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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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A Crisis of Identity
The Old Crisis
Strained relationships are common for Leola right now. It isn’t the fault of the people in her life. There is a struggle in her mind about who she should be as a Christian. Should she abandon her old self? She has secular friends and Christian friends and at this moment she is not comfortable with either one. Her behaviour with each one is not quite up to par. She cannot be a Christian with her secular friends and she can’t stand her Gentile behaviour with her Christian friends. Who is she, a Christian or a Gentile? She isn’t Gentile enough to be a Gentile nor is she Christian enough to a Christian. She just doesn’t fit into either category. “I wish I knew who I was?” Leola thought as she sat studying the Words of God. She knows she is going through an identity crisis. Her identity revolves around whom she is serving and how. Is she a Christian serving Christ or a Gentile serving Satan? Someone preached God does not gift unsaved people so what does she do with those talents she has had all of her life? Are they from God or from Satan? Does she have to give them all up and develop new ones?
Leola started learning about those so-called ‘Spiritual Gifts’ the teachers spoke of. She ordered tons of books and studied the Scriptures. She was convinced even the unsaved were gifted by God to do what they were doing otherwise that would me either we developed them ourselves (we are god) or the devil gave them to us (he is god). Without a doubt Leola was gifted for leadership and administration. Who gave her those gifts because she has been acting within them all of her life. She is also an encourager and a teacher. How did she get those talents? If God is not giving talents to people from the time they are born how did she get them? These questions are weighing heavily on Leola at this moment. Even in these early days she can see within the church people are not acting within their own talents, which is also perplexing to her because if God gives the talents why are they not being utilized by the church. Are we not the Body of Christ, the eyes, the mouth, the arms and the feet? Maybe, they don’t know what talents they have or they don’t like what they have? Either way she has to get to the bottom of this or it will drive her nuts! (That is her combination gift of administration and teaching kicking in. They always need to find the truth to set them free from not knowing!)
After studying the Words of God I came to believe God gifts everyone from the day they are born. How they use the gifts God bestowed upon them at birth is another thing altogether. I have expressed this truth before as I will again – God has a plan for every single person on this earth from before they were born so therefore we can only believe this truth – God has given each person talents to function in this world inside and outside of the church building. The identity crisis each of us goes through is specific to using those talents. Are you a born leader, then lead? Are you an excellent organizer, than organize? Are you compassionate toward the hurting, than have mercy on them? People are being used by God to move another person into their specific plan of God. Your leadership, administration, mercy or the another gift was given to you by God to work and to show people Christ! In Romans 12 Paul tells us about the gifts everyone has, Christians and Gentiles. We use these gifts to function in our work and in the church to serve each other. These are what are called the functional gifts of God. We function in them every day no matter where we are while 1 Corinthians 12 list the gifts used to edify the Body of Christ. Paul tells us the Spirit Himself unleashes these gifts as He sees fit. These are for those of us in the Body of Christ to be used to edify each other. We know this because Paul tells us they come by the Spirit. In 1 Peter 4, Peter tells us to get busy doing what God has gifted us to do so the body will run like a well-oiled clock. They both want us to stop lusting after what men want and do what the Spirit wants. Herein lies our identity crisis. We want what man wants for us but God wants us to do what He wants for us. It is the struggle between Gentile and Christian we all go through.
Her New Identity
Leola is having a crisis that can only be described as a crisis of her new identity in Christ. Her gift of leadership and administration turns out to be a rare combination and to be found in a woman was detrimental to her cause or so she thought. Men and women alike will hold her back but in her search to discover the giftings of God she is also discovering who is in charge of those gifts and it is neither man nor Satan. God gave her those gifts and left her in charge of them to choose whether she would use them or not! She will! Her new stronger identity would do what He wants her to do rather than be limited by what people think she should do. Her learning also included teaching the gifts of God in a Life Skills Workshop as well as encouraging everyone she meets to use the talents God has given them to serve His people in the manner God instructs not people. Being able to improve her life skills was hinging on His answers to this crisis. In finding the answers Leola gained a full understanding of who she was in Christ and who she would become for Him. This was significant for her because this crisis was holding her back from doing all the things of God meant for her. Now that she is years past this crisis Leola’s faith in God is based on His approval of the tasks she does not mans. She will not be held back by people because she knows God is making His way for her to do exactly what His will is and she is going! She said out loud to Satan, “If you are in God’s way, you are in my way, so get behind me, Satan!”
