Enjoy Life

Did you know that Jesus told us that He came so that we may enjoy our lives and enjoy all the things He gives us to enjoy? Enjoyment----what a word to ponder. I would venture to say that many of you reading this today are not enjoying life to the fullest. Why not? Are you born again? Yes, then what is the problem? You say: Things are not going so well? Bills are unpaid? Health is not so good? Children straying? Marriages full of strife? At some point or another, we all have said these things. I am tired of believing. I am tired of waiting for my answer. I don’t see any results.

I have one question to ask all of us today. Do you believe the Word of God is true? Do you believe God cannot lie? Well, listen to this. These words are in red. Believe the red. Jesus said them. This is what He said.
John 10:10 Amplified Bible “…I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).”

Then we read in 1 Timothy 6:17 that we are to “…trust in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” Amplified Bible “…set their hopes on God, Who richly and ceaselessly provides us with everything for [our] enjoyment.”

Here is what we are to focus on and say every day when we get up.
“I am enjoying life.
I trust in the living God. I set my hopes on Him. I don’t put my trust in man and his way of thinking.
I have and enjoy life because Jesus came and gave it to me.
I receive life in abundance. That means that I receive health in abundance; I receive prosperity in abundance; I receive a marriage made in heaven; I receive children taught of the Lord and obedient to His will; I receive the good life of God in every area of my life.
I have the joy of life to the full and overflowing.
I have so much life that it overflows into others’ lives.
I am a person who fully and completely enjoys life.
God, my Father, through Jesus His Son and my Brother, richly and without ceasing provides me with everything for my enjoyment.
I have everything in abundance and overflowing.
The abundant flow never ceases. It is mine all the time.
I enjoy life because it is the Life of God in me that causes me to enjoy my living here on this earth.
I am living in the Life of God all the time. He gives me great joy and I enjoy every minute of my day every day.
I know that my God takes care of me.
I seek Him first and His way of doing things and I shall be filled to the full with His life always.”

Overcomer Through Jesus Christ

1 John 4:4
I am God’s child. I am of God. I belong to Him. Because I belong to Him, I have ALREADY defeated and overcome the agents of antichrist. Why? Greater, mightier is He Who is in me than he who is in the world.

How do I overcome?
Revelation 12:11
I overcome by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and by the word of my testimony, my witness to the truth of God’s Word.

Jesus told me in John 16:33 that He has overcome the world for me. He has deprived it of its power to harm me and has conquered it for me.

Praise God! I am an overcomer through Jesus Christ

Strong In The Lord

Ephesians 6:10
I am strong in the Lord. I am empowered through my union with Him. I draw my strength from Him, that strength which His boundless mighty provides.

Philippians 2:13
It is not in my own strength, for it is God Who is all the while at work in me, energizing and creating in me the power and the desire both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

Isaiah 45:24
Surely shall I say, in the Lord I have righteousness and strength.

Our physical, mental, and emotional strength comes from the Lord. It is He Who gives us what we need when we need it. Let the weak say that he is strong and draw his strength from the Lord. There is no God like our God. Lean on Him. Rely on Him. Draw your strength from Him.

The Past Does Not Dictate Your Future

Do not let the failures and successes of your past determine your future. Your future is crafted and designed in God’s powerful and mighty hands. He already has it planned for you in the most minute detail. What you and I have to do is yield ourselves to Him and not try to work out our own future, based on what we know.

One of the greatest deterrents to our future is our past. There have been times when all of us have been disappointed or discouraged or angry or hurt and upset, when things did not work the way we thought they should have. I know this comes as no great revelation to you, but it was not God who messed things up. We were either ignorant and didn’t know enough or we were disobedient or we were impatient or we let go of our faith. God is not the problem. I know this is going to shock you, but so many times the devil is not our problem either. We give him far too much credit for our messups. He really did not have to help. We did quite well on our own.

