God things

GOD THINGS

Things are going to get better. Things are going to turn around. God is going to provide. God is going to do something for you. Don’t give up. Don’t give in to fear. Stay in faith. Stay encouraged. I know that things can get very bad. Things might be very bad for you now but I also know that we have a God that is very good and He makes bad things good. He takes the bad situations that we have and turns them into something amazing. He is an expert at turning bad things into what I call “God things.” God things are blessings, miracles, breakthroughs and all the wonderful things from Heaven that the Lord pours into our lives. Today I want to encourage you to believe in God things. Believe that God is going to do something extraordinary for you and change your situation for the best. He has not said His final word. He has not given up on your situation. He is going to improve your situation and make it something out of this world. He is extremely good at doing that.

 The God who parted the seas will part your seas and make a way for you. He will put your troubles aside and let you walk on solid ground. He will open doors that you never knew existed. He is going to make things so much better that you are going to forget how bad things once were. God things are what you are entitled to, friend. God’s mercy and grace are for you. You are not going to stay in this state of sorrow, pain and suffering. Healing is coming. Peace is coming. Joy is coming. A new day is coming. Hope is here to stay even in the middle of your darkest moments. There is still Jesus. There is still the Lord. There are still God things. Expect God’s best. Expect God to give you rest. Expect God to do His thing and give you some powerful God things.

God things are things that change everything around. They are great and mighty deeds from God. They are the things that we dream of and that we long for. Know that they are not just dreams. God can do exceedingly more than we hope for and what He does is real. What He does is available for you today. Miracles are not things of the past. Breakthroughs are not just for other people. Blessings are part of your inheritance in Christ. Add faith in God things to your belief system. Trust and believe that God is always for you, with you and that His hand is at work in your life. Believe in miracles. You might wonder how you can do that. I like to read God’s miracles in the Bible and declare them over my life. 

I declare and say that God blesses me and that He performs miracles in my life daily. Make that confession. Make that declaration when you pray and throughout the day. Let yourself hear that you believe in God things. Let yourself hear that miracles are part of your life. Make those statements in faith. Say them loud and clear and keep saying them. Declare that God things are your things. Don’t dwell on the bad things in your life. There might be a lot of them but you have Jesus and He will give you His best. Say that Jesus gives you His best. The more you say it and hear it, the more faith you will have in God things. Let your words of faith be louder than the doubts in your mind. Speak God’s truth. Speak His miracles and see your faith grow and blessings will take place.

God is always good and He is always faithful. He loves seeing our faith and He loves hearing faith. We don’t express our faith in God things enough but you and I can change that today. It is what we say and trust that brings about the things of God in our lives. Let’s be on God’s page and stay on His page. Let’s stay on His Word and lift up the truth of His Word. Miracles are here and they are for you and me. You don’t have to believe what the enemy is doing in your life. He creates bad situations but the Lord is in your life to remove those bad things. Thank God for His breakthroughs, blessings and miracles. Thank God for His healing. 

Keep a gratitude attitude about God things. Stay thankful through it all. God will do something that will blow your mind. He is the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. He has the final say. He can do all things. Your next breakthrough is around the corner. Your blessings are waiting for you. There are many God things on the way. You have seen nothing yet. Praise the God of good things. Praise the Lord for His God things. You are highly blessed and highly favored and God things are your things. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Ephesians 3:20; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Romans 4:21

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Stay in peace

STAY IN PEACE

God’s peace is powerful. It is described as a peace that surpasses all understanding. It doesn’t make sense to us because it is above and beyond the peace of the world. It can take over our minds and give us a lot of serenity even in the middle of chaos and confusion. God’s peace doesn’t rely on how we feel and on what’s happening in our lives. It is not dictated by our circumstances. It dictates how we react to our circumstances. When we have God’s peace, we react to life with hope and calmness. We don’t panic. We don’t fret. We don’t get hysterical. We walk by faith and not by sight. Peace works very well with faith. Peace is a helper of faith as I like to call it. It helps us stay focused on the truth of the Lord and it helps us hold on to hope. My prayer for you today is that you know God’s peace and that you experience it every day. His peace is out of this world and it can change your world. It can change how you see your world. Pray for peace if you don’t have any. Claim God’s peace. It is yours. It belongs to you. God has provided His peace for you and you can receive it anytime.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”* Jesus left peace for us. It is an amazing gift. However, we ought to tap into it. The way we can do that is by first acknowledging that we are entitled to His peace. Other translations of this verse say “Peace I give to you.” He gives us peace. We have to be aware that we are on the receiving end. We are to welcome His peace and to embrace it. Every morning when I pray, I thank the Lord for His peace that surpasses my understanding. I claim it. I receive it. I love it. I have the Lord’s peace in me and it is my reality. It is a truth that will always be true and I have peace every day. My circumstances like to challenge the peace or to challenge my belief in that peace. When it happens, I declare even more that I have the peace of the Lord and I stand my ground. I stand on Jesus and on His promise. He promised me peace and He is not a liar. I stay in peace because I stay in faith and I stay close to the Lord. My daily interactions with Jesus keep me in peace. Friend, your daily interactions with the Lord will keep you in peace as well. Stay in peace as you stay close to the Lord.

