A FRESH TOUCH FROM GOD

Have you ever finished a meal and made the statement that if you could start over you would do it again, because the meal was so delicious? Have you ever been in a worship service and when it was over you wanted to repeat it again? If you are like me and have ever eaten in a restaurant and enjoyed a meal like that, I could guess that you went back again to that same restaurant in hopes to enjoy another meal as you might had that first one. Encountering God is kind of like enjoying a great meal and wanting to repeat it again. Sadly, many people have never experienced that kind of encounter with God and so they do not desire to enjoy basking in His presence at all. You see it takes a spirit of divine desperation and holy hunger to succumb to encountering those precious times with God. But once you do encounter Him nothing else will ever satisfies you like He does.  

 

It may very well be that you need a fresh touch from God or that you have never had an encountered with God before. If not, it may be because you have only had an intellectual understanding about Him, but have never wanted His will for your life. Maybe you have never pursued Him in order to encounter Him. It may be that you have been busy trying to fill the void in your life that God has placed there for Himself with other things that have distracted you from knowing the truth about Him. Possibly you are in a place right now where you have stopped attending church or you have simply grown weary in Church attendance and activity and feel like you are only walking through the motions of knowing God. Maybe it is simply repentance that you need. You see our repentance brings spiritual passion that propels us to seek Godly worship and when Godly passion is birthed in our hearts and in our churches, God’s very presences enters our hearts and our churches once again. The process of perusing God begins on bended knees. If there is any thought that satan would like for us to be deceived on is the thought of how important repentance is in our lives. For he knows that we cannot encounter God on any level if we are unwilling to repent from the very things that separate us from God, and that my friend is our sin. Even the smallest of sin.

 

Whether it is a fresh touch from God that you need today or the fact that you have never invited Him into your life and been willing to turn from your sin allowing Him to change you, the simple fact is we need God in our lives and according to John chapter 14 verse 6, it is the only way to get to Him. My prayer for us today is that God would make us incredibly hungry for Him!

 

Loving on you today!

Bren

WHERE DO YOU STAND WITH GOD?

 

 

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. When God had made up His mind to destroy the earth, He noticed a single man that was perusing Him and He offered that man grace and mercy; and to his family as well,  I might add. Noah endured many a taunts, laughter and ongoing verbal abuse as he stayed faithful to his course and what he believed God was asking Him to do. Noah’s faith and commitment spared his family and saved the future human race. Job was a man also that surpassed any test of adversity that was thrown at him and demonstrated a level of love for God that even his wife and friends could not understand. The man Daniel had a persistent prayer life and devotion to God that stirred  anger in the hearts of his enemies. His devotion to God reflected his true faith in God. In other words Daniel was not a person who simply talk the talk, but he put his faith to action by how he lived.

 

You see, many folks claim to know God, but for many, they merely know about God. Satan himself knows and believes in God and Jesus, but his faith is only an intellectual faith. It is not a saving faith. The only kind of faith that pleases God is a faith that hungers after God in obedience. May I encourage you today that if your faith is not leading you into a righteous lifestyle that is leading you away from sin and not to it, then it is more than likely that your faith is simply an intellectual faith that while you may know about God, there is a real big chance that you do not know God in a personal way. God’s Word teaches us in John 14:15,  that if we love Him, we will obey Him. So, sweet friend where do you stand today? Are you hungry for God, are you perusing Him out of that hunger? Or, are you satisfied and feel like you and God have your own thing going on, whether it is based on the Word of God or not? Take some quality time this week and peruse God and find out where you stand before Him. Better now, than later!

 

Loving on you today sweet friend,

Bren

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR!

Has God ever given you something that you protested you just had to have, only to find out that in the end your request was birthed in your flesh and ended up costing you more than you ever believed that it would? Well, in the Bible God gives us a very important lesson on being careful, to always ask for things from God that are according to His will, not simply because we want it. It was never God’s intention that that the Jews have a king. His plan was that they would follow Him under the direction of His prophets and according to His very words and that by doing so, He would provide for them and care for them. In I Samuel beginning in chapter 8 it is very clear how God intended Israel to govern themselves, but His people clamored and demanded that they be allowed to have a king like the surrounding nations around them. So they took to the streets and protested and murmured and grumbled to the point that God finally relented and gave them what they wanted. Not only did He give them a king, He gave them the biggest, strongest and most handsome man in all Israel. When the people saw their new king, they fell down in adoration for this awesome specimen of what they perceived to be a great leader and king. They just knew that anyone so mighty and good looking had to be the most favored and likable king in all the earth. Unfortunately it did not turn out the way the people had envisioned. No matter how good Saul looked on the outside, it did nothing to change the reality of who he was on the inside. Despite his good and favorable beginning and being the epitome of a “man’s man”, Saul was inwardly a weak coward who was incapable of doing the will of God and caved in to the demands of those around him at the expense of being faithful to God’s calling. Saul, when confronted by the prophet Samuel, simply did not and would not accept responsibility for disobeying the Word of the Lord that Samuel had given him. In 1 Samuel 15 it is painfully obvious that Saul had only Saul’s interests in his mind and those interest that were birthed in his flesh cost him his kingdom, his family, personal relationships with others and ultimantly his life. His life is truly a lesson that we can all learn from.

