Day 245: One With the Lord (The Power of Prayer!)

1 Corinthians 6:17

But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Today I want to talk about being one with the Lord, what I mean by that is, having a relationship with Him. When our spirits are in tune with God we are joined to Him as one spirit. As when two people get married they become one, well there’s another marriage we must have that comes before every other relationship in our lives and that’s our relationship with God. I can never stress how important it is to have a personal relationship with God. To get it for ourselves, not depending on the prayer of others to get by. As I talked about earlier this year, we are the generation living on the prayers of our mothers and grandmothers; but no matter how much or hard they pray, they cannot have a relationship with God for us. That’s a decision we make on our own. Once we make that decision we are joined to Him for all eternity, there should be no going back. I love talking about having a personal relationship with God because it is so important, but we also get to break down what that means and what it looks like.

It’s more than just standing up in church one day and making the decision, while that is very important it is only the beginning. The moment we make the decision to dedicate our lives to Christ is the moment we decide to be joined to Him for all eternity.  Our spirits become one with the Lord as our lives begin to change to emulate the word of God. Our lives are moulded by His word. We will get to a point where everything we do we do to the glory of God. There is also a point in our relationship with God when we know we are in tune with God. I can’t tell you when it is or what it feels like, but you will know when it happens. Being joined to the Lord we just know, we start to move through the Holy spirit allowing it to guide us through life. When we are joined to God, life seems to be easier, things seem to worry us less. We start to see the world through the filter of God’s eyes. Our lives start to look a bit different, as we continue to grow in Him, we will find deeper revelations of who He is and the more clarity in the word of God. We will start to understand things differently and live every day of our lives by trusting God. We start to live by faith knowing that God always has a plan, it becomes easier to jump when we have faith in God. Knowing that even when we feel like we’re falling He is right there to catch us. Knowing that we are never alone, that God is always there.

We get this to this point by continuously choosing to be in a relationship with Him. I’ve said it so many time, but this lifestyle we’re living is a choice, and that’s what makes is so rewarding. It’s something we want, we choose to put our faith in God. We choose to have a relationship with Him. We are not forced into this, we cannot be forced into it. It has to be our own decision.

All this to say, we are joined to God first through Jesus Christ, when we give our lives to Christ we are automatically connected with our father in heaven. But we also make the choice to trust in His word and dive into a marriage with Him. We are joined to God through His word, reading and gaining knowledge and understanding of His word. One last, but the most important thing, prayer. Direct communication with God, we cannot have a relationship with God without prayer. One of the main ways we communicate with God is through prayer. We cannot have a relationship without communication. I cannot stress how important prayer is in our relationship with God. I think sometimes it is often looked over, but it is imperative that we pray without ceasing. Prayer brings change, God hears the prayers of His people. HE heard the cries of the Israelites countless times and continuously delivered them. He heard the prayer of King Hezekiah and added fifteen years to his life. Prayer works! That is something that is constant throughout the entire bible, everyone prayed. There is no one in the bible who had a relationship with God without prayer. Prayer is key to being joined with God.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led. But take the time to really pray, pray about whatever is on your heart. Ask God to help you with your prayer life, just take the time to talk to God and have a conversations with Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 246!

Day 214: Walk through the Door

Matthew 7:7

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Growing up my mom would always say, “A closed mouth don’t get fed.” This was her way of telling me to speak up for myself, and ask for the things I want. This was her telling me, I don’t know what you want, what you’re feeling, or what you need if you don’t talk to me. If you knew me as a child you would know that I rarely spoke. I was beyond quiet. So needless to say I grew up hearing this scripture, both at home and in church. We were always told to ask for what we want. We were told to knock and the door will be opened. The door can’t be opened if we don’t knock. We always talked about the door being opened, we never talked about walking through it. Opening the door is one thing, walking through it is another.

Ever asked God for something and then hesitate to accept it when He gave it to you? We as humans do it constantly. We are constantly asking God to do things for us and when He does, we hesitate. We have enough faith to believe that God will open the door and when He does, we expect Him to carry us over the threshold too. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, God will not do for us, what we can do for ourselves. God will open the door, but we have to walk through it. Walking through that door is completely on us, Often times we ask God to open doors for us, but for some reason when He opens the door we have to take the time to figure out of it’s right for us or not. We send ourselves into a full on anxiety attack, posting on Facebook and asking for prayers to help with big decisions. We often think there’s a catch to blessings and grace. There isn’t there’s no catch. When God opens a door for us we don’t have to hesitate, we don’t worry that’s it’s not right for us because He’s opened the door. He opened it for us. God will not open a door for us and then not allow us to walk through it, (I mean unless you’re Moses, you’ll get a glimpse and that’s all.).

I think sometimes we are so concerned and caught up with “the right thing” that we overlook the right thing. What I mean is that we put so much pressure on ourselves to do what is right that we are blinded by the very idea. We become so infatuated with the idea that we start to overlook the real thing. Sometimes we complicate things more than we should. We tend to make the smallest things into an obstacle course when they don’t have to be.

All this to say, walk through the door. When God opens a door, don’t hesitate, don’t doubt. Trust Him and walk through it, He’s not going to walk through it for you, He will walk through it with you. First we have to choose to walk through it, so we have two choices, either stand there stuck or walk through the door that God has opened and continue to move forward. It’s our choice. The door is open we have to decide to walk through.

Reflection

1. Do you hesitate to accept what God has given you?
2. Do you have trouble walking through the doors GOd opens for you? If yes, why?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above question guide your prayer today, Talk to God about having faith and accepting what He is giving. Just have a conversation with Him.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 215!

Day 126: On the Detour

We all know the story of Jonah and how he ran from God. I want to break it down a bit and talk about how we encounter God on the detour.

