Deu 11:8 Soon you will cross the Jordan River, and if you obey the laws and teachings I’m giving you today, you will be strong enough to conquer the land

Deu 11:9 that the LORD promised your ancestors and their descendants. It’s rich with milk and honey, and you will live there and enjoy it for a long time.

Deu 11:10 It’s better land than you had in Egypt, where you had to struggle just to water your crops.

Deu 11:11 But the hills and valleys in the promised land are watered by rain from heaven,

Deu 11:12 because the LORD your God keeps his eye on this land and takes care of it all year long.

Deu 11:13 The LORD your God commands you to love him and to serve him with all your heart and soul. If you obey him,

Deu 11:14 he will send rain at the right seasons, so you will have more than enough food, wine, and olive oil, and there will be plenty of grass for your cattle. CEV

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During a recent really nice rain (the kind that is light enough the dry ground can soak it up before it gets a chance to run off,) the Holy Spirit showed me an awesome word picture. It was sort of like a light bulb coming on that gave me a clear understanding about the above verses.

God told the Israelites that if they would obey His commands and love and serve Him with all their hearts, He would take care of them by sending the right amount of rain from heaven at just the right time to take care of their needs. The rain they received would be perfect for the crops they were growing and would soak in for maximum benefit and yield.

When we have been in the middle of a drought, I have seen it rain so hard that the ground could not possibly soak up the rain fast enough and the majority of it just ran off to lower ground. If we got three inches, we may have only received the benefit of half the rain because of the run-off.

God wants to send His best spiritual rain into your life so it can always be fertile and open for growing maximum yields of fruit. He never wants the fertile ground of your heart to become dry, hard, rocky, and devoid of life-giving water that keeps it ready to plant a crop at any time.

We as Christians should always keep our mind, heart and ears open to hear the Holy Spirit and walk in obedience to His direction. It is then that the truth can soak in and change us from the inside, to be a powerful and fruit-filled Christian who can do great things for the Kingdom of God.

To “soak truth in” means to meditate and absorb a little at a time. Your mind always wants to rebel at something that is very different from what you know now. It tries to justify what you are doing now as right and the new thing as wrong, with its purpose being to throw you off and make you go in the wrong direction.

Let the word soak in and truly change your life by doing it slowly and surely. We usually wish we could grow and mature much faster than we do, but slowly and surely will always get the job done much better and the growth you have accomplished will last forever.

The Holy Spirit wants your heart to stay fertile and tilled so that it will be very easy for Him to give you direction in a certain area and know that He won’t have to spend days, weeks, or months trying to get you to think about things another way. He never wants you to get stuck in a certain way of doing things and be so stuck that you won’t consider doing them another way.

But…the Holy Spirit will never lead you to do something that is contrary to the Word of God. Even though God works in a much different way than we might think, He would never lead you to do something that is not in alignment with His Word. It might not make sense to you, but it always makes perfect sense to God because He can see the whole picture.

Make the choice now that you will be open to hear God and walk in obedience to what He tells you to do.

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I wish so much that I had realized this much earlier in my Christian life.

It is so easy to look at troubles and trials as really bad things, or think that God is mad with you or punishing you for something. In the book of Job, Job’s friends came to the conclusion that he must have done some horrible sin to be going through such terrible trials.

I am seeing more and more that God does initiate things that are out of our control so we will be put in a position of desperation to trust in Him. When we absolutely can’t do it for ourselves, it is only God who will be thanked, praised, and worshiped for what He has done to miraculously bring about an answer to our problem.

The more you study the Bible and learn about God’s Character, the more you will know you can trust Him with every detail of your life. He will always have something better and more complex in mind than you can ever imagine. He always sees the “big picture” and knows exactly how your part will fit into the piece of the puzzle.

I’m certainly not saying that this is an easy way to live, because you usually can’t physically see how everything will turn out. But the way you respond to God’s call reveals much about who you think He is.
Make the choice right now to walk in obedience to Him even though you may not be able to see the end result beforehand. It will be a magnificent ride!

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I want to have a family likeness to my Heavenly Father so that others will want what I have and see that God wants to do something special in their own life.

