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Too Much Information
Have you ever seen or heard something you wished you had not? Has someone told you a dirty little secret they should not have yet you still heard it? Has God told you something you wish you didn’t know? There will always be a time in our life we think we have too much information. Unfortunately, we cannot unknow what we know. Sometimes, I would like to just hit the rewind button and write over that knowledge with other more desirable information but it cannot be done. Knowledge is very important to every human being. We thrive based on the knowledge we have. We are destroyed by lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). There are three ways to deal with desirable or undesirable knowledge from said information. We can ignore/repeat it, we can neglect/use it or we can disregard/keep it. The choices are ours to make.
Ignore or Repeat
When we get undesirable personal knowledge about people our maturity level determines whether we ignore the information or we repeat it (1 Corinthians 14:20). Ignoring the information doesn’t mean we ignore the person especially if they are in need of hope. What it means is we can discern if we should even have that information. Is it desirable information or undesirable. If we make the decision we should not have this knowledge we should ignore it but we cannot unknow it so we pray. If we make the decision to repeat the undesirable information we are choosing to perpetuate what the Life Skills Encyclopedia calls tail bearing. Gossiping hurts you and it hurts everyone around you. You cannot unlearn this knowledge but you can choose to not speak of it.
Neglect or use
In the event you are lucky enough to hear a Word from God, who is the source of all knowledge, will you choose to neglect it or will you use it to gain further knowledge. The only way to unknow the knowledge of God is if He removes it from you (Luke 8:18). The reason He will remove it is neglect of His Words. On the other hand, He gives more knowledge when we use the knowledge He gives us. Each piece of information He gives us may very well dangle in midair for some time until one piece of information He gives us joins all the pieces together to create a complete knowledge about what He has been teaching us. Using those pieces of information has resulted in our great discovery of the knowledge of God.
Disregard or Keep
We are blessed enough to be able to use information from both human minds and the mind of God. We also have another avenue to receive information, the devil. The more information we speak about the more information the devil knows we have and what we are using it for. If we neglect the information from God the devil also knows. He has been studying humans for eons. He knows what we are capable of doing and he can fool us with information that sounds like it is from God. It is our job to be able to discern whether we are hearing from the devil or God. If it is from the devil we should disregard that information because it is meant to get us into trouble. If it is from God we need to keep it in our heart. The heart or soul is where we keep the pieces of information God means to use later to complete our knowledge.
Consider the Source
We always have to take the source into consideration. This can be a major obstacle for some folks because they can be deceived by the source of the information. There are three sources of information, man, God and the devil. There are only two types of information, false or true, and both can be skewed in the reception. Each person is apt to make up their own mind about information based on their history and who is giving them the information. We are called to be discerning with the information we receive because we cannot unlearn the knowledge we have. We need to be careful what we listen too so we will obtain more desirable information rather than undesirable information. We can gain desirable information from man, from God and from the devil. We need to learn how to use it appropriately to become more knowledgeable about our God. From God, you can never have too much information.
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Awareness Makes us Abound Part 2
Being aware of our actions is something even the world preaches. How much more does God preach it? Open the first page of the Bible, is it there? Yes it is. God wants us to be aware of how this world came into being. He is making us aware of His actions. He is not shy in telling us the actions of those He created either. He tells us how some folks disobeyed Him and some obeyed Him. Our awareness of these facts gives us hope for our own behaviour. There is no way to improve any of our life skills until we are aware of the actions we are taking to create our own issues. God has this knowledge and we have this knowledge.
I always begin each Life Skills Session with awareness training. We can only begin our abundant life with awareness. We need to know what we are doing that is robbing us of abundance first then we need to modify the lies into truth to pursue the abundant life. It makes sense but how often do we try to skip the awareness phase and move right into the doing phase. If we do not know where we are going when we go how can we get to this unknown place. This is why so many people, including Christians, are going in circles all of their life. Let us stop, learn what we are doing wrong and go in the right direction. This is the way to go from foolishly spinning in circles to the straight path of knowledge.
Abound in Knowledge
If we incline our ear to wisdom and apply our heart to understanding we will find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2). The straight path to knowledge is wisdom and understanding. There is only one place to learn – the Lord. Reading the Word of God is the only way to acquire the knowledge we need to dispel the lies that make us into fools. We first learn of our sin then made aware of the lies causing us to go down the path of sin. The devil fears God because His truth sets us free from those lies. The last thing he wants us to do is abound in knowledge so he feeds us lies so close to the truth that we believe them. When we read God Word He will feed us truths so thoroughly we will begin to learn of the lies. This can only happen if we are reading His Word and gaining the knowledge of Him. The devil wishes for us to be enslaved but God wished for us to be enriched in everything by Him (I Corinthians 1:5). Being enriched in the Lord makes us abound in knowledge all day long.
“Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.” (Proverbs 20:15) How rare is it to speak to someone who knows what the deep lies are that cause them to sin. Jesus said when you are His disciple you shall know the truth and IT shall set you free (John 8:32). This alone should send you searching for the truth in His Words. The freedom of knowing why we act foolishly helps us to put the lies off and strive to prevent sin from happening again in the future. If we feel foolish behaviour bubbling up we can push it back down with the Truth. Knowing and using the Word of God is how we will be able to push those lies back down (Matthew 4:1-11). This knowledge first comes from a fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7) and knowing the devil has come to destroy everything God has created including you (John 10:10). Jesus has come to give life more abundantly and He does this with His Word. Do not let yourself be destroyed from lack of knowledge. He will be with you as you learn. He will neither leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). Speaking the Truth will make us abound in knowledge all day long.
