If the peace of Christ rules in your heart, it rules your mind. If it rules your mind, it rules your disposition🙂. If it rules your disposition, it rules your day.😉🌈
Have a great day.
Image from Bible.com
Peace
Quote
Reply
Author Archives: Lisa Blair
Ignite the Ordinary
Quote
Ignite the Ordinary is about expectations, action, and choosing God’s Will over your own.
This Devotional is authored by Steven Furtick, entitled – Sun Stand Still. Bible.com, Day 2.
As you will read, the theme of obedience is replete throughout our lives. This is one more example.
My first installation of God’s Will, God’s Promises will Post within the next 24 hours. Have a great day, or in some cases an enjoyable evening!
Ignite the Ordinary
When you strip the biblical miracles of their spectacular special effects, a common plot point emerges: extraordinary moves of God begin with ordinary acts of obedience.
Consider Moses’s first encounter with God.
Moses is tending the family sheep out in the nondescript countryside.
He happens to notice a bush that’s caught fire. He walks over to take a look …
Up to this point, it’s not exactly a riveting scene, is it?
In reality, the illustrious burning-bush encounter that seemed so captivating in Sunday school is really…quite…ordinary. Moses is performing menial manual labor, working for his father-in-law. It’s dusty. The sheep stink. Does it get any more mundane?
Almost all encounters with God begin that way. You may be living under the illusion that when God ignites great things in your life, He’ll announce it with a big bang. He might. It’s more likely that He won’t. So stop waiting around for the big bang. Pay attention to the subtle clues and the still, small voice. Maybe you’ll hear it this very day.
What we call a miracle is really just the right combination of your ordinary ingredients and God’s extraordinary expertise. When God’s super collides with your natural, sparks will fly.
God may call you to serve as an unknown youth pastor of fifteen kids in a moldy basement for a youth room and with an Atari for entertainment. Ordinary. But He may also be providing you an opportunity to pour your life into one of those teenagers who will go on to preach the gospel in a thousand places you’ll never go.
Extraordinary.
God may lead you to stay at home with your young children, forfeiting a second income. Ordinary. But along with diapers, dishes, and naps, you receive the gift of time – to model discipline, instill values, and speak life into your kids. They could grow up to be Joshua’s in their own generation. Extraordinary.
If God is calling you to make a big difference today, He is likely to start in a small way – a bush that only you will notice. Will you remove your shoes, draw close, and receive your assignment? Will you give the Lord permission to ignite your ordinary? If you will, before long your faith will start carrying you to a higher level than you ever thought you could reach.
*****
Free-Will, Water Cooler Talk, and Responsibility
Quote
We have free-will, but is it really free. God gave us free-will, the ability to act as we see fit, but it is not without responsibility. We have the freedom to choose to
live a Christ-like life or to live in the world allowing sin and self-righteousness to lead us down the earthen path.
But because Christ has risen, we have been given the gift of repentance. Repentance is not a free ’ get out of jail’ card. It does not mean that we can ask for forgiveness and then repeat the action over and over. It means much more. When we study the Bible, we learn the precepts instruct our daily lives. We repent to acknowledge our mistake before God and ask His forgiveness.
Christ has risen and we should not squander our birthright. Christ suffered the cross to save us from sin that was destined to doom us. Today we live a life that is afflicted by sin, but one that we can be redeemed from through repentance.
The sinful and wicked do not fear God. They flatter themselves to much to detect or hate sin. Their words are wicked and deceitful and they fail to act wisely or do good. They lay in bed plotting evil and commit themselves to a sinful course. They do not reject what is wrong, Psalm 36: 1-4 NIV. But for the grace of God, we can turn from our evil ways. Our free-will is like a two edge sword, we can cut away the evil sinful ways of the world and turn to our Lord. We can repent. The requisites of repentance is to turn away from evil and turn to the good. Our free-will gives us the ability to choose. (Read my Post, Pt.2, Wisdom Directs Your Steps.)
But what does that mean in our daily life? We must be diligent and listen to our 
thoughts and words in much the same way that you listen to your thoughts and how to verbalize them at work, school; to bosses, parents, leaders, associates and friends. Have you ever run free, doing as you pleased, and then looked around and realized you were running in circles – obstructing your ability to move forward into your destiny? How many times have you experienced doing what you pleased only to learn that the end result hurt or adversely affected your wellbeing? How often have you heard His quiet voice, or ignored His nudge only to wish you had followed His direction? As humans we often find ourselves in these situations.