Who will win in your life, the Gentile or the Christian? If you think God has not gifted you with THAT gift (women shouldn’t have it or men shouldn’t have it) you are limiting God. God is bigger than any man and He does what man cannot do. The gifts of God are for us all to serve His people whether they are saved or not. Just as God uses the saved He also uses the unsaved. Do you know how He has gifted you? The Bible does not tell us explicitly what we will do on the New Earth although since it is our soul using the talents given, and our soul will live on the New Earth it stands to reason whatever our soul is gifted to do here will be exactly what it will be gifted to do on the New Earth for the Body of Christ. Think about your talents here. Can you use those talents for God’s people on the New Earth? I am gifted with Leadership, administration, exhortation and teaching, can they be transferred to the New Earth where everyone knows who Jesus is. Absolutely, because outside of Jerusalem will be those who chose not to use their talents to build up the Body of Christ therefore they in turn were not built up either. They will not know Jesus personally because they chose not to have a relationship with Him by studying His Words. They will go into Heaven as ignorant about Him as they were on the day they were saved. Let that not be you! No matter what any person says God is the one who gifts you, He makes the way for you and He gives you the people you are to serve. No man has the power to do any of this. Give up your identity crisis today and free yourself to do what God has asked you to do to serve us, that we can do the same! We are going with or without you so why don’t you just come!
Meditation Verses this week: Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; 1 Peter 4; Revelation 21-22
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Invisible Rewards
Invisible is She!
Leola is gifted with administration, which is causing her quite a bit of heartache because she sees issues with planning others just don’t see. Not only is this an issue for her in church but at work too. She needs to learn how to train herself to say what needs to be said then and not say more. She needs to understand what needs to be done when it absolutely needs to be done and not more. She also needs to learn to allow time for the people to catch up in their own mind without the “I told you so” stance. It is not about pride for Leola, at least in this situation, it is about not being listened too by leaders or people in authority. This plays right into her insecurities so she walks out of meetings or conversation with another crack in her heart. Leola has felt invisible all of her life. Each part of her life has brought a new season of feeling as if no one sees or hears her. Maybe it is this gift of administration from the Lord or maybe it is just her? She does know one thing – it is a horrible feeling not to be seen and she doesn’t like it very much!
When Leola feels invisible she ramps up her actions toward noticeability ultimately inflating her anger because she is getting nowhere. What she hadn’t noticed before is she is attempting to get rewarded by man! The premise of getting our reward from man is complicated and stealthy. At work she understands she is looking for the recognition of capability and at home she is looking for ignorant compliance to her demands. This is simple ten years later to understand, but at the time it was a struggle to work it all out. For as long as Leola can remember she has been one step ahead of most people with insight into the issues facing them. It has never been something she bragged about but it has always been a burden for her. She couldn’t understand why man could not see what she was seeing. It was simple to her! Maybe it was her! Maybe folks just didn’t see her. Oh, they saw her long enough to call her ugly but not long enough to take advice; long enough to tell her what to do but not long enough to listen. On her knees bawling like a baby, God would teach her He sees her and a lot more.
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 6:1) This verse we read but don’t see it for what it really means to us on a daily basis! Our deep feelings of insecurity come from the rewards we are attempting to get from man and do not receive. Men, of all kinds, are trying to get rewards from men and it is highly promoted. Gifted leaders are rewarded by man with leadership but it goes to their head and they begin to accept the reward from man rather than Jesus. Gifted musicians take reward from man then fall prey to pride and start singing worship to the devil. People cross the line every day under the guise of getting rewards from men. We see it happening daily from the world and the church including people who love Jesus. We are just a little more subtle about it. We tell people how much money we gave, who we helped, what we do for others and the like. The minute we open our mouth we have our reward!
He Sees Her!