You know where to go to get this knowledge and you know speaking the truth makes us abound in knowledge the only place left to go is to set our heart on seeking it. This is not easy but worth every minute we go seeking. We need to decide if we want to be the rare jewel that speaks knowledge in our world. If our answer is “yes” we need to set our heart to go after it at all costs. Is living a life free from anguish worth it? Is living a life free from sin worth it? Is the current pain for the future joy worth it? I say, “YES!” Jesus says, “YES!” “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.” (Proverbs 15:14) Your ears have heard His Word now we must have a discerning heart that acquires knowledge with ears that seek to hear it. This is harder than it looks today because there are fewer “rare jewels” than there used to be. Check the statistics on church going Canadians today compared to yesteryear. There are more false churches and more false prophets today (Matthew 24:11) we need to weed through for the one who actually teaches the truth. It is easier to weed through people is we do not rely on them for the knowledge we need. No one knows you better than the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11). Don’t look to people for the truth but to God’s Word. It is the only place we can trust to find the whole truth. Always seek the truth from the Word of God and you will abound in knowledge all the day long.
Your Choice to Escape
Being aware of our actions and the ramifications of them is how we can become aware of our thought process too. Sometimes admitting to the general lies leads us to begin seeing the deeper lies that made us who we are today. The general sins are the sins everyone already sees, it is the deep sins we need to get too. When we start recognizing them we can either ignore them to continue in the foolishness or we can pay attention to them to become knowledgeable. We have the choice. How can we choose anything else but God? If we call ourselves a Christian the choice should be easy. There is a lot of pain involved in gaining this knowledge but we have one thing on the world when it comes to dealing with it – Jesus! We can call on Him to give us the knowledge we need to endure it. We might be tempted to walk away because of the anguish but God will always provide an escape before we sin (1 Corinthians 10:13). The escape will be based on whether you chose to abound in foolishness or abound in knowledge. Choose to abound in knowledge and God will tell you the escape.
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Awareness Makes us Abound Part 1
There is no way to improve any of our life skills until we are aware of the actions we are taking to create our issues. There are general reasons such as the people we keep company with, where we choose to spend our nights or our environment. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but the point is still the same. General reasons for our life not being as abundant (John 10:10) as God has told us it could be are the “apparent to all” reasons. Anyone can guess these reasons therefore you are already aware of them! If you live in a crime filled neighbourhood I can guess you will either have crimes committed against you or you are committing them. If you keep company with drug addicts I can guess you will become a drug addict too. If you are spending your nights with a man not your husband I can guess you are committing adultery. These are not the deeper truths you need to know to improve your life skills. How did you get to this place in time starting from where you are now?
These issues are the result of the deeper lies causing you to be where you are today. We have done and thought many things up until this point to lead us to where we are. It is these lies we need to become aware of. Sometimes it takes effort to become aware of the lies we believed but I think we have to take the time to discover them. If we do not we will always be in crime, always fall into addiction or adultery and always fall into sin. What is worse than that is we will never see it coming therefore never be able to avoid it. We have buried them so deep only the Holy Spirit can make us aware of our deep lies leading us into sin. The Word of God gives us the way out because it is filled with the truth that can go deep. It is the Life Skills Encyclopedia I use for every lie I found myself believing. Let us go to the Life Skills Encyclopedia for awareness of the lies and to find the escape (1 Corinthians 10:13). When we become aware of the lies we have believed and our behaviour resulting from them we will either abound in foolishness or we will abound in knowledge. The Life Skills Encyclopedia has a lot to say about both. We will only discuss a few therefore I challenge you to search for more in your private time with God.
Abound in Foolishness
If you choose to remain in your lies even after you have become aware of them the Life Skills Encyclopedia has some pretty dire advice for you. Heeding it will change your life, ignoring it will cause you great harm. Proverbs 9:13 tells us “A foolish woman is clamorous; She is simple, and knows nothing.” Foolish women make a lot of noise to draw attention to themselves because this is the only way they know how to get it. Why? They are simple and know nothing about what they need. Knowing not what we need is detrimental to our health because we grab at anything including things that will hurt and destroy us. We will abound in foolishness throughout the whole day.
We are also told that the foolish woman pulls down her own house with her hands (Proverbs 10:14). Imagine taking the time and effort to build your house (figurative) then setting to work tearing it all down with your own bare hands. Destroying everything you have worked for, knowing your actions will destroyed, is painful and causes undo heartache. We don’t wake up in the morning with the intention of destroying yet when we continue to believe lies that is exactly what we do. We believe the lie, wisdom is well beyond us, and therefore we cannot attain it. We then continue to abound in foolishness throughout the whole day.
The last point, our foolishness does not just affect us it has a ripple effect. “For the foolish woman will speak foolishness, and her heart will work iniquity: To practice ungodliness, to utter error against the Lord, to keep the hungry unsatisfied, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.” (Modifications mine, Isaiah 32:6) Our family, friends (Saved and unsaved) and co-workers are watching us act like fools even after we call ourselves “Christian”. Foolish behaviour hurts people by our words and deeds. We set out to hurt people. We are loud and obnoxious tearing down every ounce of good works we have done in the past causing the alienation of the people around us. Abounding in foolishness has made our friends and family think us a fool.
