Monthly Archive

Genesis 25:21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

When issues arise in our marriage, the first thing we should do is pray. It’s unprofitable to complain or blame the other person. To resolve any issue in any situation, pray.

If our spouse is having health complications, like Isaac, we can pray and ask God to turn that negative situation around. He may lead us to a certain specialist that can resolve that complication. If there’s turmoil within our marriage, we can pray for peace. God may give us a plan of action that will eliminate the turmoil. Finally, we can ask God to show us any areas where we can improve in order for our marriage to improve.

Whatever complications that exist in a marriage, let prayer be the first option.

“You can’t have a sick soul and a healthy body.”-Joyce Meyer

There’s a connection between our soul and our body. One component of our soul is our mind. If we’re mentally unhealthy, our bodies suffer negative consequences. It’s been proven that stress, worry, anxiety, and depression lead to physical unhealth such as, high blood pressure, muscle pain, and heart disease.

That’s why it’s so important to take control over our thoughts. We may not be able to control what enters our minds, but we can control how long it stays there. When thoughts that lead to stress, depression, or worry enter our minds, take control over those thoughts, realize where they’re taking us, and as believers, reverse those thoughts with the Word of God.

Thoughts may come that we’re alone and not loved. Instead of being depressed, silence that thought and declare (with your mouth) God loves me and He promised to never leave me. Thoughts of not being successful may come. Instead of being anxious or stressed, declare your life is blessed.

It’s a serious battle, but well worth it to our mental and physical health. Understand this connection so that we can prosper and be in good health mentally and physically.

3 John 1:2 Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

Psalm 103:2-5 (ESV) Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

We, as humans, are an interesting bunch. For the most part, we’ll remember, become upset about, and maybe depressed about all the bad things that happened in our lives. Even if it’s something that happened 20 years ago, we’ll remember the details of the negative experience. But for whatever reason, the good things that happened, we’ll forget. From a miraculous healing to the birth of our child, we tend to forget or minimize the good things that we’ve experienced.

Obviously, the good things are from God and the bad things are an attack from Satan.

The same mind that can recall the details of a negative experience has the capability to remember the details of a positive experience. Let’s place our focus and energy on the good things God has done instead of dwelling on the negative experiences. Write it down if you have to, but don’t forget all the good things God has done.

When praising God, do you ever run out of words to say? Do you find yourself repeating the same thing over and over because you don’t know what else to say? Or, maybe you’re a new believer and you don’t know how to praise God. Well, there’s good news for all.

In the book of Psalms, King David gives us hundreds of praises to God. For every season in life, David provides us with the verbiage to praise and honor our God. From being ecstatic about what God is doing in our lives to overcoming frustration, David provides us with countless praise phrases that will glorify God.

No need to reinvent the wheel. Look through Psalms and read a praise out loud. We’re not only getting God’s Word inside our hearts but, we’re giving God praise, glory, and honor.

Psalm 71:14 As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. 15 My mouth will tell of your righteous deeds, of your saving acts all day long—though I know not how to relate them all. 16 I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone.  

Jeremiah 32:27 “I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?

God is the Creator of all things. He knows all. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows what we’re going through and He knows how we feel. He knows we face trials and circumstances that shake us to the core. Although He didn’t create these trials, He knew that we would face them and provided a solution (1 Cor. 10:13).

With all this known about God, we can conclude that everything’s easy for God. The biggest problem to us is light work for God. We often trip out because the problems we face seem large, frequent, and plentiful and we can’t see our way out. To God, our problems are no more difficult than brushing crumbs off a table.

We don’t have to know how it’s going to work out. If we give it to God and keep it there, we can walk away from anything knowing it’s handled. We may not know when or how, but we know it’s handled. The key is giving it to God and keeping it there. If we try it on our own, we’ll drive ourselves crazy.

Give all your problems, cares, and concerns to God and allow Him to easily handle these situations for your good.

