I KNOW I'M SUPPOSED TO FORGIVE, BUT...

Mark 11:26
"But if YOU do not FORGIVE, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings."

"I KNOW I'm SUPPOSED to FORGIVE, but..." Have you ever started thinking or SAYING this when YET ANOTHER thing reminds you of the HURT you encountered??? Yeah you know all the cliches about FORGIVENESS, like... "Forgiveness is not for the other person its for YOU...to heal and MOVE on." "Unforgiveness is like taking poison and hoping the other dies from it." "Holding a grudge (unforgiveness) is LETTING someone LIVE RENT-FREE in your head."

The reason why MOST do not FORGIVE is that they have not come to a NEW REVELATION of what the hurt encounter was meant to TEACH them! We LOVE to POINT the finger at another when we are HURT but the TRUTH is...people show us parts of ourselves we aren't WILLING to look at without the hurt. Let me give you some examples...

1) That guy you were so intrigued about that you LET into your life and HEART because He made you FEEL whatever way, but you often SAW him DECEIVING others but because he hadn't done it to you YET, you CHOSE to IGNORE the signs over what made you FEEL good.

2) OR maybe it was that girlfriend who told your personal business to someone else but the whole time that you knew her all you two every did was TALK about other people behind their back...but NOW all of sudden she's wrong for doing what you've been doing together the whole time!

3) OR maybe you have had a conversation with a SIBLING or FAMILY member over and over again about something you would like them NOT to do. You have come to the conclusion that they just DON'T CARE about YOUR FEELINGS since they keep doing it. However, HOW many times have you done the same thing OVER and OVER again that YOU KNOW is not PLEASING to God but He GIVES you ONE more chance when you ask for Forgiveness???

The BEAUTY of "hurts" in our lives is that they WAKE us up to the SLEEPWALKING that we sometimes do because we are not IN-TUNED to something in OUR CHARACTER that God wants us to SEE! He would NOT be a LOVING Father if He continued to let you WALK like darkness when you are a Child of LIGHT. Hurts SERVE the PURPOSE of GROWING us up to help us SEE a NEW PERSPECTIVE we never would have seen without it.

So take some time RIGHT NOW and take up YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to FORGIVE and PRAY for that person who gave you the WAKE call...They we're actually GOOD to and for YOU...from God's Perspective...and it will FREE YOU too!

ALH, Always Loving Him/Her'

 

 

God's Blessings!

"I have not gone back from the commandment of His lips; I have esteemed and treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food." (Job 23:12)

I recently read a statement in a life changing read about Spiritual Discernment, by Roberts Liardon..."The love of God is unconditional, but His blessings aren't!" When I read it RANG SO TRUE in my spirit that I began to realize why SO MANY CHRISTIANS are living beneath God's INTENDED Life...We AREN'T AWARE of the conditions to RECEIVE BLESSINGS or we AREN'T FOLLOWING them. Either way we are LIVING with the MOUNTAIN defeating us instead of us MOVING the MOUNTAIN with the tools God has given us....HIS WORD!!!

So many are TURNED OFF by the WORD of God...(BIG TRICK of the enemy by the way)...to KEEP YOU FROM the BLESSINGS of God...and the bad thing about it is...CHRISTIANS are FALLING for it too!!! We have what we need to be VICTORIOUS in this life, we just AREN'T UTILIZING it for what it was made to do...MOVE MOUNTAINS in our lives and the lives of others by the FAITH that ONLY COMES BY WAY OF THE WORD OF GOD!!!

So I ask you...How MUCH WORD are you getting into your life??? A measly Sunday meal at church is not going to sustain you throughout the week...when YOU ARE STARVING!!! All day long, we are BOMBARDED with all the negative forces around us from the people, music, TV, videos, and whatever else we are ALLOWING into our space to ROB us from a life that is VICTORIOUSLY BLESSED according to God's Standards...all because we AREN'T PUTTING IN THE TIME that is needed to COUNTERACT all of the negative forces surrounding us.