Daily interactions with the Lord are so crucial. They fuel our Christian life. They give us what we need spiritually and more. They are the backbone of our faith and they are the daily manna from Heaven that we need. I talk to the Lord as often as I can and I listen to Him as often as I can. He talks to me a lot about not worrying and about His peace. He is extremely reassuring. His messages are all about hope, about making it and about having a peace that makes no sense. When we focus on Him and we meditate on His Word, His Spirit reminds us of who we are in Christ and what we should expect as believers. Peace is one of the daily expectations we should have. We have His peace in us and it keeps on flowing as we keep on flowing with the Holy Spirit. Prayers, worship, praise and thanksgiving all keep us close to the Lord and help us stay in peace. Sometimes I notice that my peace is not strong and it often happens when I have not spent enough time interacting with God. Friend, keep connecting with the Lord. Keep praising Him. Keep glorifying Him. Stay close to God and you will stay in peace. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you.

Suggested reading: John 14:27*; Philippians 4:6-7; 2 Thessalonians 3:16

Stretch your faith

The other day when I was praying, I received a message about stretching my faith. I heard, “Stretch your faith. Stretch your faith so it reaches higher altitudes of hope. Stretch your faith so it gets into greater depths in the oceans of blessings. Stretch your faith so it is wide enough to touch miracles that are coming from every side.” I meditated on that message for some time and I thanked the Lord for it. God is so generous with His wisdom and His revelation. I took that message to heart. I had needed to hear that. I believe everyone needs to stretch their faith. Everyone needs to trust God more. We have to truly work on our faith and on our connection to God. Faith connects us to God. Faith gives us an understanding of God. Faith believes without the shadow of a doubt. Faith allows us to see what’s invisible to the naked eye. Faith gives us a different pair of eyes. Faith enables us to see God at work in our lives even when nothing seems to be happening. The more we stretch our faith, the more we see the impossible made possible. We have a God who can do all things. He can do the impossible but it can be very hard for us to see that and to even believe it.

Jesus said that He couldn’t perform many miracles where people didn’t believe. Lack of faith prevents us from experiencing miracles. If we stretch our faith, we stretch the experience of miracles. We stretch the muscles of great possibilities. God can do so much in our lives and He is waiting for us to stretch our arms of faith and grab the blessings and the great things He wants to do in our lives. A mustard seed of faith is all we need. We need that seed to be planted and to grow. How do we go about doing that? First we should plant the seed in the Word of God. We need to water the seed with the Scriptures every day. We should prayerfully read the Bible and let it feed our faith so that it can be stretched. There is so much we hear and see every day and all this information can either kill the seed or help the seed get bigger. I try to shut down the world first thing in the morning and spend time stretching my faith by feeding on the Word. I spend time in isolation with God every day. I don’t let anything negative enter that time of faith stretching. I love it. I need it. I won’t stop doing it. My faith grows when I pray. When I pray I listen to God and I talk to God. That amazing exchange helps my faith. I cherish my prayer time. It gives me a boost and it helps my faith.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”* Faith is a conviction. A conviction is a firmly held belief or opinion. To have a conviction is to have a firm belief, a belief that can’t be shaken. We all have some strong convictions. We strongly believe certain things that are true to us and that are normal to us. Here is a simple example. We believe that when we put the right key in our door and we turn it, the door will open. It is a conviction. We have no doubt. It is normal and it is expected. Our faith should be the same way. It should be as firm as the belief that the key will turn and the door will open. As we stretch our faith, we can get to a place where anything we ask in prayer, we believe we receive and it is as easy as the turning of the key. We believe that the door of blessings will open. We believe that the door of opportunities will open. We believe that God will open doors that no one can shut. Stretching our faith does open more doors and yields amazing blessings. Friend, work on stretching your faith. Spend time in the Word. Spend some isolated time with God. Pray, praise and be thankful every day. Your faith will reach higher altitudes and depths of blessings that seem impossible but that will be possible. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Hebrews 11:1*; Romans 10:17; Luke 1:37

