The Russian Connection

JESUS WANTS YOU....FOR YOU!

So today I just want to continue
on a bit from what we were talking about yesterday-

Never comparing your relationship with God to other people & their relationship with Him"

With over 6 BILLION people on the planet right now,

you are an original.

Everything about it is personalized to only fit you.

That’s why God speaks about us individually, and to us individually a lot of times.

As we develop our individual style of communication with God, we can learn from people who may be more experienced than we are, but we need to be careful not to imitate them or allow them to set standards for us.

Jesus always needs to be your Ex. and standard!

• I want to encourage you to develop your own style of talking to God and listening to His voice. Don’t try to keep up with others or copy their prayer styles- and don’t feel compelled to work every “prayer principle” you have ever learned every time you pray........

Just be who you are, remembering that God has fashioned you just the way He wants you to be, that He takes pleasure in who you are, and that He wants to speak to you in unique and personal ways!

REMEMBER!

God loves who you are,

and the way you talk to Him just like a close friend. Don't have to be shy!

“let us not become vainglorious and self-conceited, competitive and challenging and provoking and irritating to one another, envying and being jealous of one another.”

GALATIANS 5:26

Comparing yourself to others, and especially your relationship with God is not the best thing to do!

A relationship with God is not about laboring or striving or trying to perform…..it’s simply talking to Him and listening to His voice.

• Don’t ever feel like you have to be on the same level as someone else or hear from God with the absolute clarity & accuracy that someone else does, because that person may be enjoying and walking in a relationship with God that has taken years of practice.

We may not be as far along in our walk with God as that person is. It’s alright for us to be “younger” than others spiritually. –God STILL hears and answers us, no matter the extent of our experience. 

Comparing yourself with others will only make you miserable
&&
Comparing yourself with others will hinder your spiritual growth.

God is happy simply because we are learning and growing!

God knows you intimately and He has a personalized plan for your advancement.

He knows your background, what you’ve experienced, your disappointments, and your pain. He also knows just what it will take to make you completely whole and you can be assured that He is working in you as long as you are seeking Him.

Every person is very different, and God doesn’t expect them to be anything other than what they are.

Be yourself, enjoy yourself, and enjoy the level of spiritual growth you have attained so far!

TODAY:

Enjoy where you are

on the way to where you are going!

“Test and prove all things [until you can recognize] what is good; [to that] hold fast." 

1 Thessalonians 5:21

Hearing from God clearly and avoiding the possibility of deception, comes only from spending regular time with Him & learning His Word.

-Listening for God’s voice without having knowledge of His Word can be very perilous.

-Knowing God’s written Word helps to protect us from deception.

Trying to hear from God without knowing His Word is irresponsible and even dangerous......

Because people who want to be led by the Spirit but are too lazy to spend time in the Word and in prayer set themselves up for deception because evil spirits are eager to whisper to listening ears.

The devil tried to say things to Jesus and He always replied, “It is written,” and then quoted Scripture to refute the lies of the enemy (see Luke 4).

Some people seek God only when they are in trouble and need help.

But if they are not used to hearing from God, they will find recognizing His voice difficult when they really need Him.......

Always compare any idea, prompting, or thought that comes to you with God’s Word.

If we don’t know the Word, we won’t have anything against which to measure theories and arguments that rise up in our thoughts. The enemy can present wild ideas that make sense to us.

• The fact that thoughts are logical doesn’t mean they are from God. We may like what we hear, but the fact that something appeals to us doesn’t mean it’s from God.

Word For You Today:

We may hear something that feels good to our emotions, but fails to give us peace, it's not from God.  God’s advice to us is to always follow peace and let it rule. 

 "Become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted  (compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted), forgiving one another  [readily and freely], as God forgave you." –EPHESIANS 4:32 AMP

Unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment, or offense of any kind can render us unable to hear from God.....

The Word of God is very clear on this subject.

If we want God to forgive our sins and offenses against Him, we have to forgive others their sins and offenses against us.

Ephesians 4:30-32, the passage that contains the verse for today, teaches that we grieve the Holy Spirit when we harbor negative emotions such as anger, resentment, and animosity in our hearts.

• When we hold unforgiveness against anyone for any reason, it hardens our hearts and prevents us from being sensitive to God’s leading in our lives.

Holding unforgiveness is like drinking poison......
and hoping that your enemy will die.

Why spend your life being angry and bitter toward someone who is probably enjoying his or her life and does not even care that you are upset.....?

Do yourself a favor- Forgive those who hurt you!

Give yourself the gift of forgiveness!

It will bring peace to your heart and enable you to hear God’s voice & follow His leading in your life!

FOR YOU TODAY:

Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that what the person did was okay, or wasn’t wrong, but it just frees you from the poison that is so incredibly destructive and can potentially ruin your life if you hold on to it.

Let it go and give it to God.

He is our vindicator, and He is your comforter!

YOUR FIRST RESPONSE

"O God, You are my God; early will I seek you" –Psalms 63:1 NKJV

Sometimes I marvel at how long we can struggle in a situation before we think to talk to God about it and listen for His voice.