Leola, still on her knees, cried out to God telling Him everything she feels. She told God, people don’t see her and she isn’t sure He doesn’t see her either. He has removed everything important to her and here she was alone in her ‘Jesus Room’ with nothing left to lose. Her heart was broken beyond repair from being invisible all of her life. She couldn’t stop crying and her emotions were running the gamete. When she stopped crying there was no lightning bolt to knock her out of her chair. There was no angel standing in front of her to tell her face to face God sees her. She just felt relief from the tirade because she actually understood herself why she was so disappointed with God. She expected God to take from her because she had known no different. She expected God to be blind to her because she felt no other feeling. Leola placed a human standard on God. Up to that point there was no male figure in her life she could say had any favourable impact in her life and God, to her, had been no different. She loved Him dearly but she also wasn’t expecting much from Him either. She didn’t expect Him to meet her needs, meet her expectation or to meet any of His promises in her life. The year following this outburst was enlightening to say the very least. God transformed the way she saw Him but more over He transformed the way she saw herself. She loved Jesus with all of her heart and did everything possible to obey His every command but her invisibility had engulf her whole life even into her Spiritual life. It had permeated so deep she was even invisible to herself. God raised her from the dead and changed how she looked at herself through learning more about rewards from the Bible. Leola now understands the difference between the rewards from Heaven and the rewards from man! She works fervently for the rewards from Heaven knowing God sees her and is the rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). They are invisible rewards!
We are made to want reward but not from people from God! He knew we would need this to be driven. He gifts us to be driven in specific directions yet He also knew that same gift is used in the world to make money to live on. There are poor Christians and there are filthy rich Christians and everything in between. Our reward is not the money, the accolades or the power because God can take all of that away in a minute. Our reward is the treasures we are storing up in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy (Matthew 6:20). This week think about why you work so hard and for whom!
Meditation Verses this week: Matthew 6:1; Hebrews 11:6; Matthew 6:20
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Self-Serving Self
The Nothing
Leola is thinking about so many things lately that she cannot concentrate on one in particular. She is thinking about courage. How much courage does it take to be in the will of God and to be completely dependent on God? She is thinking about shallow loving. Her skills to love are shallow and she wants to love deeper. She is thinking about when God is going to use her to teach life skills again. Her mind races more often now than before. So much so that she cannot think well enough even to write her blog. She started with courage and couldn’t figure out what to say in the end. She decided to keep the idea for a future blog. The concept is lost to her. She is not sure how she will come out the other side of this whole brain fart days but she does know one thing – God knows everything and He knows about this too.
What subject does He want her to write about? If I go into the Bible and finger pick a verse will it give her revelation? Will anyone miss it if she didn’t post a blog? She is resting on the idea that this is a good thing because she is not as frustrated as she used to be. In the olden days she would have spent hours on the computer typing away and throwing it all away. She would shout at God because He is the one who gave her this talent to write in the first place. If he wants her to write He will give her the ideas but they all seem so far away. There is nothing!
In the fifteen years I’ve written for God I have had many days where I couldn’t write a thing. All of the ideas work out to nothing so I have come to one and only one conclusion when this happens – I have begun to rely on myself to do the writing. Proverbs 3:5 says we should trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our own understanding. When our own understanding takes over it is hard to trust in God. The work that we do, as good as it sounds, is not the work of God but the work of ourselves. It is self-serving even if it is for God. Courage to do what He wants us to do comes from Him alone. Deep love for His people will also come from Him. When God asks us to do something He will provide the way to do it. All we have to do is obey and trust.
The Worthlessness of Understanding Understanding!
There have been many times when Leola thought she was doing the will of God but she was doing what she had understood His will to be. She thinks about courage and thinks about shallow love but knows that even those huge topics belong to God. Leola cannot have courage to do what the folks in the book of Acts did if God has not gone before her to get the people ready to receive her. She will never love anyone with any kind of depth until God gives her the understanding to do it. She has been racking her brain to figure out how to do these things and cannot. They are to deep for her. Her understanding is worthless to her because her understanding proves she doesn’t trust God enough to take care of this in His time. How she has been working hard to do what she believes God is asking her to do. Leola has got to relax and let God do the work. She is learning this concept as she learns how worthless even her understanding of her understanding is. She is reminded of a Psalm she read and will now memorize because it speaks to these times. Psalm 131 says Lord, my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters nor with things to profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Leola, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. [modifications mind] She has read this before and knew the implication yet forgot them. She has been talking to God for three days wondering what the problem was when all along she had fallen into the same trap of self-servingness she had fallen in so many times before. “Lord,” she says, “Please help me to recognize this sooner! Amen.”