Expect Jesus every day

EXPECT JESUS

I like to call every new week a week to remember because I expect great things to happen. I expect blessings. I expect peace that surpasses all understanding. I expect joy to be my strength. I expect comfort. I expect encouragement. I expect miracles. I expect great things. I expect a lot from the Lord because in His Word He tells us to be expectant. I expect the Lord to show up every day. I expect to be in communication with Him through the Holy Spirit. I expect a great prayer session and amazing worship time. I expect Jesus. Yes, I expect Jesus every week and He never disappoints. I expect Him to be present and to take me on a journey of discovery of His love and discovery of His kingdom. I expect a lot and I keep on expecting. Do I expect trials and tribulations? I do. I don’t actively look for them and I don’t fear what’s going to happen. Jesus Himself said it was normal to have trials and tribulations. They will never disappear but neither will He. We ought to keep our focus on Him so when the trials occur, we know how to deal with them and how to walk through them all with hope and confidence. Today I want to encourage you to expect Jesus this week. Expect Him to bless you exceedingly more than you can imagine and to be present. He is not going to leave you. Expect Him every day and turn to Him every day. He is closer than a brother and closer than the air you breathe.

I used to expect things to go wrong all the time. I used to be an expert at that. I anticipated the worst and I had movies in my head of the worst case scenarios. I played those movies in my mind over and over again. Bad news was what I expected. Bad things were the focus of my meditation and they always found a way of manifesting. I didn’t know that life could get better. I didn’t know that Jesus could intervene every day. I didn’t know I could expect Jesus. I expected the opposite of Jesus. I expected failure, stress, anxiety, fear, confusion and an endless circle of bad luck. Jesus broke that circle. Jesus blessed my life. Jesus put a stop to the negative expectations. He showed me that He was the truth, the way and the Life and that He was not present only on Sunday. He told me that in this life I would have tribulations but I needed to take heart because He had conquered the world. Triumph is what I had to expect. His triumph over the trials of my life. He reassured me and He made me smile. Jesus makes us smile. He smiles at us all the time and His smile is very contagious. Let Him contaminate you with His love, His smile and His joy. Draw near to Him and He will transform you. Draw near to Him daily and you won’t want to be far from Him ever again. Expect Him to be with you all the time because He is. When we open our eyes to the Lord’s presence, we see the world in a whole new light. Expect Jesus to be the light of your world and the darkness will never win.

Expect Jesus every day of the week. Don’t rely on how you feel. When you wake up in the morning, talk to Jesus. Talk to Him as if you were talking to your best friend. He is your King, your God and your best friend. I didn’t know I could see Him as a friend. My King was too royal to be my best friend. At least that is what I thought. He is close to us, friend. He comes down to our level so He can pull us up to His level. He is powerful and mighty and yet He makes Himself small so we can interact with Him. He is Sovereign and majestic and yet He interacts with everyone who is willing to talk to Him. Expect Jesus your Savior to be your intimate friend. Expect a union and a communion that never stops and that will grow. Expect your passion for Jesus to grow. Expect to go from glory to glory with Jesus. Expect Him to be your protector, your shield and your Rock. He is the Rock that goes before you and behind you. Expect Jesus in every area of your life. Expect Jesus to bless every area of your life. Expect Jesus to help you in every area of your life. Expect Jesus to fill every area of your life with His presence. Expect Jesus all the time. Expect Him to defeat life all the time. You are highly blessed and highly favored and you always have Jesus. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Isaiah 41:10; Matthew 1:22-23; Romans 15:13

