Tag: Obedience

The Cross Of Obedience

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Luke 9: 23, 24.
“Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”


Christ carried His humiliating and agonizing cross because of an amazing love that He had for His people. In order to bring salvation to a lost and dying world He had to be obedient to His Father’s will. He fulfilled God’s purpose in His life and in His death, when He denied Himself of all rights and gave of Himself, freely and obediently, in His sacrificial death on the cross.

As His followers and as His disciples we have been commissioned to Go and make disciples of all nations Matthew 28:18 -20. We have been called to represent Christ in this same world lost in hopelessness and despair and for the job, God has equipped His people with spiritual gifts, talents and skills to use in His work of building others up in the faith. Taking up our cross daily, is to be “obedient” to Christ in the work He has called us to. It may take us into frightening unknown places and places that aren’t pleasant. It may take us to beds of illness, heights of financial despair, rejections and disappointments, but through it all, ‘Self’ must take a back seat to allow us to get out there and be efficient in proclaiming the Good News of the Gospel of Christ to our circles of influence in a world filled with the hopelessness of a lost eternity.

Is it easy? No, it’s not easy! Discouragement sets in time and time again. We become tired, fearful, dissatisfied and discontent. Hurt and broken we can fall away becoming like strangers to our faith on the skid row of our circumstances. Our desires get out of whack and our priorities get all mixed up. No, it’s not easy to be obedient to our Savior and our cross, so our cross for Christ must be a daily evaluation supported and bathed in prayer, for there is no room for ‘me’ on my cross as I carry it for Him. The irony of it is that our cross of obedience is the only way to fulfill His plan for our lives and the only thing that will bring abundant life to our living. We can’t explain it, it’s just His way! To try to hang on to selfish pleasures will only take us into the pit of sin and bring ruin, desolation and hardship and that’s where we don’t want to find ourselves.

Let’s remember, If the Lord calls us to it, He will take us through it, no matter how difficult the calling, if we keep our eyes on Him and off of self. The bonus? He will bring the blessing along the way.
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♫❤♫❤♫❤B L E S S I N G S♫❤♫❤♫
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God’s Promise? Our Obedience?

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Deuteronomy 6: 4 , 5, 6
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And you must commit yourselves, wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.”

The Israelites stood on the verge of the land God had promised to them. He was soon to bring into a land already established with large cities they had not built. Living accommodations, richly stocked with produce they had not grown and cisterns they had not dug ~ Verses 10 -13. They were not to forget their God in their land of plenty. They were not to allow their wealth to distract them from their God who rescued them from slavery in the land of Egypt. They were to fear Him and serve Him with wholehearted commitment. They were to commit to His commands wholeheartedly, for He alone and only He was worthy of their worship. They were to love Him with their heart, soul, mind and strength, or, their intellect, will, emotions and spiritual and physical being. They were to live, sleep, breathe and digest His commands as they talked of them, taught of them, slept on them, rose with them and wrote them over doorposts and on gates through the custom of the mezuzah attached to door frames of houses and buildings. When passing through the doorways they were to touch the mezuzah to show respect and dependence for the Scripture. They were about to prosper at the gracious hand of their God but not without their obedience to Him.

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Where are we today? Some remote place where God seems distant and ungiving? Maybe a land of compromise? Maybe a land of plenty has distracted us from His gracious hand. On a scale of one to 10 where does your obedience fall? Peer through that opaque veil and catch a fresh glimpse of God once again. Try giving adoration to the only one worthy of your worship, and reestablish your priorities as you enter into your promised land to take possession of your fullness of life in Christ.

As true believers then, Let’s be challenged to stamp God’s commandments on our hearts in wholehearted commitment to our God, the only one worthy of our praise. Let’s be challenged today, to live lives of holiness as we strive to love Him with our whole selves: our intellect, will, emotions and our spiritual and physical being. He has promised abundant life in a spiritual land of plenty, and called us to a life of obedience, therefore, we must live, sleep, breathe, teach and digest His commands as we respect and depend on His Word for His promise of abundant life even amidst the difficulties. He didn’t promise a bed or roses, nor an easy life, but He did promise to guide us through the hard places and to bring us out of bondage into glorious light.

♥.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`• ♥k

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When You Aren’t Enough

Little Thoughts For Big Days
Little Thoughts For Big Days

So when what you have isn’t enough, God’s grace is. It will cover all we don’t have, and all we can’t do. It will cover all we don’t have control over, and all that seems out of whack. His favour rests upon us regardless of who we are, where we’ve been or what we’ve done. His love goes beyond the imaginable and unimaginable and reaches into the realms of the impossible to share a love so unconditional, so solid, so transforming and so incomprehensible that we sit in awe and wonder- ment of a God who can care so deeply for our needs. Yeah, even in your failure He’s there ready to lift, heal, restore and win! His mercy, so vast and so beyond where we are, and His thoughts of us so brilliant and astounding, we can never pay it back in any of our human attempts. So don’t try! In obedience, just accept His gift of favour upon your life right here, right now, and find HIs richest and joyful blessing on your beautiful soul in your needy moment of “Not enough.”
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2 Corinthians 12: 8,9,10
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Daniel 10:19
“Do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed,” he said. “Peace! Be strong now; be strong.” When he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Speak, my lord, since you have given me strength.”

❤ ❤

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A New Thing

A new thing? How about emerging with wings?
A new thing? How about emerging with wings?

“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43: 19

Don’t you love it; this wonderful promise from the Lord your Holy One, Israel’s Creator and King ~ Verse 15? “I am the Lord who opened a way through the waters, making a dry path through the sea….but forget all that ~ it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See I have already begun, do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”
An awesome promise from the Lord our God for us right now in this moment, this day, this month, this year. I especially like the part about the “New thing.” Don’t you? Whatever God has done in the past that rocked your world and turned it upside down with wonder and miracles and healing, is nothing compared to what He’s about to do, can do, and will do, if we just ask with a believing heart.

Little Thoughts For Big Days
Little Thoughts For Big Days

So beautiful soul ~ needing something new today? I’m sure we could all use a heap of “new” and wonderful and couldn’t we handle the awesomeness of watching our Red Sea part, making a way for us to cross over into God’s promises fulfilled? Well ~ God is faithful! As He led the Israelites through the wilderness He leads us! He’s our life source, our life preserver, our provider, our sustainer, our healer, our counsellor, our Savior and our Lord. Let’s not miss the new thing He’s about to open up to us by living in past glories, victories or even those devastating past failures where it so easy to wallow and get off course. There is more than all of that ~ and our sovereign God holds it for us. Open your mind and your heart to the “New” that He has in His divine, Mastermind! Be obedient! Be trusting! Be faithful! Be hopeful and watch and pray!

Grey Feather

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