There will be plenty of times in our lives we rely on our own understanding without even knowing it. It will sneak up on us and cause lawlessness or staleness in our walk with God. If we are going along like gangbusters then all of the sudden we are stopped check whose work we are doing. If we are aware that sin has crept into out walk with God, check whose work we are doing. Be vigilant about who we are following because we want to follow Jesus if we want our work to be good work.
Meditation verse for this week: Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 131
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I am Not Failing!
The Failure!
The sun is shining this beautiful morning and it is shining in Leola’s heart too. There is no other day that she can remember at this moment to have such an impact on her than today. She is wiping the tears away as she opens her Bible to read. How grateful she is to be saved by grace! She is reminded of how often she has failed to do what God has convicted her of but this morning she is remembering something the Spirit revealed to her last night. Her conviction is renewed but it wasn’t quite so easy in the past. Today, she is quick to discover her underlying issues and quick to get on with living the abundant life Jesus came to give her. If it were not for the Book of Life her existance would be the same as everyone else’s. She has become one who cares so deeply about following her calling that she would pray for God to get her ready. She wants to save women from everything 2 Timothy 3 says will happen to them but failure needs to be dealt with. And what better place to go then the Psalms.
“A Psalm a day keeps my depression away,” she thinks as she starts reading Psalm 73. Leola had been beating herself up yesterday for failing to continue on her path with Jesus. He has convicted her to love her fellow man. Jesus has been working in several areas of her life at the same time. Most people would cringe at the prospect of doing so much at once but God has gifted Leola to be able to handle it. What most people take a lifetime to clean up Leola can clean up in no time thanks to Jesus! She also knows, when much is given much is expected (Luke 12:35-48). She knows what is expected of her and she is extremely hard on herself when she fails. In the olden days she would beat herself up for days yet never come to the conclusion of why she failed. She failed again, after years of practice, she did it again! That old ugly woman (ETS – Evil Twin Sister) rises up at different times and Leola is unprepared for her appearance. She will be happy and content then, bam, ETS shows up unstoppable. An ETS warning light would be nice like the Kmart Blue Light Special but unfortunately it doesn’t and she fails. When she is walking up to a situation she would love to see the blue light flashing then as she is walking up she can prepare for it. Alas after years of torturing herself, God has given her a partial sentence that will change the way she deals with the ETS appearance from that moment on.
When God calls us He has already created our new man but our old man has to be put away by us. We need to remember God create both men. The old man is who He has saved and knows him better than we do. He has prepared the new man to do His work because the old man was incapable through sin of doing the righteous work. The old man is self-serving and self-absorbed but the new man is Spirit minded and Heaven absorbed. We will only be 100% heaven minded when we are in Heaven so in the meantime, while we are on this earth, we will not only fight the devil but we will fight our old man too. They exist, for us, in the same body, in the same space, in the same time and the devil knows that better than we do. As long as he can make us think the old man still lives he will be successful at reviving that dead guy each and every time. We need to work hard at keeping that dead guy in the grave. It may be a slow process at times and quick at other times. It is completely dependent on what God is teaching us and how much we fight Him. It is our job to be successful at keeping the old man in the grave.
The Revelation!
Leola gets quite a few revelations from God while looking out the front window or any window as a matter of fact. This is why she loves to be able to do see out the window while she is studying the Bible, writing or doing any kind of work. When she stares out the window in the winter she sees white (the colour of purity) and in the summer green (the colour of growth). Every time she looks up she sees blue which is the colour of Heaven. If she could live in a house made of glass she would. While she was thinking about her failure again, she instinctively walked to the front window and she is spoken too. Leola has become very aware of the Spirit speaking to her. He said, “You have failed but you are not failing!” She smiled from ear to ear! The perfect encouragement at the perfect time. Her soul accepts it. She is not failing she is succeeding. She has come a long way from where she was and it has been a long road travelling from dead to alive. Leola knows the road is still long and narrow but she is accepting day by day every success she has gained and she is accepting every encouragement he God is supplying. She is not failing, she is succeeding.