Stop the Foolishness
We need to stop the foolishness by becoming aware of our lies and come to the knowledge of God which is truth which will allow us to avoid our destruction from lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Too often today we are subjected to fools who think what they are saying is right, let us not be one. I want that we should live a life filled with abundance but if we spend every day tearing it all down abundance won’t last long. We can have abundance with little and we can have it with a lot. We can be foolish with a little and we can be foolish with a lot. If you are suffering from foolishness stop it now. We were fools before we knew God but now we know Him we need to put foolishness off. Do what you need to do to become aware of it this week (talk to a friend, journal or read the Bible to get revelation about it). Next week we will learn what it takes to abound in knowledge from the Life Skills Encyclopedia.
You can email me at kathleen@thelifeskillsstrategist.com anytime to ask a question or you can post your question in this comment section.
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Out of Real, Back to Story
Stories draw people
Jesus was the master at telling stories. He used them for the whole three years He was teaching. His stories were dynamic and filled with real life examples. For this reason when the Gospels were written they begin with a story and end with a story. God has created us to be story tellers and listeners. We are drawn by stories (true or false) because they reverberate with us. A good story will make us cry and a bad story will fill us with rage. Every story Jesus told was meant to fill us with life. I cannot tell you a story that fills you with life no matter how hard I try because I do not have that power. I can only tell you a story to point you into the direction of Jesus who is the life (John 14:6). My story will only effect those who are being drawn by the Father to the arms of Jesus (John 6:44) and once He has you He will never lose you (John 6:39).
It is for this reason I have begun telling stories and improving my writing skills for fiction. Jesus told fictional stories and true life stories to teach His truth. I have been learning to combine both fiction and truth into one under His direction to begin the writing of Crown for Life series of books. I love to write for Jesus because He has and will continue to give me wonderful ideas and interesting characters to share with you. The stories of each woman is meant to reverberate with you to encourage you just as the stories of women in the Bible are meant to draw your attention. We are the Samaritan woman, the sinful woman, the woman with the flow of blood, Deborah, Mary Magdalene, Mary sister of Lazarus, Huldah, Pricilla, and all the rest. We are women created by our God to do what He has created us to do but we are having issues getting to that point.
The Biblical Life Skills Strategist
For 12 years I have been dreaming about the day God’s words would come into fruition in my life. In those years I could not see how He could make it happen but now I can see it working out in my life. God revealed to me I would teach life skills so I created my first complete workshop called “Leading Yourself to Success” to teach women in 2005. I have created twenty different two hour sessions but not before He told me to work out my new name. The Life Skills Strategist was the name He gave me. We worked together on all of the sessions using Biblical Precepts reversing worldly complications. In this process He taught me how inherently involved His Word is in our everyday lives. He directed me to create secular sessions so I would taste how the world walks. Seeing this every day afforded me empathy for every unsaved woman as well as the saved.
Jesus taught me the difference between the saved and the unsaved, Him. Each one of us longs to live a life filled with joy but the world is getting in between us and that joy. John 10:10 contrasts the world and Jesus. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. The contrast of the Prince of the World (John 14:30) is intent on destroying our lives while Jesus has come to give us a life filled with abundance resulting in the joy we so long for. He has taught me to teach you what His abundance life means. It is a large topic and it will take the rest of my life to teach you about it. This is Kathleen V. Derbyshire’s story.
Leola’s Story
I have embroiled Leola Lurned into my blog to introduce you to the lead character of the Crown for Life Series. Her story is a mirror of mine. She is 70% me and 30% who I want to be. When you read about her you are reading about me, what I have learned and what I still have to learn will be in her character. Just as I long for someone to work with teaching life skills she has longed with one difference, she has a friend. Her name is Veronica Keene. Veronica’s character is 70% me as I was growing as a Christian and 30% my friend Jennifer Walker. She has the image of Jennifer but the character of immature Christian Kathleen. Jen sat with me for days going over the first book to make sure I was closing every gap and spelling every word correctly. I have known Jen for several years and as our relationship develops over the coming years so will Veronica and Leola’s.
For Such a time as this…
God continuously brings this verse to mind from Esther 4:14, For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” He is reminding me I am His child born at this time to serve Him by serving His women in Essex County. The prince of this world is after women (2 Timothy 3) by drawing them away from God by their many lusts for the world. These lusts are so ingrained in us we would do anything or go anywhere to satisfy the cravings. This leads to all manner of oppression for us, from addictions to human trafficking. I am going after the devil by training women to fight him with the Life Skills Encyclopedia, the Holy Bible. I will also go after the prince of this world by helping the unsaved too.
Satan’s name is Haman to me. When Haman’s plan to annihilate the Jews game into being the Jews fought back and people were drawn to God. Many people became Jews (Esther 8:17) in the land because they began to fear (be in awe of) God. In Acts every time tribulation comes upon the Saints and they endured through the power of Christ more souls are accounted to them. This is my time to help the saints endure so many more souls are saved as a result of their testimony.
Crown for Life Pursues Biblical Boundaries
It is time for me to move Leola out of real back into the pages of my stories. The Biblical Life Skills Strategist is my name in the real and hers only in the Crown for Life Stories. It is me who is born for this day to help women endure temptation by leading them through the Life Skills Encyclopedia to Jesus. When they find their way to Jesus they will find their way of escape from the prince of this world. This series of books will be a gateway to Jesus and His escape from sin, one book at a time.
The first book in the series, The White Picket Fence, available later this year, has Crown for Life owners pursuing information from the Life Skills Encyclopedia regarding personal boundaries. What are they and how does our God speak to them? You can follow along in the lives of five women who have enlisted the help of Crown for Life to pursue a solution for their particular dilemmas. There will be an instruction following this book should you too need to pursue Biblical boundaries. I am excited to go back to helping with your Biblical Life Skills rather than inventing stories. Let this new life begin and the old perish.
