Day 310: Proving Your Faithfulness

James 5:12

And since you know that he cares, let your language show it. Don’t add words like “I swear to God” to your own words. Don’t show your impatience by concocting oaths to hurry up God. Just say yes or no. Just say what is true. That way, your language can’t be used against you.

1 Samuel 15:22

And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

Proverbs 21:3

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

Have you ever felt the need to prove yourself to God? Prove your faithfulness. I feel like sometimes we try too hard to prove how faithful we are that we forget to actually be faithful. We have talked about how we are sometimes so concerned with how we look to other people that we forget to live. We are more concerned with looking like a Christian in front of others that we forget that being a christian and living the lifestyle of a christian is far more important. Have you noticed that sometimes we treat God the same way. We do extra stuff, we do more good deed, just to prove that we are good Christians. We spend our time making vows, and timing our prayers so they’re exactly an hour, trying to prove to God that we are good Christians. Now some will say that all this stuff is just a way to be in a relationship with God. But do we do these things because we love God with all our heart, mind, and soul? Or are we doing it because we want to look good in front of God. We can make a million vows to Him, and swear by His name all day but in our heart is not in it, it means nothing. If everything we do is not to bring glory to God, why are we doing it? Let's not be like the Pharisee's who worshipped God with their mouths but their hearts were far from Him. (Mark 7:6).

Why do we waste our time trying to prove ourselves to God, when He already knows us. He knows our heart, He knows who we are. He know what we struggle with, what our strengths are, He knows everything there is to know about us because He created us. Why not spend our time being in a relationship with the living God. Walking through life with Him. Let’s spend our time getting to know Him and diving into our word and loving Him with everything we have. See when we love God with all our heart, mind, body. And soul everything we do will be bred from our love for God, not our need our want to prove our devotion to Him.

I remember when I went to school for theology, a lot of it was to prove to people how good of a Christian I was, and also to show God how faithful I was. At no point in my life did I ever want to stop acting, but in order to prove myself to God I gave up doing the thing that He put me on this earth to do in order to “serve” in His kingdom. I gave up theatre school for bible school, and it made me feel like a great Christian. But that only lasted so long and before I knew it I am back in theatre school,graduating in a semester after dropping out of bible school. Now some might say this is backwards, but I know that I am exactly where God wants me to be. What I had to learn was, God is more concerned with my heart than my sacrifice. He wants me more than He wants my sacrifice, and I had to want my relationship with God more than I wanted the image of christianity plastered on my life. I’m not saying that any of this, going to bible school, was a mistake. What I’m saying is that I was too busy trying to prove my faithfulness to God that I never took the chance to look up and see what He was really doing in my life.

-Dyamond

All this to say, having a relationship with God is so much better than having on a mask of Christianity. Don’t try to prove yourself to God with clever promises vows, instead love Him with everything. Instead dive into Him, and trust in who He is, knowing that He care for you. He loves you. Knowing that God cares more about our hearts than He does about the things we try to do to prove our devotion. If we want to give anything to God to prove our devotion, we should consider giving Him our hearts. Surrendering our lives, and walking like Christ.

Reflection

1. Have you ever found yourself trying to prove your devotion to God?
2. How has that worked out for you?

Prayer Time

Take the time to pray about what we discussed today, ask god for clarity, and allow Him to speak to your heart.

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 311!

Day 309: Don't Anticipate, Live

2 Kings 20:1-6

About that time Hezekiah became deathly ill, and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to visit him. He gave the king this message: “This is what the Lord says: Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die. You will not recover from this illness.” 2 When Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 3 “Remember, O Lord, how I have always been faithful to you and have served you single-mindedly, always doing what pleases you.” Then he broke down and wept bitterly. 4 But before Isaiah had left the middle courtyard, this message came to him from the Lord: 5 “Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people. Tell him, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you, and three days from now you will get out of bed and go to the Temple of the Lord. 6 I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my own honor and for the sake of my servant David.’”

When I first read this story I was astounded, by the fact that God truly hears and honors the prayers of His people. I was also taken by Hezekiah's faith in God. But one thing I’d like to point out is that Hezekiah is one of the only people who had an idea of exactly when he was going to die. God told Hezekiah that He will add fifteen years to his life. Meaning that Hezekiah would die in fifteen years. Do you think he sat waiting for that day, he was going to die. Anticipating how he would die or having anxiety about not having more time? I do not think he did, while he loved his life I believe that he was in full knowledge that he would spend eternity with the Lord when his time here on earth was up.