 

Recently the people in this country spoke their minds about what they wanted, they were sick and tired of trying to care for themselves and demanded a government who would provide for them financially, physically and even spiritually. The will of the people manifested in these past elections resulted clearly one of more government and less of personal freedom. The relentless and crushing financial blows which the American people have undergone over these past years have brought down many a strong folks. The general feeling of despair has been glooming over us all. It appears to many that they now have what they have wanted. In time I fear like the children of Israel had learned, that many Americans will be stunned to see that there is no savior, no man apart form Jesus, that that can save them from their mistakes or themselves. Whatever transpires in this country, it must be clearly understood that the voting populist have gotten what they wanted, and maybe even more. Just as in due time God’s people recognized Saul to be the fraud that he turned out to be, so in due time Americans will wake up to see that for the believer, there is only one hope and that hope is in Jesus Christ. For no King, President, Senator or state or local Representative can spare one man’s pain without hurting another and by the time that people see the error or their ways, it will be too late and the changes demanded previously will have been permanently enacted and set as law. Then the people will want another “savior” to save them from the one that they elected and put their trust in. For the child of God is called to a higher call and that is simply to carry out the dictates of 1 Timothy and pray for those in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty. Ours role as Christians is to change our government by spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ who is able to change the hearts of those that will believe and accept Him and His ways for their lives. Let the people of God pray for the patience and endurance that we must have as God’s elect. Look to God to bring change in your life, not the government.

 

Loving on you today!

Bren

AVOIDING THE CHEW

I have found that chewing on your foot can be one of the more frustrating aspects of our human nature in the form of saying something that we regret. It seems like more often than not, the harder we try not to say, do or think something, the more likely we are to slip up and let it spray all over the people that we are talking to and at the worst possible time. Doctors tell us that when our conscious minds are stressed and preoccupied with the desire not to slip up and say something stupid or offensive to someone, it is our human subconscious that is devoted to guarding against those mistakes and can fail to protect us, allowing us to say the very thing that we do not want to say. As that happens, and the wrong words slip through, “BAM!” our foot hikes itself up to the level of our mouth and jumps in. The same thing goes with unwanted thoughts that pop into the forefront of our mind. It is possible to learn control over those moments, but we must make a metal and heartfelt effort to do so. I was reading an article the other day that stated that even though someone’s  conscious mind is trying to do the right thing, the unconscious mind is looking for the worst. That article reminded me of something that Saint Paul wrote about in the scriptures long before doctors even began to try and figure it out. He said that, “ Those things we want to do we don’t and the things that we don’t want to do we do. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” Romans 7:5

We can overcome many of those moments ourselves,  just as Paul learned to do, if we follow his example and take the same measures that he took.  Most of us would love some type of system, technique or measure, that would allow us to do this on a regular basis and in our daily lives. Whenever you’re trying to control your thoughts, you must learn to manage your mind and keep it off the task that you are struggling with, refocusing on the things that God tells us to replace that “wrong thinking” with in Philippians 4:8, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” By doing so, it will reduce the effectiveness of your conscious mind exerting control over you. You see we are born with a “fleshly” or “sinful nature” and only the power of God when we allow Him, can rule over our flesh. I believe that there is a spiritual etiquette that the child of God is expected to reflect, but we must desire to reflect it, or folks will see things in us that reveals itself in the form of our fleshly nature. Sadly, many of us, instead of giving our opinions so often need to take on the role of the quiet servant and say nothing at all concerning a thing,  but we are commanded to do so in scripture once we are born again and if we are ever to experience the overcoming power of Jesus Christ.

 

Years ago when I was child, I saw an old move to which I believe was one of the Twilight Zone features. The movie was about this man that talked so much that his so called friends made a large bet with him that he could not stop talking over the period of time that they allotted for him. They placed this  man in a glass house so that they could watch him “for the most part” and listen to any conversation that he might have. At the end of the movie, the man won the bet and his friends ask him how he managed to do it. To answer their question, the man that talked too much, simply pulled down a scarf that was around his neck to reveal his answer. He had cut his vocal cords to prevent his talking. Now that is one of the most radical measures, I have ever seen or heard in order to control one’s tongue. But the moral of the story was that he did what he had to do to make it happen and conquer his tongue. The good news however, is that we do not have to take such drastic measures to get better control over our mouths, we simply have to make the effort. We have to decide for ourselves how important it will be for us to take better control over our flesh in this matter. We will have to say, “Lord Your Word and Your will is what I desire most in my life and I am willing to do whatever it takes to overcome my weaknesses”. Then, hit the road running! Begin to saturate your mind with the Word of God, so that when you are tempted in a matter you will have the proper resources to pull from. Replace your stinking thinking with the proper things to think on and you will be less likely to have to chew on your foot and in some cases, both feet!

 

Loving on you today!

Bren