and joy of being lead by Him. No fear, no bondage,  peace in the midst of troubles, and the fullness of His joy in your life despite circumstances. The comfort of His Holy Spirit will always be with you, tending to your every need. His love always washing over you bringing refreshing to your soul as you eat in green pastures and drink from the still waters. He is your bread of life and the water that causes you to never thirst again. Jesus our Shepherd never leaves us with feelings of helplessness, hopelessness or vulnerability. There is no condemnation in Him but only saving grace and mercy offered to all who call upon His name and follow Him. He loves us with an Everlasting Love and draws us with His Loving Kindness! Even when our Shepherd must chastise us, it is not done as to cause us to cower in fear of Him for being disobedient. His chastising is done in love as to refine, purify and protect us (His Lambs and Sheep). A Good Shepherd has been known to break a leg of a straying lamb with His Shepherd's hook as to keep a lamb from continually going astray, then the good Shepherd will bind up His lamb's leg and carry him upon His shoulders until the lamb's leg is healed. The bond that grows during this time between the straying lamb and the Shepherd is a loving bond that can never be broken.

The Good Shepherd will leave the 99 in a safe place together while He searches for the straying lamb. Isn't it amazing that the majority (the 99) stay close to the Shepherd but there seems to be the one who always wanders, thus continually placing himself in harms way, where it can be devoured by a predator/the enemy? The wandering lamb may be deceived in thinking that the pastures may look greener on the other side but when they get there they find it was just an illusion. Could it be that, that "one" may not know who they are in the eyes of Christ Jesus/their Great Good Shepherd? Could it be that this wandering lamb/sheep who sabotages his life and places his worth in the abusiveness of the enemy enslaving himself to fear and bondage not know who they are in Christ Jesus?

To be continued....

"Self Saboteurs"

When I began this blog I wanted it to be a place where people could come and be encouraged and find hope and peace that is so desperately needed in this day and time. My desire, is that readers would leave this place inspired as well as equipped to reach out and take the hand of Jesus. To be lifted up out of the miry pit, to keep moving forward despite the storms of life. This is still my intention. I will continue this by the power of the Holy Spirit always striving to be uplifting in the words that I write in hopes that "if possible" lives can be changed. It has been a couple of years now since I began blogging and while on my journey, I am discovering that the Lord would have me to ask more questions. The explaining and expounding with encouraging words has it's place, but for a person to really learn there should be questions asked so as they can think on their own? So, coupled with uplifting words I am going to begin to ask more questions. I feel this is the direction that the Lord is leading me, so I'm going with it. Not only will this benefit you the reader to get you thinking, but it will also benefit and grow me. I never want to get to the place where I feel as though all wisdom will die with me and that I have all the answers. My desire is to remain teachable and to learn from what others have to say. Will I always agree? No, probably not, but that's okay because this is how we learn and grow as well as fine tune our beliefs when it comes to the Word of God.

So, before I present a question I have some thoughts that I would like to lay on the table.

It seems to me that in today's society I am seeing more "saboteurs of self." Those who seem to continually place themselves in harm's way. They make decisions and hold onto attitudes that are self-destructive which is not for their good. What's so frustrating about this, is that all the while they are clinging to their self-destructive ways, they know better. Yet they continue on this insane cycle of destruction. Which will undoubtedly lead them to more heartache and pain in their lives. These same people will come to you for help, counsel/advice or whatever but when you give them a ladder so as to climb up out of their miry pit they refuse to take the first step in climbing to their freedom. To be honest I have found myself somewhat frustrated with people who do this. I continue with every ounce of myself to remain encouraging. But eventually, in the end all I can do is just pray for them in hopes that they will begin to climb the ladders that have been placed all around them. Beginning their own journey to freedom, and arising to be a victor and not a victim. I can love them and cheer them to victory the best way that I know. But before they can arise victorious they have got to "want" freedom for themselves. My passionate desire has always been that people will know who they are in Christ Jesus. Pulling from His strength and power from within to be an overcomer. I hope that I am not sounding insensitive. I understand that people have been through some major storms in their lives. Some a lot worse then I have ever been through or will ever be. One thing I do know is that God is greater than any storm, and more powerful. When one finally realizes the power of God and His strength for their lives I believe that they can overcome and conquer anything. There are many testimonies from people that have gone through some mighty storms in their life but they made it. They are stronger today because of it. My husband is one of them. I am not going to go into the details of his storm but believe me when I say that he has overcome some major storms with the grace, power and strength of God in His life. My husband is a man that has never given up hope, despite the power of the storm, and I thank God and give Him all the glory for this and so does my husband.