So let me ask you a question, HOW MUCH SPIRITUAL FOOD are you FEEDING yourself each day??? Think about it, the ALL GIVING, ALL LOVING, ALL POWERFUL GOD wants to FILL YOU with MORE of HIM!!! So, why wouldn't you want to FEED on Him??? It's AMAZING to me how we can put so many things before our time with God that can not GIVE us the same Blessings that He can give us...Nothing but PRIDE! Pride that we know better than Him, Pride that we can do it ourselves, Pride that we don't need Him to get everything done...Just plain FOOLISHNESS that the enemy has tricked us into believing and ACTING on this sin.

So what are you going to do about it??? I would recommend and CHALLENGE you put in AT LEAST the same amount of time you put into eating your physical food...for most that's 3x's A DAY...Morning, Afternoon, and Night! Here are the steps I recommend that I have noticed work well for me...

1) You may want to set a dedicated space within your home for your time with the Lord! (This can help in keeping the area holy and sacred for the Lord).
2) You may want to turn on some Praise & Worship Music to awaken the Spirit within you.
3) Be sure to PRAY before you begin your time with reading THE WORD and ask the Spirit to REVEAL to you what He wants you to know during your time together and watch how the WORD will POP OFF the page and prick and speak to your HEART about you and your life situation.
4) You must ALSO be willing to COMMIT TO LISTENING to what is REVEALED to you during this time.
5) Journal your thoughts during your time of LISTENING so that you will have a WRITTEN PLAN of what God has to say to you and what He wants to DO through you.
6) Next, be sure to PRAY for His assistance to do His plan
7) Lastly, get to MOVING Obediently toward God's plan by measurable steps of FAITH (Speaking, Hearing, and BELIEVING the Word of God to you) with action. God will surely BLESS the work of your hands because you have a heart that is diligently seeking Him and willing to do His Plan.

Please don't MISS your moments to be EMPOWERED by God...what better way is there to be EMPOWERED than from the ALL POWERFUL One who is WILLING to GIVE His Gracious Power to YOU if we ask!

Stay in the BLESSINGS Beautiful Ones!

Blessed and Highly Favored

Today, I was Blessed & Highly Favored from my time with God! I had to get some MUCH needed extended time in with the Lord this morning. See, I usually read a chapter of Proverbs everyday and then let the Lord lead me as I meditate on what POPS off the page at me. Well Proverbs 3 is one of my FAVORITE chapters...because of Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart..." you know the one. But today verses 3 & 4 SHOUTED at me..

"Let not MERCY and KINDNESS [shutting out all hatred and selfishness] and TRUTH [shutting out all deliberate hypocrisy or falsehood] forsake you; bind them about your neck, WRITE them upon the tablet of YOUR HEART. 4 SO SHALL YOU FIND FAVOR, good understanding, and high esteem in the sight [or judgment] of God and man." (Proverbs 3-4 AMP)

You see, I've been praying for FAVOR...FAVOR with people, FAVOR in my business, FAVOR in everything I put my hand to do. With 2012 being such a persevering and testing year as I ventured out into NEW territory, I needed to SEE some fruit from all the labor I had been putting out.

Well, sometimes in our LABORING we can be so driven to make it happen in our own power, we work, work, work ourselves right into a merciless and unkind mode just to try to MAKE the TRUTH of what we believe WORK out like we want them. So of course when I saw this verse this NEW 3rd morning in this NEW Year, I saw this chapter and verse in a NEW LIGHT.

We must remember to ask God to ENLIGHTEN us with His Word as we read it otherwise reading His Word can become another LABOR on our list of things to do without any NEW ENLIGHTENMENT or REVELATION from it. God's Word is INSPIRATION (see 2 Timothy 3:16) to our lives when we SLOW DOWN long enough to ask Him for His insight, digest/receive it and  then apply it to our lives.

So today as you are trying to get to the next thing you are trying to complete, remember that God wants to be a NEW ENLIGHTENMENT in your daily task as you "bind mercy, kindness and truth around your neck and write them on your heart to find FAVOR from God and man." Be Blessed!