Past mistakes are gone. We all must “get over it” and move on. There are things that have happened in my life in the past that so drained me of hope. I would even quote the scripture to God that hope deferred makes the heart grow sick. I blamed him for my failures and defeats and the lack of answered prayer. When the dust settled and the air cleared and I was quiet before the Lord, I would see where there were doors I had left open for defeat. And even if God did not reveal to me what happened, I have learned to be content in God’s presence and let Him do the driving of the vehicle of my life. Since I am a fixer and a doer, that has been a learning experience for me to settle back and let the Lord do the fixing and the doing.

Let’s all remember that the past is the past. Let’s get on with the design of our lives, having confidence in God Who is the architect and builder of our whole life structure.

Let us be convinced and sure of this very thing: He Who began a good work in us will bring it to full completion in us (Phil. 1:6). With the Apostle Paul, let us forget those things which are behind and reach forth to those things which are set before us, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling (Phil. 3:14).

Finally, with the Prophet Isaiah we say that we do not remember the former things; neither do we consider the things of old. Rather, we behold the Lord God doing a new thing in our lives. It is springing forth; we perceive it and know it and give heed to the new work. God is even making a way in the wilderness of our lives and producing the healing waters of His rivers of life in our deserts (Isaiah 43:18,19).

Today is the new day that the Lord has made for us. We will rejoice in this new day and be glad in it.

We are in Christ. All things have become new. We are new creations. We have put on the new man and have come by a new and living way in Christ Jesus, singing a new song because our names are written in the Lamb’s book of life and He has made all things new. (1 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10; Heb. 10:20; Rev. 5:9; Rev. 14:3)

Whose Thoughts Are Those?, Part 2

Jesus told us that out of the abundance of our heart our mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34). Our heart is the center of our being, where our spirit is located. If we think on something long enough, it gets in the center of our being and comes out of our mouth. When it comes out of the center of our being, it will create what we say.

There are two sources of thoughts: God and satan. We choose every minute of every day whose thoughts become our focus and then we speak out what we are thinking.

Let’s use a practical example of thoughts and words in our present day. If we listen to the news all the time, we are hearing words of doom and gloom. “We are going under. The world is in a mess financially. People are out of work. People’s homes are being foreclosed.” Etc. Etc. Etc. However, if we look at and speak what God’s Word says about our financial situations, we see in His Word that He takes care of us. Are we not of more value than the birds of the air or the lilies of the field? He says that He sent His word and healed us. He says that Jesus bore our sicknesses and diseases. One set of thoughts comes from satan. The other set comes from God.

There is a tug of war for your thought life. There is a constant barrage of thoughts bombarding your mind 24-7. Negative thoughts must be offset by God’s Word. It is almost like we are having to become walking Bibles, with the word coming out at every squeeze of pressure. The water of the word comes out of our life sponges rather than the mildew of the world’s ideas.

Whose thoughts are those? You are the determining factor of whose thoughts you ponder.

Whose Thoughts Are Those?, Part 1

Thoughts dwelt on produce words. Words spoken produce actions. Actions determine the course of our lives.

God knows very well how He set up this earth and mankind to dwell on it. Our enemy satan also knows the set-up. It is very simple. It was established in Genesis. God spoke and God saw. Man, whom God has created, speaks and he sees. We are created in the image or likeness of God. He speaks and things are created.

We as mankind, whether born again or not, speak and create, whether good or bad. There is a statement that is very true: What we say is what we get. It doesn’t happen the first time or the second time or even the third time, but there does come a time when we have dwelt on something so long and spoken it so often, that it produces in our lives exactly what we have spoken.