I know how hard it is to accept our success because sometimes our failures are before our eyes constantly. Since our mind is filled with our quest to be like Jesus we forget how much closer we are toward that than yesterday. When we look in the mirror we need to begin seeing this new man, who looks like Jesus, rather than the old one who looks like sin. Psalm 73:26 is correct in saying, My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. This is why we are not failing. God is the strength of our heart and He is our portion forever. I look like Him and because of His Spirit in me I will act like Him when I keep the old man buried. I did fail but I am NOT FAILING!
This week’s meditation verses: Psalm 73:26; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 4:24
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The Unfolding!
The Pagan Unfolding
It is a day like any other in the life of a married mother of four with a full time job. She leaves the older children at home to get themselves on the bus and drops the younger ones off a day care. Leola drives the few miles to work and begins her daily duties. She is a CAD Design Leader for a company fully capable of designing everything under the sun yet they cannot seem to get along with each other nor were they working to their full potential. Designers are an eclectic group of people with different needs and different wants. It is in this job Leola discovers her quest to help people improve their life skills. The Father had not called her yet but today she knows His hand was all over this job.
This was an exciting job for her because she was gifted to lead and gifted to design products too. She has a good eye because she is a visual person and she can easily see what she is looking at from all aspects. She is a visual person even today with a good mind for detail and an eclecltic imagination. Leola spots things long before most people plus she is gifted with Administration and leadership which is how all of these God given talents all work together to make her good at what God calls her to do. Leola was thriving in this role but she was well aware of those who would challenge her authority. She was more interested in those who were willing to learn and grow in all areas of their life and stayed away from those who didn’t. She saw every day how some would be dedicated yet struggled. There was always more going on then she saw but the only thing she could do is help with their work. Leola saw her future calling unfold right in front of her eyes.
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labour among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. (1 Thessalonians 5:11) We all have a job to do in the body of Christ, which encourages each of us to see getting done. If we watch closely we can see those who need our help and those who need our guidance to discover what it is God will have them do. We know the will of God because He lays it out for us in the Scriptures but our individual work from Him is different for each of us. It is a wonderful thing to discover it and begin walking in it. We will each go through a tremendous change in our soul so we can be the perfect person to do the perfect job given to us by God. From the time I discovered His work for me until now it has been more than a decade and more than a few horrible years of character adjustments. I want to labour among you and guide you to the calling God has for you! God did that for me and He will for you too.
The Godly Unfolding
Leola’s work every day, not only was leading, but guiding as well. She made it her personal mission to help those she worked with in all levels of their work. She was a fierce person to deal with when the designers were being verbally abused. She went to great lengths to stand for those who needed it, sometimes at her own expense. Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was a horrible day at the office. The world stood still along with all the work. Two months later her company closed its doors for lack of business and they all went their separate ways. Leola was convinced by this time that she had to learn how to help people in the workforce live better lives. There was just too much sadness and to many fights. This was the beginning of the pagan unfolding. Even when Leola is down she can be found encouraging and building people up that they would do the work God has ordained them to do. The pagan unfolding has become the Godly unfolding because He planned it this way.
There can be no doubt that God has His hand on those He has called and is going to call. Think about what He did for you while you were dead in your sin. It is hard to see when we are dead but when He brings us to life we can only come to one conclusion – He was unfolding us right before our eyes!
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Piece of Purpose!
The Puzzle
Waiting is not an easy thing to do. All of her life she has gone and done what needs to be done. Leola didn’t do anything without purpose. As a single parent her purpose was to provide for her sons so she went to school. As a married woman her goal was also to provide for her husband and children. Leola is an action person who always believed there was a purpose for everything even before she called herself a Christian. Now she knows God, she is pondering her Christian purpose. Can it be the same as her secular purpose? Does God even have a purpose for her?