It's now time for the question. Please give me your thoughts.

(1) Why do some continue to stay in a miry pit of defeat and or destructive behavior, when they have been given the answer on how to get out?

Have you ever been snared?

Have you ever found yourself suddenly snared in life, and your thinking "how did this happen?" You were walking along minding your own business, praising and glorifying God, then bam out of no where you have been snared. How could this happen? Why did this happen? How am I going to get out of this situation? Fight or flight mode kicks in but you flee because you have been caged in, so you choose fight. Thinking... this contraption is a net, I have my pocket knife handy so I will cut my way out of this thing.. SOOo you begin cutting away at the fibers of your cage not even taking into consideration the fact that you are 20 feet in the air and when you cut yourself free the only option is falling to the hard ground below. The only thing your thinking about right now is, "I want to be FREE"! "I am going to be free... Yeah! freedom.... Freedom!!! Yes! I am finally free! Now you are screaming cause the reality of the situation is that you are rapidly falling 20ft. thinking.... UH OH! this is going to hurt! Your free alright, but now your broken and in a lot of pain, and to recover from your injuries it is going to take 1 year of therapy and hopefully no longer.

Therapy is good, this is the time you begin thinking about some things, and what you could of done differently. (Thinking now...) Maybe if I wouldn't of panic and stayed calm I could of escaped that snare without injury? Maybe I should of prayed? Maybe I should of trusted God to send someone to set me free? Maybe I should of asked God how to escape from this thing? Maybe God Himself would of delivered me? Doesn't His Word say that  (talking and answering self now). How come I didn't trust God to rescue me?......How stupid could I be? I was praising and glorifying God while strolling along in life, so how come when I found myself snared I turned off the praise and prayer and took matters into my own hands? Why do I feel as though it's always up to me to fix things? Why do I say to myself if it's going to be it's up to me? Why do I find myself always trying to control things? Why do I trust myself before trusting God? This attitude of mine has always been no good. All it has ever done and all it will continue to do is bring me a lot of pain and heartache. If I would only learn this time and never do this again? Yes! that is it, I believe that I have finally learned this time and next time if there is a next time hopefully there won't be, but.... if there is

"I WILL TRUST YOU GOD!"

His peaceful freedom!

Life can be hard and very cruel at times. But we can take heart and know that God does care about our trust and peace remaining in Him in the midst of the storm.

With God's peace in our lives comes ultimate freedom. Peace of mind, a sound mind, and contentment; this is the BIG one people. Without His peace in our lives we would be totally miserable and in constant turmoil. (Is. 26:3 KJV) Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

The word perfect in this scripture means complete. No matter what has happened or what is happening or what might happen you can have complete peace. Why? Because you have placed your trust in the Lord. Now this is true FREEDOM. The battle that might be raging in your thoughts or in your life right now needs to be told to BE STILL.

Ask yourself; am I trusting God with this or not? Obtaining peace is simply trusting God. Are we going to trust God or lean upon our own understanding of things? This is our decision, we have been given a free will by God to make the choice to trust Him or not. This takes a renewing of our mind which will then bring about a transformation.

Here is what the Word of God says; (Rom. 12:2 Amp.) Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

Let go and abandon yourself to God so that you can experience His peaceful freedom in your life. The world around you might look bleak, but you can have peace and be free despite it when you make the decision to trust the Lord in and for your life.

Rejoice in His Grace!

Rejoice in His Grace for it has been freely given to you: We are free to live in God's Grace (His unmerited favor). (Eph. 2:8-9 N.L.T.) God saved us by His special unmerited favor when we believed. And we can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. Have you heard the term; that there is nothing we can do to make God love us any more or any less? Knowing this, why do so many constantly try to prove themselves worthy of God's love. A lot of people have been conditioned for so many years to believe that if they are ever going to have anything they are going to have to earn it. After all nothing is free, right? It's hard for most to comprehend Grace because they are trying to understand it in the natural. It will never be naturally understood though. As long as we are trying to put it on an intellectual level we will never grasp it. It is only by faith that we can acquire this beautiful revelation of Grace and what it truly means. Grasping it can be the difference between life and death spiritually and sometimes even physically speaking.