Life is about so much more than living as long as possible it’s about living while we have it. Most of us have no clue of what is going to happen but we stress ourselves out worried about what could happen. Hezekiah knew what was going to happen and yet I’m sure that didn’t stop him from living His life that God had blessed him with. What a waste of time it would have been if Hezekiah sat anticipating what will happen after God has just given Him fifteen more years to live. What I’m getting at here is, we as people spend far too much time anticipating, and worrying, allowing our anxieties to stop us from living the life God has destined for us.  We stand there afraid to take a step because we don’t know what’s going to happen. We want to be in the know of everything before we do anything, but where is our faith. Where is the faith in God who knows everything so we don’t need all the info. God is greater and God is bigger. We cannot allow our fear of not being in control paralyze us. Living our lives this way is a waste of time. The beauty of living for God is that we don’t know what is going to happen we just have faith in whatever God is doing and wherever He is leading us. How many times have we professed our faith in God and asked Him to let His will be done in our lives yet we are afraid to take a step because we are not sure where our foot will land. When we truly have faith in God we will know and understand that He will not lead us anywhere that will harm us. We know that He will guide us to victory. We cannot sit trying to figure out what will happen, because while we’re doing that life is happening and passing us by. We’ve all sat at moments and watched life pass us by because we were afraid of what was going to happen next. If anything I know, the best moments in life are the spontaneous moments. The moments we just do something. God’s plan for us us very spontaneous, many things we never see coming but in the end we will understand why stepping out on faith is so important.

All this to say, live your life having faith in God, Walking every moment with Him, and not waiting until we know what is going to happen before we take a step. God reveals the plan as we go, so that way we cannot pick and choose and anticipate what is to come. Live life like we don't know what is going to happen because we don't and that's the beauty of it. Life is spontaneous, life is great but God is greater.

Reflection

1. How do you relate to what we discussed today?
2. Have you found yourself anticipating life?
3. How has this anticipation strained your relationship with God?

Prayer Time

Allow you answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Pour your heart out to the Lord.

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 310!

Day 308: Recap! (Kinda)

We're doing the recap a bit differently today. Take the time to go back over what we discussed this week. Whatever spoke to you the most or whatever you feel led to, take the time to reflect. As we reflect today I want to bring your attention to Day 305 when we talked about trusting in the power of prayer and praying in faith. Tonight America needs of prayer, Texas needs our prayers. As another mass shooting has taken place just a month after the last mass shooting. Both together have claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Today a gunman walked into a church and opened fire killing 26 people. So tonight we pray, tonight we lift up those people and we pray for the families. We pray for healing for those hurt and affected. We pray for peace in our world and we pray that even through the evil in the world we will always see the goodness of God. In the midst of all the hate we will love. We love you Texas and Vegas, and you are in our prayers.

I love you all and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to come back tomorrow for Day 309!

Day 307: Live as Free People

1 Peter 2:16

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Let’s address the elephant in the room. What a statement, amiright? This statement is such a crazy thing to say when we look at it. On one breath it’s saying we are free, but right after it says we’re servants. Now most people don’t equate freedom with being servants, some translation have translated that word to say slave. We are slaves of God, yet we are free. When we think of our definition of freedom it means that we are indebted to no one. So how are we free but we are still servants or slaves? What if we looked at it as owing the man who sacrificed His life for us our hearts or our lives. What if we realized that Jesus gave up His life so that we may be free from the bondage of sin a death. Freedom for us looks like being given the opportunity to serve God with our everything. As crazy as the scripture sounds we are only free in Christ. We are not bound in Christ in fact we are the exact opposite. Sin held us down, held us in bondage, but Jesus came to give us life. He came to free us from those chains and free us from a lifestyle was was leading us to the grave and nowhere else.

There’s a song that says, “I found my life when I laid it down...I touched the sky when my knees hit the ground.” Freedom in Christ is giving up what we think we know and acknowledging that God God is in control. It is understanding that there is a whole world God has for us, that we cannot see if we are still stuck in our sin. Freedom is being able to experience the beauty of this world that God has created for us, and living the life God has planned for us. The human mind can only go so far, and seeing how far the human mind can go is crazy, but to think that the mind of God is greater leaves me in awe.

We are not free because we get to do whatever we want, when we want to do it. Sometimes the choices we make while free are the ones that keep us in bondage, there are people in prison serving real time for real crimes that attest to that. Just because we know we can do something doesn’t mean we should do it. Free will gives us the right to choose who we want to be but we must understand that every choice has a consequence whether good or bad. Humans are capable of doing astounding things, while simultaneously capable of doing some of the most grotesque things. We are free to choose who we will be, but as for us who follow Christ and have submitted our lives to serving the Lord we know that true freedom lies within God. There is no limit to freedom in Christ.