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Is “Right” All?
Right with God
All the reports are pointing to Jesus coming soon so TV is asking Christians if we are ready. Are we right with God? Leola thinks about this and asks her own question, “Am I right with God? What is right with God?” She researched this idea and concludes she IS right with God. She has faith in Jesus Christ. From Romans 1 to Romans 3:20 Paul tells us what being wrong with God is then he says “but now” to show us being right with God is having faith in Jesus Christ. So, her next question is, “Why is the ‘preacher’ preaching to the choir?” Leola remembers Revelation 2 and 3 where Jesus tells His churches about being an overcomer. Is “right with God” and “overcomer” being used interchangeably? The Bible tells us once we are saved we are right with God (Romans 3:21-26) therefore how often do we need to become “right with God”? Biblically speaking salvation makes us right with God so she says out loud, “Yes, I am right with God.”
Leola has confessed Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:9-10). She knows she has eternal life (John 5:24). This is right with God according to Paul. Is she missing something? Is there more? This short speech needs to be preached in the street not in the church. It needs to be spoken to the unsaved not the saved. This “right with God” speech needs to be modified to help the saved preach this to the unsaved. As Leola thinks more about this topic it becomes clearer to her being right with God is His job. He is the one who saves us. He is the one who chooses us. We cannot make ourselves right with God. This is what Paul is telling us in Romans 3. Being right with God is the work of God and not of our own works. Salvation, sanctification, reconciliation, glorification, all of the ‘ations that go with it are all the work of God therefore being right with God is out of her hands. Is there more to what the “right with God” question? She supposes so.
We are definitely in a time of peril. Mankind is in love with itself and thinks it doesn’t need our God. As a matter of fact they cannot see God in what is happening to the land today. Not so in the church. End times preaching is commencing again. The saved are asking each other if we are right with God. Why? Why are we asking each other this question? The saved ARE right with God if they are indeed chosen. We can choose for ourselves to sit in the church building out of obligation or ritual but we cannot choose be chosen by the Father. There are plenty of those people sitting in the church today and until they are chosen they cannot be right with God. They may very well get bitter and become those folks who make their own gospel to lead many astray (Jude). Will this affect the people who are right with God? It will, I suppose, make us question our salvation but that should not be so. No one who is chosen by the Father should question their salvation. If you do question your salvation you are not working out your salvation with Him.
Right Relationship with God
Leola wonders if that is all there is? Why do we have a 2000 page book if this is all there is? There has to be more included in “the right with God” concept being preached today. Her works cannot make her right with God but they do put Leola and every Christian in a “right relationship with God”. Leola is learning that being “right with God” is different from being in a “right relationship with God”. She cannot make herself right with God no matter how hard she works. Salvation is a gift of God through grace and not of our own works (Ephesians 2:8-9). On the other hand having a “right relationship with God” is about overcoming our obstacles and continuing to have faith in Jesus through them all. Leola thinks the people preaching the “right with God” speeches actually mean for us to examine our relationship with God. How can she tell if our relationship with God is right? Sometimes Leola feels lost and disconnected from God then two days later she feel found and completely connected. There is one thing she knows for sure, she is ready to go home. She is torn between going home to be with Jesus and staying for the sake of the people she will help with their life skills. That is the key she teaches and follows. She is ready. Maybe us teachers of the Word should ask, “are you ready for God” rather than are you “right with God”. Leola has been ready for years.
We can tell we are ready for God when we can honestly say, “Jesus come,” and mean it. Jesus tells us in every one of those 2000+ pages He needs to be first in our lives but unfortunately that is much easier read then done. I can tell you from experience once you begin putting Him first life gets much easier to handle, stuff gets easier to relinquish, money gets easier to donate, love gets easier to give away, and the plan gets easier to follow. We begin to see this world is not our home and we long to go home to be with Jesus. If you are ready for Jesus to come you are in a right relationship with God but if you are not you need to begin working out your salvation. Ask the unsaved to see if they need to get ‘right’ with God but ask the saved if they are in a ‘right relationship’ with God. Jesus come!
Meditation Verses: Romans 1-3; Revelation 2-3; Romans 10:9-10; John 5:24; Jude; Ephesians 2:8-9
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Little Task; Big Task
Obedience in the Little Tasks
It is an exciting time for Leola right now. She is coming into the work God gave her many years ago. She is staring out the window from her Jesus chair remembering all the work she has done to prepare for this day yet knowing it still isn’t enough to prepare her for the future. She still knows there is a long way to go. God has had her do works she had no idea would prepare her for today. She created Strategic Life Skills Workshops she has never taught, under His direction. She has written newsletters never seen before by the public. She has gone places and done many things under His orders. She has also disobeyed God in many instances because she didn’t think what He was asking her to do was appropriate for her direction. As she thinks about her disobedience she wonders what she had not learned the easy way because she chose to disobey. She understands today obedience is not about understanding it is about doing.
Leola is thinking about boundaries again because they tie in with obedience. She knows from experience if boundaries do not surround her goals the goals they will never be met. How often do people set goals and never attain them because they neglect to include boundaries with their goals? Each goal is set with the expectation it will be reached but they never are because the way is not prepared. When God told Leola she would speak in public her first reaction was to join Toastmasters to practice speaking. There she learned how to write a speech and speak properly, use appropriate language and props, and how to dress. She posted videos on YouTube to practice teaching the Bible. Each time she did what God required she got more adept at doing His will and more prepared for His big task. She always wondered when the time would come when everything He told her would come into fruition. She never stopped doing what He told her to do because each little task was the preparation work for the big task.
