Focus Above, Find Peace

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This scripture explains that we are to develop a heavenly mindset by virtue of Jesus ascending to heaven. If Jesus died on the cross for us and ascended to heaven, then we are connected to the Father. Since we have this new mindset, we must focus on the things of the heart as Christ did. Once saved, our relationship changed, we detach former ties with the things of this earth and look to the heavens, to the right hand of God where Christ resides.

Those who focus on the Kingdom of God receive perfect peace. See Isaiah 26:3.

Take time today to focus on the Lord and perfect peace will be present throughout the day.

How? Prayer time: morning, during break or lunch, before leaving work or school, before bed.

When you are in prayer Satan must leave. Worry, fear, anxiety (WFA) must stop and through faith peace will carry on until your next prayer time. It will take time to develop this practice to the fullest, but it will happen over time and you will successfully replace WFA with God’s peace.

Peace is not the only benefit of our relationship with Christ. We also receive:

7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians  4:7-9 NIV

God promised – if we keep our focus on the things above, peace will be ours.

ReBlog – https://wp.me/p98Coa-wd (copy and paste into your post)
Images – YouVersion.Bible.com
Scriptures – Biblestudytools.com
References/Resources – bible.com; biblestudytools.com

Thank you for visiting my Young Christian Warriors site and dailyinspiration-lisasthoughts.com, at the moment there is some duplication. I am working on merging the two to create one great site. Please bear with me through this process.

Be Strong In The Lord Today

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It’s a new day, rejoice in it. All of our devotional lessons are weaving together, can you see the common threat of faith? Our tapestry is sewn with threads of faith, love, submission, dependence and obedience. Our Lord is strong and holds us up. Believe in His strength and might. His love is greater than we can imagine. Rest in His arms before making any decisions, go to Him in prayer first and he will tell you which way to go, which thought to confirm, and which idea to affirm.

Through sanctification we are saved.

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:11 NIV

Because we are saved, the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and guides and protects us.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Romans 8:11 NIV

This is the day the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it. Only He can set you free to live in His might.

Mary and Martha as Archetypes

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Mary and Martha can be seen as archetypes. We possess both archetype personalities, that of Mary and Martha. Martha, who invited Jesus to stay at her and her sisters home, scurried around preparing the house and meal. She was practical and efficient. There is nothing wrong following custom unless it becomes a problem. She placed doing things before God. We need to be alert and recognize when we are distracted.

Mary broke custom to sit at Jesus’ feet. She knew that custom would adversely affect the result of spending time with Jesus. She later did not spare cost and poured expensive oil, spikenard, on Jesus’ feet to wash them and dried them with her hair, demonstrating intimacy and reverence.

While Jesus and his followers were traveling, he went into a town, and a woman named Martha let him stay at her house. She had a sister named Mary. Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to him teach. But her sister Martha was busy doing all the work that had to be done. Martha went in and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are getting worried and upset about too many things. Only one thing is important. Mary has made the right choice, and it will never be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-41, ESV

Martha also sat by Jesus, but only after she completed her tasks. There was a level of trepidation involved in her steps. Jesus told her not to worry or be troubled.

There are several takeaways from this story. Mary made a conscious decision between the two options, to help her sister or sit at Jesus’ foot. Today take time to study this: living a Christlike life is a radical way of life. We can either sit at Jesus’ feet and experience his love for us and learn from Him like Mary, or scurry around busily like Martha and miss the calmness He provides that reduces and eliminates worry, anxiety, and fear. We have to make choices every day, do we take time to seek our Lord and Savior or stay busied secondary things. Matthew 6:33 tells us that Jesus is clear about our choices and shared, we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

But Martha, though posed to follow custom when she noticed Mary was sitting down at the foot of Jesus, went to God in prayer. Jesus responded, do not worry or be troubled. The point is that Martha still loved Christ, still revered Him and called upon Him. Both knew and loved the Lord. We love the Lord as well. Our choices will determine if we acknowledge Him as being more important to us than life itself and not letting the ‘good part’ that cannot be taken from us or miss daily opportunities to spend time with our Lord. The things we seek before Christ will pass away, the Word of God will live in us and direct us throughout time. 

ReBlog – https://wp.me/p98Coa-vG
‭‭Images – Google Images; YouVersion.Bible.com
Scriptures – Biblestudytools.com
References/Resources – www.ucg.org. Beyond Today. Profiles of Faith: Mary and Martha-Lessons from Two Sisters.

Thank you for visiting my Young Christian Warriors site and dailyinspiration-lisasthoughts.com, at the moment there is some duplication. I am working on merging the two to create one great site. Please bear with me through this process.

Seek God’s Strength

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God reiterates throughout the Bible, seek me and I will give you strength. This is not a suggestion, but rather His covenant with you; He promises that He will be with you from everlasting to everlasting.

If you seek Him, call on Him in prayer, He will respond by giving you the strength to see your way through.

What should we seek?

1) Seek His mercy and grace.
2) Seek strength for His Service. His power is made perfect in our weakness.
3) Seek His Face, meaning Seek His presence.