An inner city agency has requested volunteers from her congregation to help with their goal in serving the community. Leola’s heart is burning within her! Leola has always been a worker bee! Work that needs to be done; it gets done. In groups she will take the lead when there is clearly no leader. These are traits she has utilized all of her life. She hasn’t done too much volunteer work but her heart is aching to do something so she goes to volunteer night at the agency to see if there is anything she can do. As much as she loves her own kids she is uncomfortable with other people’s kids. What is God calling her to do? What does she want to do? Should she work with kids just because the help is so desperately needed? Leola is anxious to do something, anything!
Are you wondering around going from one volunteer agency to another trying to find your purpose? Do you know God has a purpose for all of us BUT it is not the same as someone else’s? Just because an agency is desperate for volunteers is God calling us to fill the spot? We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28) Just because God says we are to remember the widow and the orphan does not mean that we are called to serve them as our vocation! Jumping into something, we are not called to do, will result in failure and frustration. If we do not have the courage to quit it will lead us into a very discouraging life. Elohim wants us to know we will do something for Him but it will be according to His purpose and we are to wait for Him to lead us into that purpose!
The Piece
Her anxiety and need to do something resulted in her taking a volunteer position working with tween girls. Leola was well out of her element and she knew it. She struggled every week to do what was required of her. She hated every minute of it except the teaching portion! The leader of the agency visited her on one of those frustrating afternoons after class to check her progress. Leola told her about her struggle with the girls but how much she loved teaching. There were four weeks left to the class so she gathered up her courage to resign. Leola knew she is gifted by God to ‘teach’ but who did she want to teach? She definitely knew who she didn’t want to teach!
Leola was puzzled about what God would do in her life! Watching the news one night God revealed to her who she was going to teach. It was the same old, same old night! Feed the family, do the dishes, do the homework, do the prep work for tomorrow all while listen to the background noise except on this night the noise was funneled straight into her ears. She walked into the living room where her husband was watching TV and asked him to turn it up. There she saw a scene that broke her heart and made her instantly break into tears. Women, dead, by the hands of their abuser. A statistic flashed onto the screen so staggering it threw Leola headlong into a heart break she still feels today for the women who have and are being abused. The God Leola was beginning to love has implanted a passion in her for the welfare of women! Another piece to the puzzle of purpose revealed!
What functional gift has God given you?(if you don’t know – take a Spiritual Gifts Assessment on the internet) For what people group has God implanted a passion in your heart to serve? The answer to these questions will determine what God is asking you to do? We cannot fail if we follow Elohim to what He has dropped into our heart! Piece by piece He reveals to us what purpose He has called us too! God will take one piece of His purpose for us and work it together for the good until His whole purpose for us is revealed!
This week’s meditation verses: Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11
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A Soul in Sync
I want to first start with a description of what the soul is because I keep forgetting myself. Our soul is our life and defines who we are, what we believe and what we stand for. It is our volition (desire), our mind (intellect), and our emotion. Our soul is moulded by experience, knowledge and understanding. God gave us talents that we nurtured with our soul. The Bible talks incessantly about soul, heart and mind being something that we need to guard. Our soul is what the world is after. They want us to think like them and in doing that we become them. They will not be happy until we are all like them. We are called by Jesus Christ to think differently from the world.
One Foot in the World One Foot in the Church
Our soul is sanctified (separated) from the world for us to think like Jesus., to take on the mind of Jesus. This is not as easy as it sounds. We read in the Bible we are being called out of the world but the world will hate us (John 15:19). This is why some of us have one foot in the world and one foot in the body. There are some who are just dipping their toe in the body because their soul is weak. A weak soul is a direct result of quenching the Spirit. A weak soul will not be allowed in the New Jerusalem because a weak soul has a penchant for sin. It follows its flesh and makes the flesh its master instead of the Spirit (Galatians 5:19-21).
Sanctification Not a Choice; Soul Sync a Choice!