Let Him reign

LET HIM REIGN

Sometimes when I am praying or I am in a praise session, I experience so much of the presence of the Lord that all I can do is bow down. It happened to me yesterday. I was in prayer and I felt directed to get on my knees and pray. As soon as I did that I started crying. I couldn’t help it. It was such a powerful experience. I thanked the Lord for His love and for His continued presence and I cried and cried. It is hard to express in words. It is hard to explain what happens  in those moments but it is very real and very powerful. It feels to me like a direct encounter with Heaven. Yesterday what touched me the most was what the Lord whispered to me during that prayer session. He said “Let the trumpets from Heaven be louder than your thoughts. Let the trumpets blow so that people can hear from Me. Let the trumpets blow and let them be louder than your fears, your doubts and your confusion. Let Me reign in you. Let Me reign in you.” That last statement got me crying even more. He is so good. He is so loving and He wants to reign in our lives. He wants total control. He wants total surrender. He wants His words to be our words. His truth to be our truth. His love to be our love. His blessings to be our blessings. His power to be our power. He wants us to wear His Gospel like a glove and keep it on all day long. No matter the season we ought to keep the glove of love, hope, peace, joy and faith. We should handle every matter of life with that glove and not take it off. I loved that image. It spoke volumes to me.

When I came out of this moment of encounter, I felt ready for the day and I felt blessed. We shouldn’t rely on our feelings but this feeling of a powerful visitation didn’t stop. It was just phenomenal. I took a few minutes to meditate on what had happened and like I said before what stood out the most was the Lord telling me to let Him reign in my life. He wants us all to be dependent on Him. He should be our number one source and resource. He should be why we live, why we love and why we keep going. He wants to reign in every part of our lives. He wants to be the dominant factor, the perfect equation and the answer to all our problems. What does it mean to let Him reign? It means that we have blind faith and we trust and believe that He is always in control. We trust and believe that He is in control even when bad things happen. Sometimes things look very bad and then we discover that it was a blessing in disguise. Sometimes things are very bad but then God gets all the glory when He gets us out of trouble. The Lord reigns. He is the King of Kings. However, we have free will and we should decide to let Him reign in our lives. Our faith lets Him reign. Our surrender lets Him reign. I want to be totally surrendered to Him and let Him have His way. He is not just the King of Kings in Heaven. He is the King in my heart and I am working on making it a daily reality.

When you let God reign in your life, you let love take over. It is a very strong love. He loves us so we can love others. His love shouldn’t be kept under a bushel. His love should be displayed as the bright light that it is. It should shine and it should touch people’s lives. It should keep people warm and attract people. When God’s love reigns, miracles can happen. Chains are broken. Hearts are mended. Hope is alive and forgiveness is a daily occurrence. This world needs love. This world needs Jesus and you and I can give Jesus to the world. You and I can let Him reign in our lives so that people are impacted by true and pure love. We can be vessels for the King. We can be messengers of peace. We can be spokespeople for love. We can be the healers, the helpers and the servants of the Lord that this world needs. Friend, let the Lord reign in your life. Give Him all of you. Let Him speak through you. Let Him walk through you. Let Him bless through you. Let Him help through you. Let Him heal through you. Surrender to His will every day. Put yourself last and put Him first. Put Him first and listen to what He has to say. He is good all the time. He is love all the time. He can bless you all the time and He can use you to be a blessing all the time. End the reign of terror in your life by surrendering to the One true King who reigns with love and power. Lift Him up and trust Him with all your heart. He wants to reign. Give Him free rein in your life. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Exodus 15:18; Matthew 22:37; Romans 6:12

10 nuggets of wisdom for your Saturday (Part 278)

As hard as it seems to be right now, there is a solution and there is an answer to your prayers. Keep going and keep trusting God. Something good is coming!

You are welcome in God’s house. Make it your dwelling place. Stay there. Enjoy it and become familiar with every single room of blessings that are in His house of love!

Today’s pain doesn’t compare to tomorrow’s joy. God will give you a lot of joy and wipe away the tears. Keep trusting Him during the difficult times and He will give you joyful times!

A drop of God’s love in an ocean of hatred is all it takes to make things better. Pray for God’s love to contaminate the waves of hate and discrimination. Pray for love to prevail!

God is knocking on the door of your heart. He wants access to your spirit and He wants to fill your heart with His presence. Let Him in!

God will show up when you least expect it and He will keep on coming through. Expect Him to step into the situation. He will change everything around for the best!

Take the time to be with Jesus. Take the time to pray, praise and worship. Take the time to say thanks and to celebrate the life the Lord has given you. Take the time to be still and to know that He is God!

God thinks you are beautiful inside and out so let that truth resonate in your heart. Let it become your meditation as you learn to love yourself the way God loves you!

The Lord repeats Himself. He does wonders over and over again. He blesses us over and over again. Let’s praise Him for being a good repetitive God!