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After the death of Gustavus the Great, kind of Sweden, in 1632, the chief statesmen of the country met to decide the future government. Some proposed a republic. Others suggested the vacant throne be offered to the king of Poland. In the midst of the deliberations the Chancellor suddenly rose.

“Let there be no talk of a republic or of a Polish king,” he wrote, “for the Great Gustavus has left an heir, a daughter six years of age.” This was not generally known, and the statement was received with surprise.

“How do we know that this is not a trick of yours?” one inquired. “We have never seen this child; we were not aware that Gustavus had one.”

“Wait a minute,” replied the Chancellor, “and I will show you.” Leaving the room, he returned wth a little girl whom he placed upon the throne where only the rulers of Sweden might sit. The man who had expressed his disbelief pressed forward and gazed intently upon her face.

Then turning to the assembly, he said, “Comrades, I see in this child the features of the Great Gustavus. Look at her nose, her eyes, her chin; she is indeed the daughter of our king.” This was enough. Young as she was, they acclaimed her, “Christina, Queen of Sweden.”

As an heir of God and joint heir of Jesus Christ, you bear the image of our Lord…the family likeness.

As Christians, let’s make sure that we live up to that family likeness by being obedient to God and allowing Him to work in our lives to do a mighty work for His Kingdom.

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I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Paul was a person just like you. He ate, slept, worked, had fellowship with friends, etc. The big difference was that he had come to the point that he wanted God to rule his life instead of only doing things to please himself.

Material things of the world no longer had any real satisfaction for him, and the love of money had lost its hold on him.

He had found that the world could not satisfy him like God could. The more he saw God work in his life, the easier it was to separate himself from the vile things of the world. Paul wanted to be connected with God in every way, and not give his own fleshly desires any roots to develop. More than anything else he wanted to follow God with his whole heart, mind, and strength.

For many years I thought it a very difficult thing to be crucified with Christ. I desired it very much, but it seemed like it was always out of my grasp. It seemed next to impossible to actually be dead to sin and live an everyday life where I worked a job, interacted with people, and did all the everyday activities that took much of my time. I imagined myself as having to live a secluded life with very little interaction with anyone else and just read my Bible and pray all day – in other words not thinking about much else but biblical things.

Naturally, I found that it was impossible to live in that way.

But gradually I found that the more I let the Holy Spirit control my life, the more I could be dead to sin and not let my fleshly desires control me. I found that the things of the world were very boring when compared to what I saw God doing in my life. It is amazing how He can change your heart and mind about something that you previously thought was very important, and make it very unimportant to you.

I certainly cannot say yet that I am completely dead to the world, but the more I am obedient to Christ, the more the world becomes more inadequate to satisfy my deepest needs. I no longer want to do the same things that I thought were so exciting years ago.

Romans 6: 6-11

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Dead to” and “crucified to” were common expressions among the Hebrews, Greeks and Latins.

To die to a thing or person is to be totally separated from or have nothing to do with it or them.

To live to a person or thing is to be wholly given up to and have intimate connection with that person or thing.

Having the old man crucified means that one has no further dealings with him.

We as Christians no longer have to let sin rule over us. We can choose to let the Holy Spirit be our guide and walk in obedience to what He tells us to do. The more we make the choice to do this, the more we will be “crucified to” our old way of doing things and our fleshly thoughts, emotions, and actions will not be able to control us anymore.

Don’t settle for anything less than God completely controlling your life to use as He pleases. I promise, the things of the world will become more and more boring when you start to see the supernatural works of God at work each day before your very eyes.

I know I never want to go back to the way I used to be, and I don’t think you will either once you see God at work in your life.

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Abraham H. Maslow

So many times we try to solve a problem using the same technique or doing the same thing we have always done, knowing that way doesn’t work very well or might not even work at all.

People who are inventors seem to be able to think about things in an “out-of-the-box” way. I don’t know about you, but that isn’t my normal way of thinking. I would rather stay in my comfort zone and try to solve the problem in a way where I can be in control at all times.

But when I only let myself think about a problem in one way, the Holy Spirit does not have the ability to work freely. He has all the resources from God at His disposal and is capable of solving the problem in a supernatural way that may benefit others as well as myself. Things work out much better when I turn the problem over to God first and then trust Him to handle it in the way He chooses.