Water Cooler Talk
For example – What about gossiping by the water cooler? How many times have you gossiped at the water cooler, feeling guilty about it, but continuing on to discover the person you are talking about is standing behind you? We know we should not gossip but we do. When I was working I tried to stay out of the gossip circles, away from the water cooler during lunchtime and breaks, but from time to time joined in and found I shared private information that got back to the person that shared it with me. I heard the quiet voice telling me not to get involved in the conversation, was warned through the nudge not to say it and then I heard my voice speaking out anyway. It was quick and I did not take heed. I immediately felt guilty but could not take it back, the act created the consequences, and my relationship with the person ended as abruptly as when I spoke about them. Other times it created a sense of distrust and our conversations became matter-of-fact, no longer friendly or open. These were learning moments. I learned to think before I spoke. I learned how betrayal hurt the person that was the topic of discussion and me. I learned to avoid environments that led to my downfall.
As humans, we always stumble over our own feet. We are always learning from 
our mistakes and attempting to apply God’s values in our daily lives. Thus, I go back to free-will is not free, it comes with responsibility. God gave us free-will as a gift, and it is our responsibility to use our free-will wisely. It is a lifelong learning process.
The purpose of free-will is to allow us to experience how to use it to further Gods will on earth. We are his ambassadors on earth. Freedom is not free, it is a choice. Freedom permits us to follow God and spread the Good News because we
choose to follow our Lord. Free-will requires denying or dying to self, (Read my Post – Dying to Self) and putting God first. It means following his instruction, not picking and choosing, not being selective, but following all of His principles. It means that while we are experiencing our attempts to follow the principles, we mature as Christians, and in the process when we make mistakes or err, we can ask God’s forgiveness.
When we repent, our sin no longer exists, we will no longer carry the weight on our shoulders. It has been removed from us. Living a Christ-like existence leads us down the path of favor. He will help us spend our lives humbling ourselves, choosing to lookout for others and putting ourselves second, helping us to build our Christ-like character in this life. We practice are denying ourselves and following the Lord. Though our decision to deny self, we become obedient to the God’s call on our lives.
This leads us back to obedience, dependence and love, our March focus. No matter what we do, we can never get to far away from being obedient or dependent upon the Lord. It is through obedience that we can exercise our free-will and live a Christ-like life, embodying the character of Christ. It is through dependence that we become aware of our actions, behaviors and outbursts and, it is through love that we have the strength to persevere.
“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”
John 14:23-24 NIV
“But don’t just try to follow a list of rules or be a ‘good Christian.’ Following Christ means believing you have no righteousness of your own and choosing to trust and enjoy Christ, knowing He is all you need.
The more you seek after Him with all of your heart and follow Him fully, the more He will become your All in all, cleansing you, satisfying your longings, 
healing your wounds, and forming you into His image (2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 8:29, Colossians 3:10).” [Know God’s Power and See His Glory. Bible.com]
Free-will is a gift, but like all gifts we choose how to use it. We can stray from the word and live in this world subscribing to its values of selfishness, lust, hate, pride, greed, dishonesty, and trustworthiness or we can turn to turn God and live using the values Jesus demonstrated during his short time on earth. Please do not think that the sin we fear is always boisterous, it is generally subtle and subdued. It sneaks up on you when you are distracted from the Word of God.
Be sober [well balanced and self-disciplined], be alert and cautious at all times. That enemy of yours, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion [fiercely hungry], seeking someone to devour.
Peter 5:8 AMP
Christ has risen, we have free-will and the responsibility attached to free-will is our gift to live by. Becoming an intentional Christian and joining the body of Christ, is a joy; our salvation is our rock, as we follow the Lord who is our light and our way. Jesus said,
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
John 14:6 NKJV
Websites – Other posts on faith, hope, obedience and dependence, and more on lisasdailyinspirations.wordpress.com
youngchristianwarriors.com
biblestudytools.com
Scriptures – Bible.com, Biblegateway.com
Images – Google Images. Bible.com. LAB’s photo collection
Thank you for spending time on my sites, if you like what you are reading, follow me, lisasdailyinspirations.wordpress.com and receive the daily inspirations in your inbox, or visit my other site, youngchristianwarriors.com and subscribe.
Living by Grace
From time to time I read a post that should go viral. This post is a study about GRACE. Please read, reblog, and share with others . Happy Resurrection Sunday!