God can take your life and turn it into an eternal life of blessings, joy, triumph and victory in Jesus. Trust Him with your life!

Suggested reading: Psalm 150:6; 1 Corinthians 16:14; 1 John 3:18

Praise God through the storms

The storms of life can come at any time. They often come unannounced and they seem to be coming from nowhere. We all experience storms. Sometimes we have long seasons of trials and tribulations that are powerful storms. Sometimes we have a short period of problems. We can’t escape the storms. We can’t live this life without any storms. They take on different forms and they affect us differently. Your storm might be different from mine and even though it might look small to you, it can be devastating to me. I have seen some violent storms. Before I knew the Lord, my storms were horrible. Those bad storms still come but now I have Jesus. I believe it is important to be ready for any storm. Not to expect them all the time but to be under our refuge, Jesus at all times. I was reading Psalm 112 the other night. It is one of those amazing Psalms about praising the Lord. David knew a thing or two about praising God. He did it all the time. He praised God on a good day and he praised Him on a bad day. Nothing changed David’s flow of praises. Praising God was a way of life for him. It was part of who he was and it was very natural. He praised God through many storms. He cried out to God with a song of praise even when he was agonizing. Praising God through the storms of life should be natural and normal to us believers. Like David, we should maintain the flow of praise no matter what. It is not easy. It can be very challenging but today I am inviting you to make praise your daily routine. Praise God as often as you can. Sing to Him. Speak to Him with words of praise. Stay under the umbrella of His love.

Jesus is my refuge. He is my umbrella. He protects me from the rain of trouble and the sun of trials. Sometimes those trials are so bright that they blind my faith. Jesus is my buffer in those situations. I have learned that if I maintain my praises, Jesus is more real to me. Praise does that. The Lord inhabits the praises of His people and the more we praise Him, the more we experience His presence and the more real He is to us. Jesus is as real as can be and we ought to have faith in His ability to bless us and to protect us. If we praise Him only once a week, He will not be a reality to us. He will be a reality in that moment but the next day or even the next hour, He will be a distant memory. He should be fresh in our minds and alive in our hearts. Praises make Him come alive so to speak. They fill our hearts with His love, His presence and His reality. I praise every day. I love praising the Lord. It helps me a lot. It helps me connect with Him and it helps me focus on Him. We were meant to praise the Lord. The enemy knows that and he works very hard at making sure we lose our praise. He doesn’t want us to be in the presence of the Lord or to believe that the Lord is present and real. He wants us to doubt, to fear and to hide in shame. Jesus is more than real and your praises, friend, will reveal that to you. Praise Him today. Praise Him now. Praise Him even if your pain is very real. What you might be going through today could be very painful and very destabilizing but know that your Lord is very powerful, very loving and very strong. He will remove the pain and bless you. Praise Him!

Praising God through the storms is declaring that God is stronger than your storms. At first it can feel fake and rehearsed but you need to jumpstart the praise and go with the flow of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit assists us in our praise. He gives us wings to fly over the hardship of life when we praise. Praise does that to me. It takes me to a higher altitude of hope and peace. It gives me a lot of joy. It fills me with faith. It heals me. It restores me. It gives me freedom. It gives me deliverance and it shows me Jesus. You can’t spend time praising the Lord and not get closer to Him. The storms look smaller when you praise the Lord. Hope gets bigger and trials take a back seat. I strongly urge you to praise the Lord today even if you are facing a terrible storm. God will come out from behind the clouds and shower you with love. Hope will rise. Peace will shine. Joy will be evident. You are going to have so much to look forward to when you praise because you will have wider eyes of faith. Praise the Lord through your storm. He is going to do something truly amazing for you. Stay strong. Stay encouraged and keep praising Jesus. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Isaiah 25:1; Psalm 112:1; Ephesians 1:3

Two verses that are pillars of my faith

I was reading Hebrews chapter 13 the other night. Two verses that have been the pillars of my faith are in this chapter but one thing I realized was the context of the first verse that has helped me so much. We are told not to love money and that the love of money is the root of all evil. I have known that verse for a while and it didn’t occur to me that it led to the first pillar verse in that chapter. It says that we shouldn’t love money and we shouldn’t worry about having our needs met. Why? The answer to this question is that first verse I have been standing on. The verse says that the Lord promises that He will never leave us nor forsake. The context is our needs being met. We will always have the Lord. He will never let us down and He will always provide. God is with us in everything and that includes our finances and our needs.

