Today’s encouraging Bible verse from the Bible app with an image I shot off the coast of Kittery, ME.
Archives For Spiritual Battles
She became a modern-day hero of the faith for me. When I heard that Jill wrote a book, I needed to learn more. When I saw that it was a journal that incorporated Scripture writing, I was hooked.
Continue Reading...
Changing externals and environments can be helpful, but real, lasting change begins at a heart level and branches out from there.
Guardrails help us stay on the road. External controls can be helpful. Go deeper. Ask God to reveal the blind spots that are blocking His work in our lives. Then ask for His help to create in us a new heart.
(For deeper study, read Psalm 139 and Psalm 51)
(Hebrews 10:19–25; 1 Thessalonians 5: 11–22)
Listen to the audio version or read below.
I am convinced we can’t live without encouragement and accountability — at least not live well. Some people have an image of a spiritually mature Christian off on a mountaintop just me and my Bible alone with God. That might be a nice place to visit — but that’s not where God wants us to live. God uses many people in our lives to help us grow in our relationship with him and our effectiveness for him!
Along with spending time with God through his word and prayer, Christian fellowship is critically important for us to grow and be effective in our walk with God. Encouragement and accountability are two key ingredients of fellowship. We need both of those on a regular basis AND I’m convinced that God longs to use us to provide these in someone else’s life as well. Continue Reading…
“let us draw near to God
with a sincere heart and
with the full assurance that faith brings”
Hebrews 10:22
Invest 28 Days to Develop Confidence and Consistency In Your Personal Prayer Life
Time with God is a 28-day journey designed to draw us closer to God by
- Focusing on the nature and character of God
- Praying with the Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication pattern
- Praying the Scriptures
- Praying our own personal prayers.
Time with God is written for people who love God and long to spend time with him but need help.
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Why I wrote the book!
Personally, I have often found it helpful to have a variety of resources available to help me stay focused during prayer. I share this not because I am a spiritual giant. Rather, I often find it such a struggle to stay focused in prayer that I have had to discover or develop tools to help.
I have found three resources, or methods, immensely helpful in developing confidence and consistency in my own prayer life. In this book, I weave all three of those methods together for a powerful combination.
At the heart of Time with God, is a desire to help develop the habit of communicating with God in practical and powerful ways. Practical, because I will balance four different aspects of prayer. Powerful, because we will use God’s Word as the basis for many of our prayers.
This book is filled with Scripture verses translated from the original languages that have been reworded into prayers. They are chosen to help us nurture and develop our focus on God and our love for him. As you get more comfortable with the concept, it will revolutionize the way you read the Bible on your own.
Here are just two sample prayers:
Adoration
Your unfailing love is better than life itself; my lips will praise you! So, I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name.
—Modified from Psalm 63:3
Confession
Please forgive me for not allowing your love to flow through me. So often, I am not patient or kind. Forgive me for times when I envy, or brag, or am proud and seek my own way instead of what’s better for others.
—Modified from 1 Corinthians 13:4-5
What comes to mind when you hear the term, The Battle Is the Lord’s? or The Battle Belongs to the Lord?
Does the military imagery trouble you? Are you OK with the military imagery but troubled that our part seems to be too passive?
Image by 3dconceptsman DepositPhotos #19467907
Do you ask yourself, if the battle belongs to the Lord, then what do l DO? Do I just sit here and do nothing? Well, sometimes the answer is yes. Other times, the answer might be different.
Be Still
When the Israelites were rescued out of slavery in Egypt, God was setting a trap for their captors that would include rescuing His chosen people while punishing their captors but His own people couldn’t see past the obstacle in front of them.
When they saw the vast Red Sea before them, they complained to Moses that they should never have left Egypt. Continue Reading…
Be Kind: We’re All in a Battle.
My first two posts on Encourage and Equip were designed to lay a foundation for why we need encouragers so much in our day (Why Pt. 1, Why Pt. 2). However, there is one area I really wanted to write about because it is so critical. But, I wasn’t sure people were ready to receive the message. I wasn’t quite sure how to communicate the message clearly without sounding like an alarmist, a religious nut or fanatic.
At the very core of my being, my heart cries out that the reason we need to encourage people is that we are all in a battle. Most people don’t even realize it. Those who are aware of the battle tend to underestimate the opposition–It’s much more than a pillow fight!
The Foundation
At the heart of my thinking on encouragement Continue Reading…
Do not let sin be the boss of you!
You are not under law but under grace.
I felt led to focus on and paraphrase this verse (Romans 6:14) after reading today’s Our Daily Bread devotional. Bill Crowder writes:
As my wife was babysitting our two young grandsons, they began to argue over a toy. Suddenly, the younger (by 3 years) forcefully ordered his older brother, “Cameron, go to your room!” Shoulders slumped under the weight of the reprimand, the dejected older brother began to slink off to his room when my wife said, “Cameron, you don’t have to go to your room. Nathan’s not the boss of you!” That realization changed everything, and Cam, smiling, sat back down to play.
Having heard my own kids (and others) occasionally use that phrase, “You’re not the boss of me!”, somehow Mrs Crowder’s words added new relevance to old familiar verses. If we have indeed trusted in Christ’s work on the cross on our behalf, then sin does not have power over us any longer–unless we give it control over us. When the Apostle Paul says, “Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” he is actually telling us, “Do not let sin be the boss of you!” Try to read these familiar verses with that in mind. You can add a little attitude if it helps.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
–Romans 6:12-14 (NIV)
The next time you feel temptation growing within, just let it know, “Sin, you are not the boss of me!”
So often, we attend church services all scrubbed up and looking our best. On the outside, we probably look like we have it all together and life is just one giant juicy peach. For some of us, that might represent reality for the moment. For so many others, that perception is just a thin veneer covering over a myriad of hurts, struggles, challenges, confusion and doubts. Not that we are deliberately hiding things. We may not want to bother others with our problems. We may just enjoy a break from dwelling on them. Regardless of how together people might seem, most likely, they still need some word of encouragement because walking by faith is challenging and increasingly challenged.
Walking by Faith
The Christ-follower lives by faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists… (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)” The Apostle John wrote his Gospel so we would believe. Paul tells us, “The path we walk is charted by faith, not by what we see with our eyes.” (2 Corinthians 5:7 VOICE)
We place our confidence, our faith, in an unseen Creator God whose ways and very nature amaze and confound the wisest among us. However, by his grace, he has revealed enough about himself for us to trust him for the aspects we don’t yet understand. That is the very essence of walking by faith. It is not a blind faith that hopes (with fingers crossed) that we have made a good choice. Based on the evidence and experiences we have already evaluated, we make a conscious choice to trust God for the rest. Faith is central to our walk, but so often…
Walking by Faith is Challenging
Even John the Baptist had second thoughts about Jesus–whom he had baptized and declared Continue Reading…
“I love You, O LORD, my strength.”
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer…
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies.