Thoughts and words are extremely important to God since that is how His Kingdom operates. Consider these verses: As a man THINKS in His heart, so is he (Prov. 23:7). You will give an account of every IDLE WORD that you have spoken. By YOUR WORDS you will be justified and by YOUR WORDS you will be condemned (Matt. 12:36,37). Man lives by every WORD that proceeds out of the MOUTH OF GOD (Deut. 8:3). A gentle TONGUE with its healing power is a tree of life (Prov. 15:4). The MOUTH of a righteous man is a well of life….(Prov. 10:11) The TONGUE of the just is as choice silver….(Prov. 10:20). The LIPS of the righteous feed many….(Prov. 10:21) PLEASANT WORDS are as a honeycomb, sweet to the mind and healing to the body (Prov. 16:24). Death and life are in the power of the TONGUE and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof (Prov. 18:21). Whoso keeps his MOUTH and his TONGUE keeps himself from troubles and he keeps his life (Prov. 21:23). A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his MOUTH…. (Prov. 12:14). A man shall eat good by the fruit of his MOUTH….He that keeps his MOUTH keeps his life….(Prov. 13:2,3). Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report….THINK on these things (Phil. 4:8).

Canopy of Protection

Psalm 91:1
I who dwell in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand].

God’s shadow is His glory. We read in Isaiah 4:5 that over all, (that means you and me) the glory shall be a canopy in defense of divine love and protection. His glory is our canopy of defense and protection. His glory is His love expressed and revealed for all to see. We can be here on this earth inside the glory of God, a protection over us and around us. Yes, God is our protection. His power no foe can withstand----absolutely no foe. No one can stand against Him or His children, when we stay fixed in Him.

The protection of his glory, of His presence comes as we worship Him. We dwell in the secret place of the Most High God WHOSE SHADOW no foe can withstand. Once again, I repeat: His shadow is His glory or His power as a canopy over us as His defense for us of His divine love and protection. There is no enemy or foe that can stand against us in God’s Presence. That is forbidden territory for the enemy. He cannot even come near the Presence of God.

When we are in God’s Presence, through worshipping Him, we cannot be touched by the enemy. Satan may try to deceive us and lie to us and tell us that we can be touched. Oh, no, no, no. That would be contrary to the Word of God that we have just read. We are protected as we walk out our victory over whatever comes against us.

Joyfulness of Mind and Heart

What is the will of God? That we rejoice and be glad in Him. That we purpose to have joy in our minds and in our hearts. That we stir up the joy of our salvation. That we serve Him with joyfulness and gladness of mind and heart for all that He has given to us.

You might say: Well, I don’t see anything good happening in my life. There is where most of us make our mistake----I DON”T SEE! What do you see? Do you see the trouble all around you or do you see God’s Word which says that He will deliver you out of all trouble? We must learn to see what God's plan is for us and not what it looks like in the natural world to our physical eyes. Then we PERSIST in standing our ground for God's plan, regardless of what is happening or how long it seems to take to accomplish His plan.

We are living in a time where it is vital (not an option) that we CHOOSE to see God and His Word being performed in our lives and for us. Yes, our natural eyes and ears are seeing and hearing things we never thought we would see and hear. BUT, we must choose to hear what God is saying in His Word and to see what God is seeing. We must put on His eyes and His ears. It is a daily, perhaps a minute-by-minute choice for us.

Joy keeps God’s power and presence active in our lives. Grumbling, complaining, judging, analyzing, murmuring about what is going on, brings satan’s presence to us. Yes, it is true. We may not want to admit it but there are only two that are active in mankind’s life; it is either God Almighty or it is satan. JOY----GOD! MURMURING----SATAN!

Wow! I don’t know about you, but I am getting in the space of joyfulness of mind and heart.

Deuteronomy 28:47 Let’s turn it around from the negative to the positive and see what we get.
I serve the Lord God with joyfulness of mind and heart in gratitude for the abundance of all with which He has blessed me.

Start today if you don’t already practice this act of joy. Think about what God has sent your way as a blessing. You can begin with being thankful that you are born again and on your way to heaven. That is a reason for rejoicing! You can continue with the fact that you are breathing and alive. Pick up your Bible and start speaking the scriptures of blessing over yourself and your family UNTIL THEY BECOME REALITY in your life.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, as the old expression goes. REJOICE!