 I don’t know why this blew my mind even though I had been aware of that truth. It is a truth that you can stand on, friend. Today you can freely declare that you don’t have to worry about money and about your needs being met because the Lord will never leave you nor forsake. This implies that He will always give you what you need and He will always assist you. Put your faith in that truth. Know that God will never leave your finances and He will never forsake your finances. He is always there. Know that God will never leave your needs and He will never forsake your needs. It sounds basic but it is the basics of faith that we ought to go back to often to get a boost and some encouragement. We all need to hear the promises of God over and over again. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God.

Now, like I said the Lord will never leave us nor forsake us in everything. In every area of our lives, we can count on God. In every circumstance of our lives, we can count on God. Through every trial and tribulation, we can count on God. On good days and on bad days, we can count on God. When we have a lot and when we have nothing, we can count on God. If you are broke, if you are down, if you are lost, you can count on God. He is not abandoning you and He will never leave you. Declare that to your situation. Speak to your circumstances and reveal the truth of the Lord. His truth is more powerful than anything that will ever come against you. 

You have Jesus so you have a solution. You have Jesus so you have the victory. His victory will never leave you nor forsake you! You can count on that forever. We have a forever God. We have a God whose eternal life will always cover us and bless us. I love that and I thank God for that. The everlasting characteristic of God is beautiful. This takes me to the second verse in chapter 13 that has strengthened me. Verse 8 says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. What a blessing! What a powerful truth! What a miracle it is. Jesus the Son of God, the One who conquered death will never ever change. Things and people will change in our lives but Jesus will never change.

I strongly encourage you to study who Jesus is. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you know Jesus better. He will show you that the Love who died on the cross is alive and well and today like yesterday He can still perform miracles. Tomorrow He will perform miracles. Today He is with you standing there in all His glory and His love for you is unconditional. You have a Savior who is consistent, who is unwavering and who is stable. His power is stable. His ability to bless you is stable. His mercy and grace are stable. They can’t be changed. Think about that. Meditate on that. Dwell on that. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. What does that mean for your life? How is that impacting your life? You will find answers to these questions in prayer and meditation. You are highly blessed and highly favored. Jesus will never leave you and He will always be the same. Praise Him! Glorify Him. Lift up His name! May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:5; Hebrews 13:8

Think outside the negative box

One thing  that never changes is that God is good all the time. Even when our lives are not good, He remains good and He is still God. We tend to see God differently when bad things happen. Negative events give God a negative image. That is the goal of the enemy. He aims at destroying God’s image and making Him look bad. He wants you and I to believe that God is powerless and He has no control of our lives. He wants us to put God in a box of disappointment and frustration. That box stays wide open and when the going gets tough, we focus on that box and we put all negative thoughts and feelings into it. Before we know it, we have a box of despair and we put God in there. We associate God with failure when in reality He never fails. I have seen that box many times. It is in my mind and I am learning to think outside that box and to not go near it. That mental box is very destructive and very damaging. It is the box of overthinking. A box that we are way too familiar with. It is almost an expectation. We expect to spend time in that mental box and sometimes it is even comforting. There is no comfort in negativity. Only chaos and confusion reign in negativity. God is always good, friend. He makes anything and everything good. When we bring Him into our situation and we trust Him, He makes things good again. Today I want to encourage you to think outside the negative box and to remember that God is always outside the box and He is always good.

I used to be an expert at spending time in the negative box. I lived there. I resided there. It was my habitation and it even became my refuge. I would shut down and spend time overthinking. I was so good at it that people around me couldn’t tell I was in that box. I knew how to smile when inside I was sad. That box was limited. It had limited space and it limited my thinking. I could only think within the walls of that negative box. The same negative thoughts kept coming. Problems were abundant in that box and no solution was in sight. I put God in that box. I put Him in the middle of my misery. I would think about how God had let me down and He appeared to be very small in that box. The enemy even made me think that God had abandoned me and I couldn’t rely on Him. Friend, we ought to renew our minds with the Word of truth. It is that Word that set me free. The Lord told me in His Word that He was greater than the enemy that lived in this world. He said that there was always hope and there was always God. He showed me that He lived in my heart, in my spirit and He was bigger than those negative thoughts. He did not belong in the box. He wasn’t the cause of my problems and He could certainly solve them. God is good all the time. God is good when life is bad. That statement helped me a lot. I took God out of that mental negative box and put Him on a pedestal. I thought outside the box and it saved me.