I am always amazed when I look back and see how everything has worked out.

It is easy to mess things up when you do it your own way; then God has to work through the mess in order to fix the problem, and we wonder why it takes so long to receive an answer. At least I have done that in the past.

Make it a point to give your problems to God as soon as they arise. In the end you will be much less stressed and will have grown in a much stronger walk with God during the process.

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…God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.

I John 4: 18 AMP

There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love’s complete perfection].

Fear – Phobos

To be put in fear, alarm or fright, exceedingly, fear, terror

Love – agape

Affection or benevolence, love feast – the highest kind of love

Perfect – teleios

Complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character). Completeness, of full man, perfect

Casteth – ballo

To throw, more or less violent or intense, arise, cast out, dung lay, lie, pour, send strike throw down

Out – exo

Away, forth, outside of, literally or figuratively

Torment (punishment) – kolas is

Penal infliction, punishment, torment

Perfect – teleioo

To complete, accomplish, consummate, consecrate, finish, fulfill

This definition different from the first perfect

It’s funny how you can read a verse for years and suddenly God opens your eyes to an aspect of it you have never seen before. The Bible speaks of love in several different places, and I always thought of it as being nice to others and trying my best to love them regardless of the way they treated me; but the Bible says that God is love and if we want His blessing on our lives we must truly love others.

Some people just seem unlovable or it makes us totally uncomfortable to be around them. It might seem much easier to stay away because things might get messy if we try to love them enough to help them change their lives instead of just applying a bandaid to the wound.

If we have “no fear in love” we won’t be afraid to go the extra mile in loving another person who doesn’t seem very lovable. Jesus went out of His way to eat with Zaccheus, who was a dreaded tax collector. Everyone disliked him because he gouged them by burdening them down with extra taxes, which made their daily lives extremely hard.

But Jesus knew that it would be well worth it to spend time with Zaccheus, because his heart would be radically changed. Zaccheus eventually more than made it right with everyone he had treated wrongly.

Jesus died on the cross for the most terrible and evil person on earth, and had a huge amount of love for them. He was not afraid to get His hands dirty to try to help even the worst of them, and He was able to do it because of a bold, fearless love that was so great it could change lives.

Jesus could see the heart of others and He knew who was ready for and needed help. He was not afraid to reach out to those people, but He also had God’s power on Him so strongly that those around Him were changed and healed. Many heathen people were changed dramatically because they knew He was genuine and truly had the power they were so looking for to change their lives. They recognized that His teachings were radically different from what they had been hearing from the Pharisees and Saducees. I also repeat this and want you to understand that Jesus knew who would be open to receive help and those are the ones that He spent time with.

The more the Holy Spirit takes control of your life, the more you will be able to discern those people who will be open to change, even if they don’t realize it at first. You will be able to love them with a true love, see them in a different light, and show them Jesus through your actions and deeds toward them. The Holy Spirit can truly change your attitude and heart towards another person if you will let Him.

I John 4: 20-21

But if we say we love God and don’t love each other, we are liars. We cannot see God. So how can we love God, if we don’t love the people we can see? The commandment that God has given us is: Love God and love each other!

Dake’s reference bible says this is the “acid test of a born again experience.”

By no means am I advocating that you should be a doormat for another person to trample on as they would like. Loving with a God kind of love and having the leadership of the Holy Spirit are instrumental in dealing with a person who constantly tries to belittle or take advantage of you.

Jesus knew when a person could be helped and he didn’t just give a handout that would help them on a temporary basis. He gave them something that would last long term to help them become a strong Christian; then they could in turn help others.

If you will follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, you won’t get ” taken” by another person. He will show you exactly how to help them, even though it might not be exactly what they would want.

Doing things in the above way will ensure that you will truly be able to help others, and also ensure that you won’t be taken advantage of so much that you will get burnt out and give up on helping at all.

Instead of turning away from people who are hard to love or be around, ask the Holy Spirit what He desires your actions to be; then let Him change you into a person who can glorify God in every circumstance into which you are placed.

Doing things in this way will keep you from getting “burnt out” on helping others who would only take advantage of you and really don’t want to change.