When You Doubt
Quote
It is not a sin to doubt what God is doing in your life during the dark, quiet moments. We are human, and through our frailties, we will have moments and sometimes seasons of doubting his existence in our lives, crying out like Jesus, “Lord, why have you forsaken me, why are you so far from saving me?” Psalm 22:1. But like Jesus, we will eventually say, “not mine, but your will be done.” Mark 14:36. It is during these times that our faith is either fortified or wanes.
Consider this – When we doubt, we are in a period of growth. We are not in our comfort zone; we are preparing for our next big step. Doubt creates the process of gestation.
(Doubting) Thomas
Thomas was one of Jesus’ disciples. He lived and worked with Jesus; he saw miracles, was informed about what to expect during Jesus time on earth. Yet, when Jesus was crucified, Thomas began to doubt. He knew the story, the purpose of Jesus time on
earth, but in reality, if Jesus was the Son of God, he should not have suffered as he did. Jesus was not supposed to die as forecasted. When he was resurrected, Thomas could not fathom Jesus reappearing as a spirit-man. He told the spirit-man to prove he was Jesus. After he touched the wounds, he believed. His faith was restored, it was fortified.
Thomas became a radical believer through doubting, not through walking with Jesus and not through observing miracles. Witnessing these things did not fortify him beyond doubting the reality of the resurrection. After Christ said to Thomas touch my wounds, he knew it was Christ resurrected and no longer doubted. Because he moved beyond doubting, he traveled outside of the Roman Empire to spread the Good News to a foreign, distant part of the world. Would he had done so, if he did not doubt? Perhaps not, his fellow disciples stayed closer to home. The doubting was the catalyst for change. He no longer hoped, he knew that Christ was his Lord and Savior.
Mirroring Thomas, Finding Our Strength
We do not have the advantage of physically experiencing Jesus’ life on earth. Ours is a spiritual relationship. Doubting is part of the process of knowing. It eliminates blind obedience. It reinforces our faith, because during these times we must in faith believe for the change, the miracle, the growth. We cannot faint not, we have to stand.
We must say to the devil, “he that is in me, is greater than he that is in the world.” 1 John 4:4. My circumstances are temporal, my relationship with the Lord is eternal. This too will pass. These trials are just that, trials. I am an overcomer through Christ, who dwells in me. My doubting is leading me to victory. It is part of the process of becoming a radical Christian, a Christian Warrior thoroughly embedded in our relationship with the Lord.
Crucifixion and Resurrection in a Nutshell
The crucifixion and resurrection marked time. God sent his son to serve as our example and experience what it is to be human. Through this process we are saved through Gods grace. He also left us a gift to help us live a Christian life in Jesus’ absence.
Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit who resides in us. He’s the nudge, the quiet voice that tells us not to veer but stay the course. He’s also the voice that tells us what to say in interviews, to loan officers and friends in need. Luke 12:12
Listen for his voice and recognize his nudge. We often ignore them to our detriment. Like me, we live, and we learn.
Today, think about three instances when you did not listen and the consequences and three times you did listen and the outcomes.
It is through Christ that we live life with purpose. It is through His purpose for our lives that we will join Him in heaven.
“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,”
I Timothy 2:3-6 NKJV
Websites – Other posts on faith, hope, 
obedience and dependence, and more on lisasdailyinspirations.wordpress.com
youngchristianwarriors.com
biblestudytools.com 
Scriptures – Bible.com, Biblegateway.com
Images – Google Images. Bible.com. LAB’s photo collection
Thank you for spending time on my sites, if you like what you are reading, follow me, lisasdailyinspirations.wordpress.com and receive the daily inspirations in your inbox, or visit my other site, youngchristianwarriors.com and subscribe.
Dying To Self
Quote
The Bible is our manifest for life. It is our operations manual, others call it our guidebook. Its precepts are designed to teach us how to govern ourselves, as we mature as Christians, and travel down the path to our destiny.
The Old Testament precepts provide our travel instructions and through them we are encouraged to stay the course regardless of how live appears on earth, looking to our destiny, heaven as the purpose of our time on earth. The precepts offer hope in what can be defined as the godless world we live in today.