Being sanctified is not our choice, it belongs to God alone, but after salvation we have the choice to live in the world or live in the body of Christ. We can choose to have our mind changed by God or we can choose to have the same mind as the world. The choice is ours to sync our soul with His Spirit or to sync it with the World. When we sync our mind with the Spirit we can expect change, we can expect wisdom, we can expect understanding and we can expect Jesus to move in us. We cannot expect any of this with the world. I do not need to go into a list of things the world expects from us but God expects Jesus from us. We are to have the mind of Jesus (1 Corinthians 2:16) therefore the deeds of Jesus. We are to sync our mind with the Spirit and bring our body into submission with our soul (1 Corinthians 9:27).
A Mind Meld with the Master
I know you are reading this thinking how impossible it is to kick habits, change ways, and most ridiculous to think like Jesus! God sent His only Son as an example to us but He also wrote this great book called the Holy Bible that we would have a reference book. Paul told Timothy All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16). ALL Scripture can be used to train us up into the mind of God and that is exactly what we will do. We are going to create a mind meld with the Master that we will be equipped for every good work the Master sends us to do. God is more than willing to reveal Himself in the Scripture and reveal Himself in us to others. I pray that He reveal Himself in you just as He is revealed in me!
Action
For this week pray to the Master He would give you an open heart for knowledge while we mould our mind into the mind of Christ using Scripture to solve about worldly issues. Pray for me also to bring today’s problems to Him for solution. If you have an issue that keeps plaguing you please IM me or send me an email at Kathleen@thelifeskillsstrategist.com and I will point you in the direction of Jesus and His Word for correction advice.
I know that if we choose life in the Word we will find solid Biblical strategies to improve our life. I ask Jesus to reveal himself in you just as He is revealed in me.
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It Goes Beyond Heaven!
By Kathleen Derbyshire
If we are lucky the Father will call us into Salvation when we are younger rather than older. Time is a factor for us! We know that anyone can be saved on his or her deathbed. Rumour has it Jeffrey Dahmer got saved before a fellow inmate beat him to death. We might say, “I have been saved for what seems like forever living a decent law abiding life and I will be sitting next to him at the bride’s supper?” How unfair is that? May I remind you of the story in Matthew 20:1-16. The workers were coming all day to work until the end of the day but when quitting time came the boss gave them all the same pay. Some of the workers were annoyed because they’d been working all day and thought they deserved more [paraphrase mine]. Salvation is the same for every Christian regardless of when the time of their Salvation. Jesus and the other writers in the New Testament talk about being in Heaven but God gives us Revelation.
The hope that we have is now about being with Jesus wherever He is. Now, it goes beyond Heaven. Revelation tells us a whole host of things are going to happen that I will let you discover on your own but what we want to concentrate on is when it’s all over. When all is said and done, what will happen to us, those who are saved? Revelation 21 and 22 tell us exactly what will happen to us Saints after the Lake of Fire is gone. John starts with Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. So, everything that happens from here is after the devil and all the unbelievers are in the Lake of Fire. I want you to pay particular attention to the City. The New Jerusalem is where Jesus is going to live; the tree of life will be in the city. Remember the only people left are the Saints. When you get to chapter 21 verse 27 you have already read about how wonderful the City is going to be. 1500 square miles filled with light because the Lord will be its light.
The New Jerusalem is set on the New Earth and the saints are around to watch it happen then Jesus says something peculiar, But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Remember the Lake of Fire is gone and only the Saints remain so who are these people who cannot enter the New Jerusalem. For this answer we need to go to Revelation 22:14-15 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. Jesus makes it very clear who can enter and who cannot enter the gates of the New Jerusalem. Those who do His commandments while they are here on this earth will have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city and those who do not are outside.
Are you going in or staying outside? I want to encourage you to be able to present yourself mature in the things of God so you can be inside. I want every woman I teach to learn and be able to apply what they have learned into their life so they may enter through the gates into the city. I know that each and every one of you can do exactly that because I am doing it and many other women are too. On this very day I challenge you to read the Word of God and ask Him to reveal to you what He is calling you to do. Learn how to do His commandments so you are walking with me and many other women into the New Jerusalem when it comes down to meet the New Earth.
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A Mantra to get into His Will!