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And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

Conformed – suschematizo

to fashion alike or put on the form, fashion , or appearance of another

Transformed – Metamorphoo

metamorphoses, change, transfigure, transform

Renewing – anakainosis

Renovation

Prove – dokimazo

To test, literally or figuratively, allow, discern, examine, try

Good – agates

Good in ant sense, benefit, well

Acceptable – euarestos

Fully agreeable, well pleasing

Perfect – teleios

Complete, in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, completeness, of full age

Will of God – thelema

A determination or choice, purpose, decree, inclination, desire

We as Christians should not conform to the patterns and habits of the world, but God wants us to renew our mind and stay in that pattern of renewal on a daily basis. The Bible uses the term “new creature” when referring to one who has asked Jesus into his heart, so it is God’s desire that we be totally renewed from the inside first. He knows once the inside has been renewed it will spill over into our daily actions without us even thinking about it.

It is possible to fool others for awhile by pretending to be someone you are not, but eventually the real person will show through regardless of your best efforts.

If you will let God renew your mind, then you can have lasting change through your actions and interactions with others. They will be able to see that even though you might be having severe problems in certain areas of your life, you now handle it in a completely different way than before.

This is something that only God can do, and others will be able to tell the huge difference He has made in your life.

In the end it will never be easier to just conform to the world and live by its principles, never having any of your own.

So how do you renew your mind? Read, believe, and LIVE (put into daily practice) the principles of the Word of God.

The mind is not renewed by the study of the Word alone. You must practice what it says and let it live in you so much that it becomes a part of you, just like your bones and muscles are woven into the fiber of your very being.

Then when something comes along that shakes you to your very core, your renewed mind will automatically do the right thing immediately instead of the flesh kicking in and trying to overwhelm you with fear, anxiety, hopelessness, or anger.

God truly does have your best interest at heart in every way.

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It does take a lot of energy to pour out your heart to God in prayer because you must get everything out of your mind and concentrate only on Him. Most of us are so busy “doing things” that this is not an easy feat to accomplish.

Many times we think that we don’t have time to pray or read our Bibles, but the truth is we ALWAYS have the time to do what is most important to us. We think that we must be busy all the time to lead a productive life, but many times that is just a way of keeping our minds occupied so that we don’t have to deal with the most important things. AND we have learned to be professionals at staying busy at things that aren’t nearly as productive as we would like to think.

There are thousands of articles that have been written on how to pray, but this one is written from the perspective of getting your life in a position that you can always be open to pray however the Holy Spirit leads you and to be ready to do it at a moment’s notice.

God wants to work through His Children in order to accomplish what He desires. What an awesome thing it is to be chosen by Him and be open to hear Him when he speaks.

Many people will never be able to get past their own selfish thinking enough to walk in obedience to God. You don’t have to watch many advertisements or television shows to get the impression that life is all about “ME” and what I want. It is easy to be compassionate every now and then and go out of your way to help someone, but to do it on a regular basis is not nearly as easy.

Being a great “prayer warrior” does not mean that you have no social life because you choose to lock yourself in your “prayer closet” all day praying. Unless you are old enough to retire, you must either have a job yourself or live with someone who provides you a living. We all have to at least make enough money to buy essentials for our everyday needs.

But I do have good news about how you can be a prayer warrior for the Kingdom of God and still live and function well in this world.

It is God’s desire for you to live to the utmost in your everyday life, and you can do it with an attitude of prayer. Then any time the Holy Spirit lays a person or problem on your heart, you can instantly be to the point where you can pour your heart out to God.

You can’t always go to a place of solitude and stay there for two hours, but you can pray an intense prayer for the person or situation right where you are at the time.

There are other times when God might wake you up in the middle of the night to pray urgently for a particular person or situation. You might be called to intercede on the other’s behalf until you feel a peace that things are going to be fine, no matter how long it takes.

God wants you to be so familiar with His Word and His Character that you can stand on the Bible and its promises with everything in you. He will give you the strength you need to do whatever it is He has called you to do.

Make the choice to read the Bible first thing each morning and ask the Holy Spirit to open your mind to see the truths it contains. God wants you to be ready to be used by Him at a moment’s notice.

Living in an attitude of prayer is a wonderful thing to God because He knows that your life is open to him to use whenever He chooses and in whatever way he chooses.