Today you might be deep in that box because of your circumstances. You might see no way out and you might have given up on God. God has not changed. He has not left you. He has not given up. He knows and trusts that nothing is impossible with Him. Join Him on that train of thought. Believe that He is the same yesterday, today and forever and rely on Him completely. Pray to Him and ask Him to guide you out of that box. You are blessed even in the middle of your mess like they say. God is with you. God is blessing you. God still loves you. God will help you. Think in terms of deliverance and freedom. That is where God is. He is the God of deliverance and freedom. He will get you out of that mess. Keep thinking about His miracle working power. Tell yourself that nothing is impossible to Him. Lift Him up and He will lift up the ban that has been put on your thinking. You will be able to think positively again and have hope and confidence. Think outside  the negative box and think in line with the Word of God. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: Proverbs 17:22; Philippians 4:4-7; 2 Corinthians 10:5

You will laugh again

Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. As we develop our relationship with the Holy Spirit by interacting with Him and letting Him take control, we can expect joy. We can expect all the fruit of the Spirit and joy is definitely part of it. The joy of the Lord is our strength the Bible tells us. Joy is underrated in some Christian circles and in other ones it is evident and powerfully displayed. I remember when I was a young Christian and the joy of the people in the house of God bothered me. It made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t understand it and I thought it was fake. Those joyful people had something I didn’t have and it puzzled me. Why were they so joyful every Sunday? Did they all have a great week and celebrated it on Sunday? Did they have the same joy during the week? I became friends with some of them. There was a lady named Mireille. I quickly found out that the joy of the Lord was present in her life even during the week. Her secret was her fellowship with the Holy Spirit. She prayed and praised a lot. She talked about the Holy Spirit as if He were her best friend and because of that connection she adored Jesus. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, always points at Jesus and helps us get close to Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit in her life was blooming and beautifully presented. She was kind, loving, patient, full of hope and joyful. She laughed a lot when I saw her with her friends. I loved to laugh but I didn’t laugh enough.

When problems arise, when they chase you down and they don’t leave you alone, it’s hard to laugh. It’s hard to be joyful and to tap into the power of the joy of the Lord. However, we can have joy in the middle of our chaos. We can have joy when life gives us reasons to cry. We can laugh in the middle of trials and tribulations. God’s joy doesn’t rely on our circumstances. It relies on the Lord. It relies on who He is. It relies on the Word of God. It relies on our connection with the Lord. The last time I found myself miserable while dealing with some issues, the Lord told me, “You will laugh again.”  I heard it when I was praying and it put a smile on my face. My mind was telling me that all was lost and there was nothing that could be done about my situation. That made me sad. I didn’t smile for a while until the Lord told me that I would laugh again. He showed me that His joy was still here and that I could tap into it. I got into praise mode. I praised Him through that storm. I got myself back to the platform of joy and everything looked amazing from there. Joy is in our spiritual DNA. We need to be reminded who we are in Christ and what runs in our blood. The blood of Jesus covers us and we have the fruit of the Spirit in our spirit. Joy brings laughter. Laughter brings more strength and power to deal with the enemy. When you are joyful and you laugh, nothing looks bad. Your worst situation looks more than manageable. You get on the same page as the Lord’s.

We tend to think that the fruit of the Spirit is only good for certain seasons. We see it as a ripe and delicious fruit for some time and when we are hit by a storm we put the fruit away. We remove it from its tree so to speak and we let it wilt and go bad. The fruit of the Spirit is always in season. The joy of the Lord is for every season. It is good all the time. Now, it’s up to us to cultivate it and to keep it fresh all the time. Singing, praising, worshiping keep the fruit nice and ripe. Communion with the Lord and trusting the Lord keep the fruit growing. My encouragement to you today is that you keep praising the Lord even through the hardest seasons. Let the fruit of His Spirit be present in your life daily. You will laugh again. You will laugh all the time. When something bad happens, you will laugh. You will laugh because you will know without the shadow of a doubt that God is with you and He has you in the palm of His hand. You will enjoy the joy of the Lord and you will laugh. Friend, I don’t know what’s going on in your life today but let me remind you that you will laugh again. God will have the final say. Stay strong and keep your eyes on the Lord. Thank Him for the fruit of the Spirit and keep the fruit fresh. May God bless you and protect you and remember that He will always love you!

Suggested reading: John 16:5; Galatians 5:22-23; Colossians 3:12-17