Faith is what we use to possess the desires God placed in us. Faith is used to obtain our healing, our house, or a happy marriage. The first step to faith is seeing ourselves with those desires. To better see ourselves with these desires, it’s beneficial to go dream.

When we go dream, we’re intentionally taking our minds to a place of seeing ourselves with that desire. For a house, we go dream by driving by desirable neighborhoods and seeing ourselves owning one of those houses. If we want to work at a certain company, we should go by that company and walk around if allowable and see ourselves employed at that company. For a happy marriage, we should go to our living room and see ourselves having a great time with our spouse. If we want to walk again, we should go by a park and see ourselves walking through the park. Nothing is off limits with God.

As we dream, it’s even more beneficial to confess what we envision.

Don’t allow anything or anyone to stop your desires from manifesting. Go dream.

Genesis 15:5 And the LORD took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He declared, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Exodus 3:11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Hesitation can be a good thing and a bad thing. When we hesitate to confirm God’s instructions, that’s a good thing. We’re simply making sure that it’s God telling us to do a certain thing and not our flesh.

The majority of our hesitation is negative. Hesitation is a bad thing when it’s laced with fear. When we hesitate because we feel like the God-given assignment is too difficult or too big, that’s when it becomes a bad thing. It’s a bad thing due to a lack of belief. We don’t believe in the ability God has given to us. We don’t believe it’s going to work out the way He said. We don’t believe in ourselves.

Hesitation also disrupts the timing of God. When we hesitate, we delay God’s ability to operate in someone else’s life and we delay the blessings in our own lives.

Whether the task be small or great, obey the instructions of God and don’t hesitate.

1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

What does it mean to humble ourselves? When we humble ourselves before God, we’re giving Him our will, our plans, our ideas, and our desires for His glory. It’s not about us anymore. It’s about His will.

We may think our lives should go in one direction but if God calls us to another direction, even if it’s uncertain, we successfully humble ourselves when we submit to His will. We may think we’re reaching our goal of success when we see a certain amount of money in our bank account, but if God instructs us to give half of it away, we successfully humble ourselves when we obey.

Humbling ourselves seems illogical or like we’re taking a step backwards however, the great thing about humbling ourselves is God’s guarantee of exaltation. God promises to lift us up. No matter how foolish God’s request may seem, when we humble and obey, we’ll eventually (in due time) be in a better position than we thought we would be. Our life will be better, we’ll impact more people, and we’ll advance the Kingdom of God.

Don’t despise the humbling experience because humbling ourselves causes elevation.

Isaiah 40:29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

Have you ever been truly exhausted? Maybe you’re trying to manage two or more children and work a full-time job. Maybe you work a full-time job and you also go to school at night. Maybe you have two or more jobs.

Regardless of our exhaustion, God promises us strength and power. He didn’t promise us these things because we’ve been perfect or because we kept all the commandments. He promised it to us because He loves us and desires to see our strength renewed. Like any good father, He wants the best for His children. That includes strength and power during weary times.

Praise God He’s a promise keeper! When exhausted, tired, or weary, look to God and by faith, receive your strength and power to endure and expect rejuvenation.

There will be times where God will have us doing some seemingly silly things. We see this all throughout the Bible.

Jesus had Simon (an experienced fisherman) launch his nets to catch fish at the hottest part of the day (Luke 5:4). God had King Naaman dip in dirty water seven times to be cleansed of leprosy (2 Kings 5:10). God had his disciples roll away a grave stone of a man that had been dead for four days (John 11:39).

Although it may seem silly or illogical, the miracle occurred because of their obedience to the instruction.

If God is leading you to give money to someone else knowing you have financial troubles yourself, do it. If He’s telling you to stretch your legs to be healed of a toothache, do it. No matter how silly it is, do it, and watch a miracle manifest in your life. It may not be tomorrow or next month, but our obedience plants seeds of miracle manifestations.

2 Kings 5:10 Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.” 11 But Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out, stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the spot to cure my leprosy. 12 Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not have washed in them and been cleansed?” So he turned and went away in a rage. 13 Naaman’s servants, however, approached him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’?” 14 So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored and became like that of a little child, and he was clean.