Jonah was a prophet of God, meaning he was God’s mouthpiece. Chosen to speak the words God told him directly. So God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, and tell the people that if they don’t repent destruction is coming. Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah was like nope, I’m out. He tried to go to Tarshish. He went to Joppa, hopped on a ship and was on his way to Tarshish. He never even made it there, God sent a storm when he got on the boat and the people staring praying to their gods, and throwing cargo over, but Jonah was the cargo that really needed to be thrown over. They go to Jonah, who was sleep. He was sleeping, he has brought havoc on these people's lives because he don’t want to list and now he’s down there sleeping while they are dealing with the storm caused by him.  So they go to him and ask him what he did, and he tells them he was fleeing from the presence of God. (Jonah 1:7) Then he tells them to cast him into the sea, and then the storm will be stopped. They tried to get back to dry land so they wouldn’t have to throw him overboard, but it was impossible. So they picked him up and threw him into the sea, and the scripture says, in the same sentence, “the sea ceased from its raging” Then it say God appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah up. Hold up, okay so God appointed a great fish. He instructed a fish to go and swallow Jonah! That’s mind blowing! Okay back to the story. Jonah stays in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

Now when I’ve seen this story depicted in picture books and things of that sort, it made it look like Jonah was in a motel. But I don’t think it was that way at all, I’ve never been in the belly of a fish and I don’t plan on it. Most people in the belly of fishes are dead so no thank you. But Jonah wasn’t dead, that’s a miracle in itself, God allowed a fish to swallow him but not kill him. Leave to God to do something miraculous like that, that only He can do. But Jonah is in the belly of this fish, and I imagine it’s dark, probably slimy and wet, very uncomfortable. But Jonah is in the belly of the whale and it is there that he starts praying, and it was then that God ordered the fish to somit Jonah up. After that experience Jonah then goes to Nineveh to do what God told him to do from the very beginning.

I think many of us know what it’s like to not only run from God but encounter Him in the midst of our running. We, like Jonah, often have to go through the hard times in order to learn. Growing up my parents would often let us make mistakes fr ourselves so that we can learn from them because telling us wasn’t enough we had to experience it in order to take their word for it. This is a common thing within humanity. Why is that so, why do we have to bump our heads to see that it hurts. Why do we have to take a detour before we realize that the straight path was there all along. Some people may disagree with me when I say this, but experience produces growth in many cases. Sometimes we have to fall to know that we can get back up. Sometimes we have to experience bad things in order to know what is good. I think God use the very disobedience of Jonah to have an encounter with him, to get his attention. There was no one else he could talk to but God while in the belly of the fish, No one else. We sometimes cause detours and bring certain things upon ourselves, we run away from God, but He will not let us get too far, even if that means taking drastic measure like causing a whole person to be swallowed by a fish. When we read the scripture we will see that Jonah never made it to Tarshish, he set out to go to a place God told him not to but his plan was intercepted. We might try to run away from God but He sees us and HE sees what we are trying to do and He will step right in and block it because He knows that his plan is better than whatever it is we are trying to do.

Response

Today I want you to read the book of Jonah or at least the first three chapters, and read what was talked about today, and responds. There is no prompt today. After that, have a conversation with god, talk to him about whatever is on your heart.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Share this with someone and be sure to come back tomorrow for day 127!

Day 81: But...

Whenever you hear the word “but” at the end of a statement you can be sure that it is not the end. Whatever the speaker is saying, there’s more to the story, there's more to the statement. Bottom line, it’s not over.

Psalms 31:14 (expanded passage Psalms 31)

But I am trusting you, O Lord, saying, “You are my God!”

David has been going through it, prior to this statement he is listing everything going wrong in his life. His adversaries are coming after him, he is in a state of grief and weakness, he is just having a hard time. Before he starts this list of unfortunate events he says, Lord be gracious to me. Then he goes on to tell God what is going on and how he is greatly distressed. My favorite part in this chapter and many of the other chapters is when David says, “but…” we know whatever will follow that word will not be as bad as what preceded it. We know that David has hope. David goes on to say, “BUT I am trusting you,...” This excites me so much because David knew that even in His distress, even when his adversaries were coming after him. There were men trying to take his life, literally trying to kill him. But David says, “but I trust you Lord, You are my God.” They're all coming after me, I’m in pain, I’m weak, my soul is distressed, but I trust you. You are my God, you are the one I look to even in all of this you are bigger, my life is in your hands.

We can learn something from David here, we can get so caught up in what is going on in our lives. We get caught up in the pressure, the pain, the frustration, the tears, the stress. We start to think that there is no way out. But, my friends there is, we have to remember that there is always a but, it’s not the end. There’s hope, no matter what it looks like we have to say, “But I am trusting in you, You are my God.” I am trusting in you because my life is in your hands, you have gotten me thus far and I i’m trusting that you will bring me all the way through. Sometimes all we have is trust in God, we have no other choice, we know, we hope that God is and will bring us through whatever it is we are going through. For some of us this means taking a chance on God, taking a leap of faith. Trust me when I say, He won’t let you down. There’s always a but, there’s always an answer. But we have to look up from our sorrow and our heartache and the bad situation we are in and look to where we will find hope. We have to look to Christ, we have to put our trust in Him. We know that this is only for a moment, there’s always a ‘but’, so we know, this is not the end. It’s not over.

Psalms 30:5

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Genesis 50:20

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Psalms 73:26

My flesh and my heart may fail,  but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Reflection/Prayer Time

Whatever is on your heart today pour it out to God, know that whatever you are going through there is always a but, it’s not over, this isn’t the end. Talk to God about whatever stood out to you the most today.

I love you, I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Make sure you share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 82!