The next time you feel that God has laid an urgent need upon your heart, pray with everything in you. You may be the one person who will be able to intercede for someone and really make a difference – and you might be able to do it from halfway around the world without knowing that person at all or the full impact that your prayer might have.

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I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.

Below are the Greek meanings of the key words in the verse above:

can do – to have or exercise force, literally or figuratively

all things – all, any, every, the whole

through – primary preposition denoting a fixed position in place, time or state; implies instrumentality; a relation of rest

strengtheneth – to empower, enable, increase in strength, to make strong

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I have probably read this verse thousands of times during my life, but when I studied the Greek meaning of these words I realized that whatever God tells me to do He will give me the power, wisdom and knowledge, plus He will give me an abundance of strength to walk in victory to carry it out.

The hard part about all this is that even though God has promised this strength, I still have to claim it and walk in it supernaturally on a daily basis.

The word “supernatural” means that you still work hard and probably will have the same amount of work to accomplish, but somehow when God is in control you are able to get everything accomplished without being totally overwhelmed and experiencing burn-out from frustration and exhaustion.

God opened two doors for me at one point and I was absolutely sure that I needed to walk through them both and step out on faith. These two doors represented different jobs that I was to do each day. They were both jobs that were intense and time-consuming, but it felt awesome to go to sleep at night knowing that I was in the center of God’s Will because I had been obedient to what He told me to do.

I started well, and things were great as long as I had no other outside interruptions (something tearing up, someone needing help, anything that might happen unexpectedly) to take up my time. But life is definitely full of interruptions, and soon they seemed to be taking over and started to rob me of my productiveness.

The more this happened, the more I started to panic about not being able to get everything done. Then I started to try harder and harder, but got less and less accomplished. All this time I was crying out to God that I just could not do everything He had called me to do.

One day I was begging Him to help me just as I had done for the previous two months. I was telling Him that there was absolutely no way I could do both of these jobs. I felt like an utter and complete failure even though I was trying hard to be a success.

He brought Philippians 4:13 to mind and told me that I was trying to do everything in my own power instead of depending on and walking in His Strength each day. He said the only way I would be able to accomplish everything was to let Him strengthen me in a supernatural way.  I didn’t hear these words audibly, but I heard them in my mind and spirit in an overwhelming way.

This revelation made a huge difference in my life that I have never forgotten.

God is supernatural in every way. He would have to be to create the world and everything in it by saying the Word and watching it happen. He works on a completely different level than you or I and if we are to accomplish what He desires, we must do it His Way.

In order to do the work of a supernatural God, you must let Him use you in a supernatural way.

I should have never tried to accomplish God’s plans with my own power, and I definitely found out it isn’t possible. I hope I will be much smarter the next time.

Why don’t you give God complete control and see how much more you can accomplish when you do the work totally in His Power?

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I call it a “sudden inspiration or understanding” as if a light bulb suddenly turns on and you have light now that you have never had before about a particular thing. It seems so easy now and you wonder how you have gone this long without having this incredible understanding.

After you get new light in a particular thing that God has told you to do, it is easy to get excited about where He will lead and the great things that will happen in the future. But God does not get in a hurry for anyone here on earth, and sometimes things start out with a “bang” and then seem to fizzle out after a short time.

That does not mean, though, that you are to quit doing something just because it seems nothing is happening. When you have started in the right direction but don’t see instant results, it is easy to lose momentum.

First make sure that God has told you to do what it is that you have taken the first steps at. Then once you know that, keep at it even thought it might seem that you are just plodding along day after day and accomplishing nothing.

If you are walking in accordance with Gods plan, you are making progress whether you can see it or not. He does things totally different than you.

When you only take a few steps and then stop because it seems that things are too hard, you will be miserable by knowing that you should have followed through and will always wonder what would have happened if you had kept at it.

Anything you start that is really worth something will always take time, effort and patience to accomplish and see through to the end.

Even if it feels more like “plodding” than actually “accomplishing” something, don’t quit if you know that God has told you to do something. God can see the end of the tunnel and knows exactly where He is leading you.

Don’t miss what God has for you because you are tired of waiting and give up too soon. When times are tough, ask Him to give you faith and encouragement to keep pressing forward. He will always give you exactly what you need at just the right time.

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