By Kathleen Derbyshire
Have you ever noticed that when things are going well our communication with God is so much better but when things are not so well it is hard to pray? I find my mind wondering back to my problem over again. I think about things that will help solve my problem rather than asking the Holy Spirit to give me the way to solve my problem. As a matter of fact I forget to ask Him in the good times too. Revelation is what I need more than anything else so going it on my own looks less and less useful. We know deep down that God’s ways are the best ways so we should just ask God!
Jeremiah 33:3 should be our mantra if revelation is what we want to solve our problems. I love this verse because it tells me how to get revelation. I am not looking for new information I am looking for information I do not know. I am looking for information regarding the salvation of my problems. I am looking for information regarding the building up of my character. I am looking for information to manage with the world and those who live in it. I’m sure that you are looking for the same thing. We need to know how not to make mistakes or how to recover from the ones we already made. This can only be done if we get revelation from the Father. Let’s pick this verse apart and add others to make sure we fully understand what revelation is and how we can utilize it to do what Jesus really wants us to do. In other words we need revelation to remain in the will of God.
Our mantra Jeremiah 33:3 says, Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.
Let us start with the simple but powerful words from our Lord ‘call to Me.’ He says this because He is the only One who can guide us in a direction that will result in solutions for our troubles. I wish that this was my first line of defense but it is not right now. I call on the Lord when I cannot figure it out on my own. My own strength is my immediate resource for issue resolution. If God has gifted you will administration and exhortation as He has with me you are nodding your head right now but if you have another gifting like mercy, compassion or helps you might go to God first and you are finger wagging me. We are all gifted differently and those giftings lead us in specific directions resulting in not really needing God to be productive BUT that is not what He wants from us. He wants us to call on Him because He is the one who knows what our future holds, what our past was and what our present status is. Psalm 34:17 says emphatically, the righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all of their troubles [emphasis mine]. All we need to do is cry out or call to Him to begin the process of Him hearing us and answering us.
Without the hearing He cannot answer us! Our biggest problem may not be the crying out part but the listening part. Three verses come to mind in this stage of our mantra, Psalm 91:1 and Psalm 42:7-8. The former tells us that we need to dwell in His secret place to learn how to hear Him. His secret place is a hard place to find and be inside of. We have to be persistent in looking and resolute in staying, which means we need to be determined to hear Him. My mind is a terrible place sometimes but that is where the secret place is. We can find a place on this earth that makes us happy and peaceful but the minute we leave it our peace and happiness disappear like a puff of smoke. In this secret place with the Father our hope, peace and joy remain and we carry it with us where ever we go because it is in us not in the world. This is also where that latter verse picks up. In the secret place Deep [God] calls unto deep [us] with the noise of His waterfalls. And all of His waves and billows go over us. If we are indeed in the secret place we will hear everything He has to say. We are being called into the deep with the Father and His deep will go over us resulting in us seeing the great and mighty things He needs to show us.
The vision of God for us is what we need to solve our problems. We want to see what He is doing in the World so that we can go in that direction. We need to see, He is doing His works on this earth, and whether we participate or not, His works will get done (Isaiah 55:10-11). All of our problems stem from being out of the will of God so when we are in the will of God we are participating in His works therefore outside of the problems we have created. When He shows us great and mighty things that we did not know it is His workings on the Earth. If we want to see His workings in Heaven look around because whatever is worked out in heaven is now on the Earth (Matthew 6:10). The great and mighty things are happening but we just don’t see them. If we want to see them then we must dwell in the secret place until we believe and trust in Him. Once this process is done He will give us vision of what He is doing, the things which we do not know.
Our mantra from now on should be Jeremiah 33:3 (HCSB). Our first defence with problem solving is to cry out to God and He will hear us and answer us! He will open our eyes to see what He is doing on the Earth today so we can go that way as well. All of this takes time as well as Spiritually enhanced problem-solving skills that we can only be given to us from the Father. He gives us revelation to go in His direction, which in itself is a problem solving skill that we must nurture in our secret place with Him. As we are called in to the deep His Words wash over us with the shadow of the Almighty. God has, over the years, Revealed in Me that getting revelation is a process every Christian needs to learn! I have enhanced my problem solving skills in the secret place and so can you! If you want to move into the will of God get into that secret place with God and see how He moves!