Obedience and preparation go hand in hand with God. Those who wait on the Lord are not sitting on the couch watching television they are preparing themselves for the big task the Lord will ask them to do. Each person the Lord called He also prepared with information about the future. Moses was told He would lead God’s people to the Promised Land. Gideon knew He was going to free God’s people. Paul knew He was going to bring the Gentiles the Gospel. If you know one character in the Bible that was perplexed about His duties please let me know because I haven’t found him or her yet. Even Jesus knew He would die and why. Each Bible character had boundaries set up to make sure they went in the direction God told them to go, not going to the right or to the left but straight ahead. When God tells you His goal (the big task) for you, you can do nothing but get prepared for it. It is about the work we do to learn, the work we do to practice and the work we do to become an expert at what God is calling us to do.
Getting Prepared for the Big Task
The big task is what Leola is super excited about. All the little tasks are sometimes boring and time consuming however each one of them has to be done to get prepared for the big task. Leola eventually got to the place in her walk with God of complete obedience so she will eventually get to the big task. She wants to be prepared for it lest she be of no effect to the women she is serving. It is about God but more so about His children. She is here to serve God in a specific capacity for His children. She has learned she is serving His women to serve Him but she wants to serve the women He wants her to serve. To do that she needs to know who He wants her to serve and in what capacity. Serving His women means she needs to be prepared to deal with what they bring. Are they disobeying Him? She can serve. Are they guilty of sin? She can serve. Are they ignorant of God’s message? She can serve because she has been there and done that. Do they ignore Him? She can serve. She has gone from serving self to serving God to serving women. His great teachings have prepared her to serve Him and His women at the same time. Her obedience in the little tasks over the last 15 years has prepared her to serve His women in her big task. Bring it on!
Perhaps, you do not know what God has prepared for you. Perhaps, He has removed your memory as a result of your disobedience to Him (Matthew 13:12, 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 19:26). If God has removed your memory of the big task, implore Him to remind you again, and set your heart to preparing for it. Learn how to set boundaries around the goal He has for you. This is my job in the body of Christ. I am here to help you prepare for the big task God has laid upon your heart but if you do not know it you cannot prepare for it. I am currently writing about creating boundaries as the first book in a series about Leola and Veronica’s business named Crown for Life. Expect “The White Picket Fence” in the fall to help you with setting and defending boundaries to get to your goals. We are all here for a reason and that reason is to serve God and… No one is here to serve God alone but to serve His people as well. Jesus said when we serve people we serve Him (Matthew 25:31-46). Even when you are prepared and in the big task God prepares you for another big task. You will spend your life becoming prepared from one task to another. Don’t get tired from doing the small tasks. Be the wise servant who can be trusted with little so when much comes Jesus knows you are prepared to be trusted with it.
Meditation Verses: Matthew 13:12, 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 19:26; Matthew 25:31-46; Luke 16
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Interesting or Interested
Be Interesting
Leola has spent her life trying to find ways to become interesting to people because she felt so invisible. She spent a lot of time training herself to be a good speaker. She joined Toastmasters. She spent a lot of time trying to look just right so her cloths wouldn’t stand out before her brilliance. She spent a lot of money. She gave herself completely to be interesting to people so they would talk with her, hear her, and see her. Today, it just all seems so silly because today she finds herself under the orders of God to be quiet, hide and be in secret with Him. Stop investing in being interesting. This was a blow to Leola. She doesn’t like to be in the background. She likes to be seen and she has done some pretty drastic things to get in front. Some of those things have even been an embarrassment to her. The levels she would stoop for attention brought her to her knees. At one of those despicable levels put her is such disgust with herself that God was finally able to get to her. Stop!
She stopped and began a long stint of loneliness. Is it going to be just her and God forever? How can she be interesting to God? He is the one who created the whole world. How can she top that? Leola has been alone now for many years to ponder her relationship with God and to modify her relationship with people. Now, she doesn’t think this forced loneliness was any different than the loneliness she felt with people. He has asked her to make changes to benefit other people when she comes in contact with them rather than feed her need to be seen. She cries today to think of the things she has said and done to be seen after professing to be a God loving person. What kind of model for Christianity has she been? She has been so much more interested in herself than anyone else. How does SHE look? What should SHE do? How can someone who serves themselves all the time be interesting? The antics Leola had been performing have made her less interesting not more.
I had convinced myself that becoming interesting was for others. Who would like a boring person around them? All work and no play made Kathleen a dull person but all play made her a disgrace. There was so many things I had done to become visible to people. I tried to get into the “right” crowd with the “popular” people, and the “known” ones. None of that worked because God had other plans for me. He was training me to want Him, see Him, and follow Him. He was not popular in His day nor was He with the kind I was trying to hang with either. Oh, they said they were Christians, but their behaviour was far from it. Their behaviour looked pretty much like mine. You know the behaviour that disgusts me after the fact especially when it doesn’t get me to where I want it to get me. Two mighty blows in one second.