All this to say, while we are free to choose who we want to be, when we decide to follow Christ we decide to be servants in the kingdom of God. That in itself is freedom, we will do things and go places we never thought we’d do or go. Serving Christ is less about what we can’t do and more about the kind of life we can lie in Him. Living in Christ is so peaceful, so free, there is nothing like it. Freedom looks like living like Christ. True freedom is in Christ.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led. Think about what we discussed today and how you view freedom. Think about what your personal definition of freedom is and what it is to be free in Christ. How to they relate or differ. Bring it all to God in prayer.

Maybe you’ve never had a chance to experience this freedom in Christ, if you haven’t I want to give you that opportunity. Make the decision to follow Christ and live a life of freedom.

If you’ve never made the decision to live for Christ, or you want to rededicate your life. If you want to be brought into this magnificent promise of eternity, now is the time to make that decision. If that’s you if you want to make that decision, pray this prayer with me,

“Jesus I declare that you are my Lord and Saviour who died for my sins and was raised three days later. I repent of my sins and I give my life to you. I believe in my heart that you are the true living God. I pray that you shine your  light on me and bring me out of the darkness and into your light. I love you Lord. Thank you for saving me. In Jesus name, Amen.”

If you made the choice to follow Christ, rededicate, or to submit your life to Him fully, Go to Romans 10:9-10

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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

I love you so much and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! If you made the decision to follow Christ today, congratulations! Do not hesitate to reach and get plugged into  a church. Make sure you come back tomorrow for day 308!

Day 306: Lose Control

Proverbs 19:21

You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.

Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Isaiah 55:9

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”

You ever felt like you were navigating through life but not really getting anywhere? You have a plan, you know what you want and you're going after it but it doesn’t seem to be working out the way you planned. Everything thing is out of control and falling apart. It’s like we’re losing a grip on everything. What if we’re think about it the wrong way. What if we have it all wrong, what if everything is out of control because no matter how hard we try life is too hard to navigate alone. Sometimes we think losing control of our life is the worst thing possible. Not knowing where we’re going and feeling lost is the bane of our existence. But, what if it’s not, what if it’s the start of something beautiful. When we’re in these positions we tend to open ourselves up to direction, when we’re losing control we try to find a way to get a hold of life again. It is in these moments when we find ourselves submitting to God. It’s in these moments that we realize how big He is and small we are. Sometimes we have to lose control to know that we never had it anyway. Sometimes we have to be lost to understand that only in Christ can we be found.

What I’m saying is we cannot walk around with our planners, our schedules, or six month plans and completely cross God out of the picture. There is nothing wrong with plans, goals, and following our dreams but we must keep a loose grip on them because we never know what God is going to do. If anything we hold tightly to God and His plan because it is better and greater than anything we could ever imagine. We have to learn to let go of our control over our lives and give it God. It sounds crazy but it’s not. Only when we completely surrender to God will we see how His hand has always been on us. We will see how His plan for our lives has been, is being, and will continue to be played out in our lives. When we constantly feel the need to be in control we are in a constant state of anxiety when things do not go as we planned them to go. But God is like, “I got this, don’t worry, I got this.”

All this to say, lose control. Submit to God and know that He is always in control. Don’t fight against it.

Reflection

1. Are you the type of person that needs to constantly be in control?
2. Do you really believe that God’s got this (your life in His hands)?
3. Why do you think it is so hard to fully submit to God?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer today. Have a conversation with God about giving up the need to be in control to Him. Talk to Him about submitting completely to Him and trusting in His plan.

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 307!

Day 305: Trust In the Power of Prayer

James 5:13-18

Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. 14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

I think sometimes we underestimate the power of prayer, or we doubt while praying. Why do we turn to prayer as a last resort, and why do we still worry or why do we doubt if we pray. When we pray we are having faith that God will answer us, that He hears us and that He is going to answer our prayer. Sometimes we allow what we see to make us doubt what God can do.

I love that the answer to all the questions in the above scripture is prayer. Whatever is going on in our lives we should pray. If we’re sick, upset, happy, in and out of season we should constantly be in prayer, Sometimes we allow our situation to dictate our prayers lives. I think all of us have been there. When we are in trouble, when things are falling apart we are in constant prayer. But when things are going good for us, when life is treating us right, why is our prayer lives reduced to close to nothing? Our situation changes the way we pray and what we pray for but it should not affect our prayer life at all. The truth is it’s sometimes easier to pray when things in our lives are out of control because we need God to fix them. We need God to deliver us and bring us out of the hard times. But what about the good times. When things are going good, praise God. There’s nothing like taking the time to thank and praise God for what He has done, for who He is and how He has moved in our lives.