According to John Gill, learning encompasses: instruction “in the knowledge of Christ, of his person, offices, grace, righteousness, obedience, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension; and of the great salvation and redemption he came to obtain, and has obtained; and to teach us the doctrines of grace, of pardon through the blood of Christ, atonement by his sacrifice, justification by his righteousness, acceptance in his person, and eternal life through him; as also to inform us of our duty, and how we ought to behave both towards God and men.” (Romans 15:4, BibleStudytools.com/commentaries/Gill-exposition. March 23, 2018)
What Does that Mean for Us?
The theme of the month is dependence upon God and our obedience to Him. This scripture is yet another dimension of how we are to follow his instruction and rely on His Word to govern our lives. It informs us as to our duty as Christian Warriors in not only applying the precepts to our lives, but to demonstrate them through obedience to the Word. It describes the Trinity and how we can access the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The application of the precepts ensures that we are living a Christ-like life.
Accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior
When we received Christ as our Lord and Savior, we received our Salvation and insurance that we are part of God’s family. We have been pardoned through the Blood of Christ. We are justified in his likeness and he dwells in our being. As a member of his family, we received the promise of eternal life.
Instruction Requires Obedience to and a Dependence upon God
In an earlier post I discussed Obedience and Dependency. Both require our allegiance to our faith. By this I mean, it is impossible to live a Christ-like life without being obedient. Obedience is ascribed to the practice of our faith and is one of the initial acts of obedience and is essential to our character. (Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary, pp 438) This again takes us back to the Fruit of the Spirit defined as the characteristics of Christ. Living by these characteristics is
a life long process because we fall daily and are in constant battle with our own demons given birth by Satan, and represent the opposite of Christ’s fruit.
Knowing we are susceptible to failure, we rest on the fact that as long as we are dependent upon our Father and rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance, our ability to overcome our flesh rests in the constant reminder of being obedient. Whenever we feel the nudge or hear the quiet, soft voice warn us of doing wrong, doing things expressed in our fleshly desires (acts of omission), or are not doing things we know we should (acts of commission). Paul said it thusly,
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:15 NKJV
“So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Dying to Self
Our struggle is harnessing our fleshly desires to live like Christ. One author defines it as ‘carrying the cross’. It’s literally, dying to self. Dying to self is the true essence of the Christian life. It is part of being born again.
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
John 3:3-7 NKJV
We also die continually. To die to self is part of the process of sanctification. Dying to self is both a one-time event and a lifelong process. Dying to self is denying our flesh and living a spiritual symbolic life while living here on earth, and in so doing, as mentioned above, find eternal life in Christ. Dying to self is the reality of the new birth; no one can come to Christ unless they are willing to see the old life crucified with Christ and begin to live anew in obedience to Him. (Got Questions. What does the Bible mean by ‘dying to self’? gotquestions.org. March 23, 2018)
Humility, the Ultimate Dying to Self
Giving up your old self, dying to self, is living in a state of humility. Jesus died to self on the cross, surrendering himself in exchange for our sins. Though our rebirth we are freed from our fallen nature, our sin nature. Jesus accomplished this when he came down from heaven to dwell with us. Through the crucifixion he won life through death. “Humility and death are in their very nature one: humility is the bud; in death the fruit is ripened to perfection.” Humility leads to perfect death. Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death to set us free.
“The death to self is not our work, it is God’s work…the full manifestation of the power of this death is in our disposition and conduct and depends upon the measure in which the Holy Spirit imparts the power of the death of Christ. We must humble ourselves and surrender to God.” (Humility and Death of Self. biblestudytools.com. March 23, 2018)
Our primary responsibility in life is to die to self through meekness and humility. To accomplish this we should draw our strength from the Lord. We must (fully and completely) trust in God. I discussed sacrificing ourselves for others in an earlier post. We are to become dependent upon the Lord through prayer and study. We generally find that God’s grace abounds when we have come to our own end.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom [a]every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the [b]saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations [c]forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21, NASB
Websites – Other posts on faith, hope, obedience and dependence, and more on lisasdailyinspirations.wordpress.com
youngchristianwarriors.com
biblestudytools.com
gotquestions.org
Other Resources
Vine, W.E. Vines Complete Expository Dictionary. 1996
Nouwen, Henri. Can You Drink the Cup. 1996
Scriptures – Bible.com, Biblegateway.com
Images – Google Images. Bible.com. LAB’s photo collection
Thank you for spending time on my sites, if you like what you are reading, follow me, lisasdailyinspirations.wordpress.com and receive the daily inspirations in your inbox, or visit my other site, youngchristianwarriors.com and subscribe.
Lisa’s Daily Inspirations 