Be Interested
Less interesting is not where Leola wants to be. She has spent a lot of time pining for popularity, fixing for friends and acting for accolades. This is what she knows. She doesn’t know how to keep silent, make herself invisible and preserve secrets. She is an extrovert who loves being an extrovert. She loves talking to new people. She loves talking. Leola is interesting according to God but she has to learn now to be interested. There is a way God wants her to speak. There is information God wants her to seek. She has spent most of her life seeking for her own sake now she has to learn to seek for another’s sake, to listen. She needs to seek information about them to make them feel visible, heard and loved by Jesus. Who better to do the job than a person who feels the opposite most of the time? Leola knows exactly how degrading it is to feel invisible and the last thing she wanted to do was turn the tables to make others feel visible while she remains invisible. For her to help anyone she needs to listen to what they have experienced. How will she know unless she hears it from them? Leola knows people want to be interesting but more so they want her to be interested in them. Being interested in people is exactly where God wants Leola to be. It isn’t about hiding herself from people it is putting them before herself in all subjects.
Jesus did not hide from anyone but sometimes he makes us hide from people because we are not suited to represent Him. I was not suited to represent Him because I wanted to be interesting to people. My interests were self-serving and there is nothing I personally can do for anyone. It is Jesus who does everything. He draws people to Himself and blesses us with being with Him. He teaches people how to live and allows us to tag along. It is Jesus who is interesting but some people don’t know that. How will I get that information to them if I am the one striving for their interest? I am only interesting for the short time I am with them. Jesus is with them 24/7. How can anyone or I deprive them of the interesting things Jesus did and said by talking about myself all the time instead of Him! I want to be interested in your life more than be interesting to you. When I talk, let my words direct you straight to the most interesting Man in the world, Jesus.
Meditation Reading this Week: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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The Same Mind
Un-Jesus Like
Leola watches the television in horror! If Sam wasn’t watching the news she would have turned off the television long ago. She is not one for television or even the radio. Silence does not bother her at all but it used too. Leola’s head was a nasty place to be and still is sometimes but now she spends any ‘un-Jesus’ like time with Jesus getting her mind back to His. Leola had a hard mind then it became a soft mind, crying all the time over every little thing. She detested the vulnerability of that soft mind so she prayed for a hard mind again. Jesus taught her how to have His mind no matter what it caused in her emotions. Leola is a thinker who questions everything she feels she needs to know. Terrorism is the subject she wants to know about at this moment. Not specifically terror, but the terrorist. In her mind she is pondering how these people can watch themselves kill. She tries to see through their eyes and cries just thinking about it. They are still talking about it. It is still fresh in the mind of the people who witnessed it. She looks at her husband and asks, “Do these people believe the world will just lay down when they do these things?” His answer, “Yes!” Her response, “Why?” “Drugs!” was Sam’s response.
In David Wilkerson’s book The Cross & The Switchblade, he talks about how gangs are formed and how gang members are kept. One of the gang boys told him loneliness is why the boys and girls are in gangs and drugs is what keeps them there. Leola can believe this is the same mentality of these terrorist groups too. They scan the internet for lonely boys and girls (boys to shoot and girls to sell). They pose as loving friends who just want the best for these lonely children. They convince them, through their loneliness, they would be better with them than the people who hurt them every day. They promise them a love they don’t even give themselves and certainly do not intend to actually give them. Once they have these lonely boys and girls they fill them full of drugs to keep them passive then they brainwash them into thinking no one cares about them. They tell them they are hated by humanity therefore humanity must die. Pumped full of drugs these people do as they are told because now they are filled with the hatred of the gang they live with. Leola’s heart swells with a love for these kids, these terrorist. They need Jesus. He is the only one who can free them from this.
Despite all the publicity to unite we can never unite unless we have the same mind. 1 Corinthians 1:10 implores us to be of the same mind. In the very next chapter Paul tells us we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). If we have the mind of Christ we will unite on every cause as long as it is from Jesus. We are to have sympathy for the world but not stoop to their level to reach them. Gang members are united with the mind of the leader. If gangs are able to do this why can we not do this as Christians? Gangs are effective at using love to draw lonely people in, why are Christians not using the same tactic? Gangs are united in using drugs and bullying to make you stay. The church should use love from the Mind of Christ to make people stay. Love takes a lot of work and the result is pain. From experience I can tell you that not everyone is the same nor do they feel loved the same. I have been hurt many times by the things I have done, out of love or friendliness that were not appreciated by the receiver. If we think about the things Jesus did you can appreciate the pain. Being of the same mind of Jesus is very difficult and hardly popular.
To Jesus Like
Leola was not always of the mind of Christ. She wanted those who used people spitefully to die in their sin. She wanted abusive husbands to be tortured for what they did to their wives. She wanted those who abuse children to be hung. Her mind was not of Christ! God did a great work in healing her heart because of her past. When she started praying for the women of Essex County Jesus let her pray the way she wanted too filled with hatred and terror. Within months He was showing her in His Word how to pray and what to pray. David, in his Psalms, prayed for strongholds to be broken down but God would teach Leola what that means. She began praying for strongholds to be broken down and Jesus taught her they would not stay down unless the one who erected them became saved. Did she want women to remain safe? If so, she needed to pray for the salvation of the abuser, the bully, the gang leader, the terrorist, the ones she had grown to hate. Today, she has compassion for them, but still has a need to know what makes them tick. Sam enlightened her. She had read how drugs were being used and Sam enlightened her of drugs being used during wars by every army. Mind altering ways are being used by people who want to be in control because people are not taking control of their own minds. Pain hurts so we numb it, rejection stings so we defer the plan, lack of control makes us uneasy so we lash out! All of this, Leola thinks, is the cause of the horrors we see on television today. The mind can be a terrible thing and unless we have the mind of Christ our actions will cause great damage. Paul was correct. Until she got the mind of Christ she was all over the place from degrading herself to degrading other people. She could not unite with anyone because she wasn’t united with Christ.