God will never forsake us or leave us if we establish a reverential relationship with Him. He is everlasting in good times and harder times. The scripture says, glory in His Holy Name, think of this as sitting in the sun, in the grass on a warm day. It is during these moments that we rejoice in His presence because we feel His love and his warmth.  In the midst of this calm, we feel the strength of the sun just as we feel His strength. Visualizing this depiction of sitting with the Lord in the warm sun will revive you when you are in good times and when you are wary, questioning, and having difficult moments.

Remember this feeling when it seems God is not present. There are moments when He is quiet or we cannot hear Him. The warmth of His presence will see you through.

“Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!”
1 Chronicles‬ ‭16:10-11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“Look to the Lord for his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.”

Note: King David wrote 1 Chronicles.

ReBlog – https://wp.me/p98Coa-vK
‭‭Images – YouVersion.Bible.com
Scriptures – Biblestudytools.com
References/Resources – ReversingVerses.com/2012/11/29/1-chronicles-1621/

Thank you for visiting my Young Christian Warriors site and dailyinspiration-lisasthoughts.com, at the moment there is some duplication. I am working on merging the two to create one great site. Please bear with me through this process.

A Root of Sin that became a Stronghold

A common theme is Spiritual Warfare. This article explains how sin can turn into a stronghold. Strongholds are those areas that create cracks or holes in our spiritual life that allows Satan and his demons to enter and feed the sin that allowed their entrance. Thank God we can break strongholds.

Guest Author's avatarYAHWEH-NISSI

Bible Reading: John 18:1-11; Matthew 26:47-50

Yesterday we saw how Satan could only work if a person gave him a legal right to do so. We see a very sad but clear example of that in the life of Judas Iscariot. There are some powerful warnings for us in the lives of Bible characters, and not least in the life of Judas.

Judas had the amazing privilege of being chosen to be a disciple of Jesus, and to live with Him and learn from Him for three years. The problem with Judas was that he had a problem with money, and yet he was chosen to be the treasurer for Jesus and His disciples. He must have had a gift in handling money, and yet it was money that was the root of his downfall. Sometimes our greatest strength can also be our greatest weaknesses.

The Bible contains a lot…

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Worried and Troubled About Many Things

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“And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭10:41‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

How many of us stay busy because we believe it means we are doing the Lord’s work? I can raise my hand, guilty as charged. Luke 10 is about two sisters, Martha and  Mary. The two women learned that Jesus was going to visit their home. This immediately set an expectation that they had to ready the house, at least that is what Martha thought. On the other hand, Mary thought – what an opportunity. When he arrived, she perched herself at Jesus’ foot breathing in His every word, loving the feeling of his presence. Depending upon where we are in life, we will become a Martha or Mary. But, the Lord is not asking us to prepare things for or around him. The Lord does not want us to worry, or fret over the issues that surround us. He wants us to still ourselves, feel his love, and spend time in His Holy Presence.

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Like Martha we become distracted. We lose sight of the purpose, our dependence upon the Lord, and our desire to listen to Him, learn the practicality of the Word and then share the Good News. But, we are not wholly Martha, we also embrace the wonderment of Mary, waiting to serve, listen and learn.

We are told in John 15, the Lord is the true vine and God is the vinedresser. The vine cannot bear fruit by itself. In other words, we cannot bear fruit by ourselves. Without sitting at the Lords’ feet, we will wither. We need to be still and listen, and not become distracted by the things around us. The scripture reads, “He who abides in Me, and I in him bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” The Holy Spirit must dwell in us. It is His blood that flows through our veins, our heart, and our soul. The scripture further shares, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered. Mary scurried about during the visit reading the house, preparing a meal, and doing all of the ceremonial things. Her sister Mary wanted more of Jesus. She wanted to breathe Him in, be a student of his Word and spend as much time as possible with Him; food was not important, a clean home was not important, spending time at the foot of our Lord was all that mattered. She knew she would be stronger for it, that sharing her story about what she learned that day with others would bear fruit.

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When we feel the urge to become busy rather than sit still, it is more than a tick, it is a red alert.

Mary and Martha clearly loved Christ; we can gain more from this story, we can look at this in the scope of Spiritual Warfare. When we feel the Mary-Martha tug, we should acknowledge that it is often the devil trying to distract us and delay us from spending time with the Lord. His purpose is to kill, steal,  and destroy. He wants to kill our relationship with the Lord, steal our time with the Lord and destroy our hope to reach heaven.

Like so many, I try to stay alert. I know spending time with the Lord every day is imperative, yet there are times when I become enveloped in the stuff around me. But as the scripture says, only one thing is needed, not the fluff and circumstance, only one thing, to spend quality time with the Lord.

In the end, we must ask ourselves when we are falling into oblivion, who do we belong to, where do we reside?  Do we respond to Jesus’ invitation like Martha or like Mary? Will we wither or bear fruit?

ReBlog –  https://wp.me/p98Coa-vy  copy and paste on your site.
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Images – Google Images

Scriptures – YouVersion.Bible.com

References/Resources – Finding Rest In a Busy World Devotional, Bible.com. Study – http://www.susannarjala.com

Thank you for visiting my Young Christian Warriors site and dailyinspiration-lisasthoughts.com, at the moment there is some duplication. I am working on merging the two to create one great site. Please bear with me through this process.