Many times we feel ourselves praying to God for the same things over and over again, as if we want to make sure that He hears us, or has heard us. There’s nothing wrong with constantly praying for something, but at what point is that constant prayer bred from doubt. What I mean is, when we pray do we really believe that God can do it. Are we praying just to pray or are we praying in faith? Some things takes a lot of prayer, and sometimes we are doubting God. There is no use of us praying if we are going to doubt and worry anyway. This is something God has taught me, don’t pray and worry, don’t pray and doubt. It defeats the purpose of prayer. We must pray in faith and trust in the power of prayer, and that means trusting that God hears us and He is going to answer us. This does not mean that we will always get the answer we want. It means that we are trusting God and His plans.

When talking about Elijah Peter says before anything, “Elijah was as human as we are…” I think that is meant to encourage us, yes we are human, so was Jesus, and Paul, and John, and Peter, and Timothy, and all the Apostles, but when they prayed God moved. That is because they prayed in faith knowing that it was not by human hands or human power but it was through the divine power of God that these things were done. Yes, we are mere humans but we serve an almighty God who can do anything! The scripture goes on to talk about how Elijah prayed that it would not rain, and it didn’t rain for three and half years, exclamation point! Then when he prayed for rain it rained! This is the power of prayer, something that seems so simple yet so hard for many people is one of our most powerful weapons. Prayer changes things, God moves when His people earnestly pray to Him, having faith that He will answer. Elijah did not talk about how it should stop raining or how it needs to rain again, no He went straight to God in prayer and asked. That’s what we as the body of Christ must learn to do, we must learn to talk less, pray more, and watch what God does.

All this to say, do not doubt the power of prayer and what God can do. Do not pray and worry but trust in Him.

Response/Prayer Time

Take the time to respond in whatever way you feel led, and pray. Pray about whatever is on your heart, allow the Holy Spirit to fill you, and just pray.

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 306!

Day 304: When It's Out of Our Control

James 5:7

Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen.

I love the analogy of a farmer waiting for the harvest, or the rains to come so the plants can grow. I know this scripture is about patience but what I get from this is that the farmer is not worrying or stressed about when the harvest will come. One because they know that it will come in due season, but also it is something that is out of their control. That’s what I want to discuss today, we as humans sometimes worry about things that we cannot control and we stress ourselves out for no reason.  We get to the point of worry or stress where we can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t focus, can’t do anything. That is not healthy, worry does nothing but make the situation worse. I can tell you that worrying is never the answers, worrying has never fixed a problem.

How many times have you been worried in the past month about things that are out of your control? What about the last week? One thing that God has taught me is to always trust Him, His timing, and His plan. I used to worry about everything, the smallest things to the biggest things until I realized that there is no reason for me to worry because God already has it figured out and also why worry when there is nothing I can do about it. Let’s not stress ourselves out and go into early menopause or mid-life crisis because we spent all of our time worried about things that we can literally do nothing to change. All we can do is wait on God, like the farmer patiently waits on the harvest. When we spend less time worried about things we spend more time focusing on God. When our focus is on God we don’t have time to be stressing about what He’s already taken care of. When was the last time worry helped you through something? It never really helps all it does is give us unnecessary anxiety.

Recently I had an audition for a showcase that will be happening in Los Angeles. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s when actors get the chance to perform for multiple agencies, manager, casting directors, etc. As someone who is from Los Angeles and is planning on moving back after college this was a big deal for me. A huge deal! So I prepared for my audition, more than I’ve ever prepared in my life for an audition. I prayed, had everyone else praying and I went in there and did it. In my opinion, it was the best audition I had ever done. I walked out of there confident. We wouldn’t know if we were in the showcase for another week, so that week was a struggle. I had to continue to pray, not that I would get into the showcase but that I would not worry or stress myself out waiting for the results. I came to the conclusion that whatever happens it would part of God’s plan and two I had no control over what happened next, all I could do was have faith in God. A week later I got into the showcase!

-Dyamond

All this to say, sometimes we are so worried about the things going on in our lives, the results we are waiting on, or the things we are praying for that we forget to have faith in God. Don’t let your worry get in the way of you focusing on God. He’s got in all under control even when it looks like everything is going crazy, God’s got it under control.

Reflection

1. Do you ever find yourself worrying about things that are out of your control?
2. How has worrying helped?
3. How has choosing to have faith in God and His planned helped?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your pray, if you have a tendency to worry and be anxious ask God to free you from that.

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 305!