As I united my mind with Christ I became more unpopular with friends and family and church people in general. I had to learn to relay Christ’s mind with a deeper compassion. I needed to learn to relent when someone wouldn’t listen. I needed to let my emotions follow the work of Jesus, be angry when He wanted me to be angry, show love when He saw fit, be indignant when He was and teach what He wanted them to learn. In other words, I needed to learn how to mind His business not mind my own! Minding my own business is what I wanted to do. I don’t want to hurt or cry because that makes me look weak. I don’t want to love my enemy because that makes me look tolerant of their behaviour. I want to push people to do the right thing but that makes me look like a bully. I want to unite with those I agree with but that makes me look double minded. I fight all this nastiness daily as I am sure you do or you will. If we learn to control what we are thinking we can control how we react to what we see on television. We need to have the same mind as Christ to do that. His mind and our mind can be one but we need a starting point. Attempt to do this for a week and see if it helps. When you think of something ‘un-Jesus like’ try to change your mind as quickly as possible to the face of Jesus. I know you have an image in your mind of what Jesus would have looked like – use it. If you haven’t an image, memorize a Psalm. Knowing a full Psalm (I use Psalm 23) is excellent because it takes your mind off the ‘un-Jesus like’ long enough to switch it to ‘Jesus like’. Every Word you know from the Bible gets your mind closer to being of the mind of Christ. We are not just knowing the Word to use it, we are knowing it to live it. The Word of God IS the mind of Christ! At the end of three days, post a comment on this blog to testify how it worked. You can do this!
Mediation Verses for this week: 1 Corinthians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2; 1 Peter 3:8; Philippians 4:8; Psalm 23
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Come into the Deep with Me!
The Call
The term ‘In the deep with God’ came up in a conversation this week and Leola had some questions for God about that. What is the deep with You and how does one get into the deep? How do I know when I am in the deep? Do You tell me I am deep? Is it a feeling? Leola ponders these questions as she reads Psalm 91. If the deep means the secret place, is she there? Is deep the same for everyone? Can I ask people what deep means and get the same answer each time? Are You so predictable? Can I find the answer to these questions in Your Word? Leola ponders this Psalm against the term ‘deep’ and the ‘secret place’ talked about in this Psalm. She knows about having a secret place with God because she has one, on her ‘have-to-have-it couch’ staring out the window, but the distraction are becoming too much for her to stay in that secret place for too long. She needs alone time with Him to stay in the secret place long enough to hear God speak. Her call to the deep. At first she went out onto the back patio but when winter came it was to cold so she sat on her bed which turns out to be most uncomfortable. She knew God was calling her into ‘the deep’ (whatever that was) and she had to go alone. Her house is teaming with people so what can she do?
The chaos in the house is definitely holding Leola back from going deep with Jesus. There is nowhere to sit and read her Bible except the living room or her bed. She needs her own space. Her older kids had moved out but there was too much stuff in the house for her to have her own personal space. Leola had some organizing and purging to do. When a space was available Sam and Leola went shopping for what she now calls her ‘Jesus chair’. She converted one of the bedrooms into a ‘deep room’ she could go to be alone. She bought shelves for her many books and a carpet for her cold toes. She positioned the chair to look out the window because staring out the window is her secret place with Jesus and continues even to this day. If you see Leola staring out a window you know she is pondering something deep with God in their secret place.
The secret place from Psalm 91 and ‘the deep’ are two different things. Preachers talk about going deep with Jesus but what exactly do they mean? They get it from 1 Corinthians 2:10 which says the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. The Spirit who lives deep within us holding the deep things of God in His hand for us to take. The secret place referred to in Psalm 91 is the place you go to be alone with Jesus where you can hear Him speak. If you do not have a secret place you will not hear the call to the deep. As a new Christian I thought it was a physical place (and it was for me for a while) but as I matured I learned it is anywhere I am that I can hear God speak to me. The secret place is nowhere in particular and everywhere with God. The deep things of God can only be revealed in that secret place. This was confusing to me until I had my secret place modified into my secret alone place. I needed to be alone with Jesus to be able to ponder the deep place or even the deep things of God. It would still be years before all of it would come together for me. My secret place with Jesus can happen anytime He speaks to me no matter where I am and the deep is where I go when I study who He is.
The Deep
Leola was called into the deep with Jesus. She had to learn what that meant for her. It is in this quest for the deep with Jesus she learned of her own individuality. She learned what her purpose was for being in this world at this time. She learned Jesus actually saw her and she wasn’t invisible to Him. She learned her emotional pain was real and needed healing. Her wounds were deep and the healing needed to be deep. Surface fixes were not working but she didn’t know she was so shallow until she went deep. Up to this point she was wading in the Waters of God listening to people explain His Word. His deep calls for her to stop getting her information from people to hearing it from Him alone. She would have to learn to ponder His Word with Him and wait for the answer. As difficult as it was to do she learned how to do it and how fulfilling it was to know what He was teaching. What she was learning in the secret place had to remain a secret until she went deep with God for a full understanding. She would even talk out loud to Him as if He was standing right on the other side of the window. She cannot get over knowing Jesus deeply enough to ask any question and get an almost instant answer. If an answer doesn’t come quickly there is more to learn so she waits patiently to learn the answer. In her secret place where deepness is she learned she is not the only one called to the deep, all Christians are called to the deep but not all will go. Leola went and never looked back.