• We complain about our problems; we grumble; we murmur; tell our all friends and we talk about how we wish God would do something about it. We struggle with situations in our minds and in our emotions, while we often fail to take advantage of the simplest solution there is: prayer.

But worse than that, we then make perhaps the most ridiculous statement known to man: “well, I guess all I can do is pray.......”

I am sure that you've heard that before and maybe you’ve even said it. We all have. We are all guilty of treating prayer as a last ditch effort and saying things like “well, nothing else is working, so maybe we should pray.”

Do you know what that tells me?

It tells me that we really do not believe in the power of prayer as we should.

We carry burdens we don’t need to bear- and life is much harder than it has to be- because we don’t realize how powerful prayer is.

If we did, we would talk to God and listen to what He says about everything, not as a last resort, but as a first response.

WORD FOR YOU TODAY:

Let prayer be your first response, not your last resort!

BE FILLED AT ALL TIMES

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be ever filled and stimulated with the Holy Spirit –Ephesians 5:18

God has told us in His Word to “always be filled” with the Spirit- that is to be filled at all times!
           -To do that, it is necessary to give Him first place in our lives.

That Often requires discipline, because many other things demand our time and attention.

There are many things we want and need, but nothing is more important than God.

• Seeking God daily through His Word and spending time with Him is the key to staying filled with His presence. An attitude of gratitude is also very helpful, as is guarding our thoughts carefully.

It’s important that we keep ourselves stirred up in spiritual thing!!

Because anything that is hot can grow cold if the fire goes out!

I encourage you, today and everyday, to keep yourself filled with the Holy Spirit and to want more of God than anything else. He’ll take care of the rest.

If you're pressed for time, take a minute in your car while you're driving and pray in the Spirit there or pray when you're waiting in line. Make prayer a part of your everyday, and before you know it it'll become 2nd nature to you and you'll start praying places without even realizing it.

REMEMBER:

Live in the overflow of the Spirit! Always being filled up!

Building yourself up on your most holy faith! [Jude 1:20]

KING'S CATHEDRAL

For the last 6 years, it has been my privilege and overwhelming pleasure to be a part of King’s Cathedral in Maui Hawaii! They currently have 74 locations and are believing God that eventually they will have 1 church in 120 locations.

Dr. Marocco & Pastor Colleen have built a community of Faith that's established an atmosphere that nothing is impossible with God!

• If you ever get the chance to be in any part of Hawaii, be sure to find out where the nearest King’s Cathedral or King’s Chapel is located.

You will find a gracious congregation hungry for the glory of God!!

Check it out-

Some pictures from this week::

 

The Insanities Of This World

The madness of doubt fills the mind with the unbelief.

 -We become bound by the fear THAT NOTHING CAN CHANGE.

  But you must Invite Christ into the center of your doubt.
      We must invite Christ to the center of who we are.

The main element of doubt is: the fear of change.  

In Luke Ch 8:26-39 after Jesus delivered a man, the Bible says that the people came and saw the demoniac now “clothed and in his right mind and sitting at the feet of Jesus they were afraid." 

They were afraid of sanity!

 We are so comfortable with the insanities of our evils that we are afraid of the sanity of the new.

• We've tolerated sin for so long... that for many, sin has become just that...tolerable, but we should never become comfortable in our sin. The Bible says that sin is never without consequence.

 DON’T FORGET:

1. Let God overtake your heart today. Not the insanities of this world.
2. Let His peace flood your mind, and not the worries of tomorrow.
3. Let your heart trust fully upon Him in all that you do today!
   

  GOD SPEAKS WHEN WE WORSHIP

"Oh come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and supplication]" PSALM 95:6

I believe that worship creates an atmosphere in which God can speak to us.

Worship is difficult to define.

It is more about Who God is rather what He does for us.

• True worship comes from deep within us; it is precious and awesome and it is our attempt to verbalize how we feel about God. It is a powerful outpouring of our hearts toward the Lord and it represents a depth of love, gratitude and devotion that we find difficult to put into words.

Worship is so personal and intimate that maybe we should not even attempt to limit or define it with our words.

It is much more than just singing songs. In fact, true worship is first and foremost a condition of heart and a state of mind. We can be worshipping passionately without singing a single note.

Worship is born in our hearts; it fills our thoughts and then it is expressed through our mouths and through our bodies.

It's an expression of our awe and adoration for God.

TODAY:

I encourage you to sincerely worship God with all you have.

Do it because you love Him, and don't be surprised if He speaks to you while you are worshipping Him!

EPHESIANS 6:10

 “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might”

 IN the Lord is where you’ll find strength.

-In the density of His presence.
-In the depths of His Word

Strength is the core ingredient we need in order to be able to do anything successfully, because almost anything we do requires perseverance and strength.

This is what the LORD says in Jeremiah 17:5

"Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the LORD." (NLT)

Human strength will sooner or later ALWAYS fail you... no matter what. 

It might start out strong, but with time it wearies.

It is never stable and strong enough to always win and come through.

Isaiah 40:29

"He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increases strength"

TODAY:

Take a minute and study out what God says about strength.

Put your trust in His might & let go of being self dependent.