1 Peter 5:9 (AMP) Withstand him (the devil); be firm in faith against his onset—rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined, knowing that the same identical sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood the whole body of Christians throughout the world.

We all want to live a prosperous problem-free life. God doesn’t promise us a life without problems. There’s a devil and a fallen world, therefore, problems will exist. God promised that we’ll overcome them (1 Cor. 15:57).

We’re instructed to withstand the devil. This means, the devil will constantly be on the attack. His target is to destroy our minds, impact our health, break up our families, and deplete our finances. The end game for Satan is to have us lose faith in God.

So, don’t be surprised when it seems like nothing is going our way or when it seems like one problem leads to the next. These are satanic attacks that are attempting to destroy our faith in God. Let’s withstand these attacks by building ourselves up in the Word of God and combating these attacks with the truth in God’s Word.

1 Kings 19:5 Then he lay down in the shade and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel woke him up and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 Elijah looked around, and by his head was a jar of water and some baked bread. He sat up, ate and drank, then lay down and went back to sleep. 7 Soon the Lord’s angel woke him again and said, “Get up and eat, or else you’ll get too tired to travel.” 8 So Elijah sat up and ate and drank. The food and water made him strong enough to walk forty more days. At last, he reached Mount Sinai, the mountain of God,

When it comes to God’s instructions, everything may not be spiritual. He may tell us to do something practical.

In this story, Elijah was running from Ahab and Jezebel’s army for two days in desert like conditions. When he finally stopped, he was suicidal. He begged God to take his life. After resting, an angel woke him up and told him to eat. Simple and practical, right? After running for so long in the hot sun, it makes sense to have Elijah eat and sleep. These practical instructions mentally and physically strengthened Elijah to continue his journey.

When seeking God, don’t assume He’s only going to give us some deep spiritual instructions such as fasting or spending 3 hours in the Word. He may have us remove sweets from our diet, study for 2 hours a day for an upcoming exam, or walk a mile 3 times a week. It may be simple and practical, but it will benefit us greatly.

Leviticus 19:17 You must not harbor hatred against your brother in your heart. Directly rebuke your neighbor, so that you will not incur guilt on account of him.

A lack of or poor communication can cause damage and division in any relationship. When a person makes a questionable statement, instead of asking what they truly meant, we assume they meant something negative.

After the statement is made, we should go to that person to confirm what they’re truly trying to say. If it’s just a misunderstanding, then we can move on. However, if their statement was hurtful or disrespectful to us, we should be honest with the person and tell them how it made us feel.

What they do next is out of our control. If they apologize, we can maintain a great relationship. If they don’t, then we know how they feel and we should allow the Holy Spirit to dictate the future of that relationship.

Regardless of how a person responds, we’ve done the work to clear our conscience by expressing ourselves to them.

If we look at parts of our bodies, we may see a scar from an injury we had from our childhood. We may remember how much pain we were in at the time, but we eventually fast forward and thank God for our healing.

Mental scars are different. With mental scars, we have two options. The first option is to remember the pain and stay in that dark place. We can think about the abuse, traumatic experience, or emotional pain and become angry with the person all over again, stress ourselves out about the situation, or make ourselves depressed.

The second option is glorifying God for our deliverance. When previous negative experiences enter our minds, we can thank God and praise Him for healing us from that hurt. We can excite ourselves thinking about the goodness of God. We can look at how far God has brought us.

It’s up to us which option we’re going to choose.

Let’s look at our scars and begin to praise Him for our deliverance. It may have hurt at the time but now, we have a testimony.

*For those who are in the midst of their hurt, there’s one option. Praise Him in advance for the deliverance God has made available.

Psalm 54:6 Freely I will sacrifice to You; I will praise Your name, O LORD, for it is good. 7 For He has delivered me from every trouble, and my eyes have stared down my foes.