For example let's take a look at the person that sees everything in a legalistic kind of way. They pull out their legal list and check mark all the religious conditions that their doctrine has expected them to follow. Here are some examples, for the woman, she must never cut her hair. For the man, he must always cut his hair but have no facial hair. For some, you must say this prayer for that sin three times a day before your sin will be forgiven. If you don't attend church every time the doors are open then you really don't love Jesus. You must be busy working for the church at all times to be considered a worthy child of God. And the list can go on and on. By the time they get through their legal list day after day they can be so mentally and physically exhausted that they can literally become weakened in their bodies and discouraged in their spirit because they still feel they are just not doing enough to earn their love and acceptance from God. Some truly believe that this is a sign of their holiness and or right living, and to be truly saved you must look like this and abide by all these rules. They will even try to convince and lay this burden upon others. Some will tell you, that if you want to be a true witness of your salvation than you must fulfill all these precepts that we have. You must dress like this, don't wear that. Don't clap in the church, you can't say amen.
Have you received the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Having begun in the Spirit why are you now trying to become perfect by the flesh? Many are living in this pit of painful obligation and works. They feel as though they are required to do this or not to do that as to be pleasing to God. All the while the bands are being snapped on and they are being held captive in a prison of deception. We must not allow this to be our identity in Christ Jesus, because this only nullifies the cross of Jesus and exalts the religious laws of man. Freely God has given you this gift of salvation by Grace through the cross of His Son Jesus Christ. It is His gift that He is offering you. No strings attached. May we not grieve our Heavenly Father by telling Him thanks but no thanks I'll do it on my own. Or may we not say to our Father, "here let me pay You for your gift to me, because I must pay for such a gift before I can receive it, because after all I am not worthy of it." If we were worthy then we wouldn't need His gift of Grace, right? This is why we must freely receive God's gift of Grace for us, because in doing so we are acknowledging that despite our unworthiness we can humbly receive and be ever so grateful for Jesus and His death on the cross for us. This is humility in all of it's beauty.

Receive God's gift of Grace and know freedom and rejoicing in your life in Christ Jesus!

I Called and Grace Came

I can't seem to get away from His Grace. Maybe it is because God has been so very gracious to me and I am so very thankful to Him for this.

When I should of been dead I Called and Grace Came and I found that He had kept me alive.

When I felt so alone and rejected I Called and Grace Came and I found that He would never leave me nor forsake me.

When I felt so ashamed and full of guilt I Called and Grace Came and I found that He had forgiven me.

When I should have been in prison I Called and Grace Came and I found that He had set me free.

When I didn't know which way to go I Called and Grace Came and I found that He was leading me.

When I was ready to give up I Called and Grace came and I found that He had strengthened me.

When it seemed that all hope was loss I Called and Grace Came and I found that He rescued me.

I am so thankful to God for His Grace. It has caused me to have an intimate relationship of communion with Him which is first and foremost in my life, but it doesn't stop there. God/Jesus has been our example of how we are to treat others. What I have learned is that I can never expect God to expand my territory as to be an honorable vessel for Him and for His Glory if I cannot be faithful in showing His Love, Mercy, Grace and Forgiveness to others. It is all about our relationship with Him as well as our relationships with others! Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart soul mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two laws hangs all the laws. If we can't get these two right than we can't expect God to entrust us with anything. Love, Grace, Mercy and forgiveness are all verbs they come with action. Jesus showed His love, Grace, Mercy and forgiveness by stepping up and taking our place.

Love reaches

Grace gives

Mercy replaces

Forgiveness brings communion

Ask yourself: Am I giving Love, Grace, Mercy and Forgiveness to others as God has given to me?

Freedom to Freedom!

May we open up the prison doors of our heart and set those we hold captive free!

When we do this, we will then know true freedom for our own life as well.