Jesus went to be alone with the Father (called to the deep) and He took the disciples to be alone with Him too (He called them to the deep). He pulled Saul away for three years to teach Him the deep things of God. The deep things of God cannot be found in a sermon or glancing through the Bible. They are found in your secret place deep inside you and God. This, unfortunately, is also where your deepest pain resides but also where the deepest knowledge of God resides. I understand not wanting to go there but if you choose not to go deep you are also choosing not to have a deep relationship with Jesus. When He calls you into the deep it is going to be painful but life altering. It is going to unnerve you but it is where the new creation of you resides. It is where the Spiritual Gifts you have get their power to reveal Jesus to those you serve. It is where your life as a Christian soldier marches onward. Deep death takes place and a deep life emerges for and with Jesus. He is calling you to die a deep death so you can live a deep life. I promise you, the pain is nothing compared to the joy! Will you go deep with me?
Meditation Verse for this week: Psalm 91; Psalm 42; 1 Corinthians 2:10; Luke 5:4
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In the Image of Beauty!
Her Eyes see an Ugly Image!
Leola spent one hour in the bathroom, primping and covering, to be ready for work only to walk by a mirror to see what ugly looks like. She sighed and continued on her way to work. As she was driving she is careened back to grade school where she first learned she was ugly. She was one of the only red heads in the whole building. Why did red hair and freckles make a person ugly? Her lazy eye didn’t help either! She didn’t make that decision, someone made it for her and she accepted it based on their opinion. Someone decided she was different and that difference in their opinion was ugly. To be cross eyed with red hair and freckles was a deadly combination to be born with according to that person. Her brain runs over all the words people used to drive her to the conclusion she was ugly. Up until those days she never thought about it one way or the other. She looked in the rear view mirror of her van and sighed. “If I was beautiful no one would take me seriously on my job anyway,” she thought. As a leader in a male dominated field she was comfortable with being ugly.
In spite of her apparent ugliness she had accumulated a few friends in grade school but they lived on the other side of the tracks. They were headed to a different high school together while she alone would go to high school in Belle River, Ontario. She was devastated by this continued slight against her. How in heavens name would she make friends in a new town in a new school? She decided she just wouldn’t go to school so the skipping began. Every class she felt insecure in she wouldn’t go. She hated the school and its pretense but more so she hated her image. The people were beautiful and wealthy. She was ugly and low end middle class. The complete opposite of them and they had no issue reminding her of that fact. Why can’t she hide away somewhere to never be seen by anyone ever again? Sometimes she thought they sought her out just to fulfill their own fantasy of degrading people. Leola even stooped down to bully a girl much more beautiful than her to see what it was like. The act horrified her so much she never did it again and actually apologized to the girl for her bad behaviour. No matter how Leola felt, deliberately demeaning someone was something God never allowed her to get away with. She did not know Jesus during this time but He was working His plan in her life even then.
I spent a lot of my childhood emulating ‘the beautiful’ to be accepted, except it didn’t work. I was called on it constantly. A girl I admired in grade school told me to stop dressing like her to my horror. In high school Farrah Faucet was big so I styled my hair like hers and got bullied by a set of female twins because of it. I did everything within my power to appear beautiful but all of my work was for not because every time I looked in the mirror my eyes saw an image of ugliness. I eventually learned it wasn’t about the outward adorning it was the inward jargon. I probably spent more than one hundred thousand dollars on apparel to my financial peril. I believed my image was ugly from the inside consequently no matter how I changed my outside appearance it would never change how my eyes saw my image. That vision of my image became deeply rooted in me for many years. When I became a Christian I wrestled with the fact God had created me in His image which is not ugly. It would be many years before He was able to convince me I was made in His image and when I called myself ugly I was calling His created image ugly. The concept of that is far reaching and perfectly planned just for me and just for you!
Her Eyes see His Image!
Leola had to become invisible at school so no one would notice she was skipping classes and invisible at home to get away with it. In one hand she wanted to be invisible but in the other hand she wanted someone to see her as beautiful. Was that too much to ask? Not with our Jesus Christ it wasn’t! Jesus Christ had a plan for her and He was going to bring her too it. He gifted her to do things to make her visible even in her ugliness and she worked hard to look beautiful for the masses. It was still very important to be accepted by people to be successful at her calling. Jesus would deal with that too although not in the eyes of people but in His. Leola did not know she was still harbouring the feeling she was ugly to God therefore invisible to Him. How could God look upon her! She was learning her fear of being invisible is tied directly to her view of her image. If God couldn’t look upon her because of her ugliness than she was surely invisible to Him. Leola saw her image completely different than Jesus Christ saw her. He gave her His eyes, little by little, thus she would see she looks just like Him. She began seeing Jesus in the mirror every day and her image began to change until one day she looked in the mirror to see His creation in her image. Her tired old feelings are gone today and she is free to see God’s ‘very good’ creation in her image. She is also free to see His image in all women even when they don’t!
We are created in His image but that is a hard concept to realize when ugly is the image we see in the mirror. Peter tells us our beauty should not come from merely outward adornment because the mere adornment we use changes every single day. God created mankind in His own image both male and female. If we believe what God says eventually our soul will agree with Psalm 139:14 in that we are fearfully and wonderful made and praise God just for this alone. Women are made to feel but we need to feel what God tells us to feel otherwise we could spend our lives a slave to what other people feel. When Jesus Christ comes into our vision He forces us to see what He sees and feel what He feels! We transform from ugly to beautiful without changing our outward appearance at all. Let Jesus have His way in you so you see ‘you’ the way He sees you because beauty is NOT in the eyes of the beholder it is in the eyes of Jesus Christ!
Mediation Verses: 1 Peter 3:3-4; Genesis 1:27; Psalm 139:14