Psalm 130:3 (AMP) If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat us according to our sins, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with You just what man needs, that You may be reverently feared and worshiped.

There is forgiveness. No matter what we’ve done or how far we’ve been on the wrong path, God is there to forgive and forget all of our sins (Heb. 8:12).

God not only forgives and forgets our sins, but He’s not going to punish us for anything we’ve done wrong. He’s not going to strike us down, cause us to get into a car accident or put a disease on us for anything we’ve done wrong. There are natural consequences for our actions, but He’s not punishing us. The punishment for all sin was placed on Jesus (Rom. 3:24).

Finally, God is not holding our sins against us. He’s not charging them to our account. He’s not going to weigh the amount of sins we’ve committed and compare it with the good deeds we’ve done. Jesus paid the debt for all our sins and God sees us as righteous (Gal. 3:13-15).

Thank God for Jesus Who allowed us to receive God’s complete forgiveness and forgetfulness of sin without punishment.

Ephesians 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

A lot of times, we call people when we have something to say or when we want something from someone else. But how many of us contact people just to say hello or to see how they’re doing? We don’t want anything. We’re just checking on them.

Reaching out to people can be more beneficial than we think. That text message, call, or email can make a person’s heart smile. They may be having a tough day and our outreach may make the difference in their day. The simple fact that we took the time to solely see how they’re doing, with no strings attached can positively impact a person’s life.

Let’s keep our unity by reaching out to our friends and our family and reconnecting with that person we haven’t spoken to in a while.

Psalm 103:13 Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.

A lot of us know the characteristics of a good father. A good father is loving. They care about the well-being of their children, they want the best for their children, and they’re the biggest supporter of their children fulfilling their purpose in the earth.

God is no different. In fact, He is the Creator of fatherly characteristics. He loves, He protects, and He cares. He’s our provider and our number one supporter. His love is untainted, unbiased, and unconditional. God, our Father, loves us and wants us to fulfill our purpose.

As we approach Father’s Day, don’t forget about our Heavenly Father Who has done so much in our lives and has been there for us every step of the way. Let’s thank God for being a great, great Father.

We may have heard or read, that as believers we shouldn’t socialize with sinners because they may corrupt our souls and make us backslide. We may have also read where Jesus socialized with sinners in the efforts to present Himself as the way, the truth, and the light. So, which one is correct? The answer is both.

There are times where we need to distance ourselves from sinners to spend time with God and strengthen our inner man and there are times where we need to sit with sinners so they can experience a genuine loving non-judgmental light in a dark world.

Look at Jesus. Although He spent times with sinners, there were times where He distanced Himself and was alone with God. He successfully accomplished both.

We must have balance. We can’t be so spiritual until we’re no earthly good and we can’t be so worldly until it’s hard to tell if we’re saved. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide. He’ll tell us when to socialize and when to temporarily distance ourselves.

Matthew 17:1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

Matthew 9:10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.

Job 1:5 And when the days of feasting were over, Job would send for his children to purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. For Job thought, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.

Job didn’t sacrifice to the Lord because he was grateful for all He had done. Job sacrificed to the Lord out of fear of his children’s sin. If we’re not mindful, we can give, serve, or pray from a place of fear.

A fear based prayer usually comes as a result of numerous demonic thoughts entering our minds. If the devil has been placing thoughts in our minds that our children are going to die prematurely, we may fret and pray, “Lord please don’t let my children die early.” Or, if thoughts of financial lack are constantly entering our minds, we may pray with a worried mindset, “Lord protect my finances.”

These are fear based prayers and there’s no guarantee that God will answer that prayer.

We must pray in faith (Matt. 21:21-22). We must believe what we said will come to pass. Instead of saying, “Lord please don’t let my children die early,” we should say “God, Your Word says, with long life you will satisfy us, therefore, my children won’t die early.” Instead of protect my finances, we can say, “according to Philippians 4:19, all my needs are met.”

We moved from entertaining fear to activating faith. Let your prayers be faith based and not fear based.