Physically speaking a prisoner is held captive until he pays his debt in full. Spiritually speaking we can try and hold someone captive behind the prison doors of our heart until they pay us what we believe they owe us. And we will refuse to open those prison doors and release them until they do just that. We offer them no mercy and grace, and thus no forgiveness. We are hurting no one but ourselves when we do this. We may think that we have the power over the one that we are trying to spiritually hold captive, by continually making demands of them, and not being satisfied until they give us what we think they owe us. This will not work, because we all have been given free wills. This is why I say that we are only hurting ourselves. It is like beating our head against a brick wall. Spiritually speaking, when we try to hold someone captive by holding unforgiveness in our heart toward them, we are only holding our self captive. We are not hurting them, they are free and living life. They might regret not being able to have a relationship with us because of our unforgiveness, but other than that, we are the one in turmoil, because we are the one demanding a payment from them, which we honestly believe is a worthy and just payment, and we will not be happy until they have paid the payment in full. Sadly, when we do this, we neglect the lessons of mercy and grace, and we cause our self a lot of unnecessary grief.

Grace is unmerited favor and mercy is a disposition to be kind and forgiving despite the fact that we might think the offender in our opinion is worthy of our justice. Grace and mercy was never intended to be earned they were freely given to us by our Father in heaven when His beloved Son Jesus (our Savior and Lord) took our place on that cross. He died for us while we were yet in our sin.

Don't misunderstand me, we all must use wisdom. For example a person who abuses his wife and will not change his behavior (no efforts in going in a new direction) and has every intention to continue abusing her, should not be shown mercy and grace as to be allowed back into her presence. She should still offer him grace and mercy and forgive him, but to allow him back in her life would be a foolish thing for her to do.

What is it that stops some of us from giving mercy, grace and forgiveness to those who are trying to make a difference though? Here's some things to think about: 

It's pretty easy for us to forgive and forget about the complete stranger who flips us the bird on the highway as he is cutting us off and almost causing an accident. Usually before the day has ended we have forgotten about it and think no more of it. We never even considered the possibility of harboring that stranger and his actions in our heart for any length of time. But when it comes to a friend, a loved one or even an acquaintance we will hold onto that offense and harbor it in our heart. We will rehash it and play it over and over in our minds. We shut the door of our heart and try to spiritually lock that person and his hurts up nice and tight on the inside of us, and we hold onto him and his offenses until they give us what we want, and or what we feel we deserve. We neglect to remember that we are only human, and a lot of times the way we see things are in parts and not the whole picture. But even so, shouldn't we let the person who we care about go free just as we would the stranger. We say it is easy to let the stranger go free, because after all there are no feelings of genuine care or love for him.

This is a question that I present: "Because there are feelings of true genuine care and love for the friend, loved one or acquaintance, shouldn't that be all the more reason to let them go free whether we think they have paid their debt in full or not?" Besides that, what if there is a possibility that it's not as clear cut as you might see or think it is? That is just something to think about. Selah.....

Allow me to explain what I am saying. God is the only one that holds the whole truth, the honest truth and nothing but the truth. When God revealed this to me, I was set free from offenses and hurt. I also was able to spiritually set free those who I held captive in my heart. Within myself I offered them mercy, grace and forgiveness and they didn't even have to ask for it. Instead of living in hurt and only offering hurt to others I began living with joy and offering joy. God's power of forgiveness washed over me and His peace came into my life and I was finally set free. This was for my own sake and benefit and for my own spiritual and physical well being.

See, I had my truth and the way I seen things, and the others (whom I had locked up in the prison of my heart who had offended me) they had their truth and the way they seen things. But it was God who held the fullness of Truth, and that was what mattered to me and gave me peace. For you see, God is a just and righteous God and He is all knowing. God is merciful, gracious, loving and forgiving. And for me to know that God held the whole Truth brought great peace and freedom into my life. God revealed to me, that everyone had their own perspective of the situation and how they seen it. I was able to accept this and be content with that. Thus I was able to offer grace and forgiveness to the situation and to everyone involved.

My God forgave me my debt and I must forgive others their debt. If I don't, the Master will hand me over to the tormentors to be tormented (Mt. 18: 22-35). This could mean emotional, physical or even spiritual torment. Being forgiven and forgiving others has set me free, and whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Thank you Father God!

I can entrust my heart in the hands of my Heavenly Father because I know that His judgements are pure and righteous toward me. And you can entrust your heart with Him as well. He knows you and sees you more intimately than anyone else ever will be able too. He is your Heavenly Daddy, He created you and breathed life into you. You can rest in Him!