Seek First The Kingdom of God and His Righteousness

  Tenaciously Holding to His promises   Have you ever looked up the definitions for tenacity and tenacious?  Until a couple of days ago I never had and when I did, I was a little surprised.  You see for 3 days this week the Lord kept bring up patience and waiting and their connection to trust and faith.  I believe that this was a response to my asking the Lord what was wrong with me that was keeping me from seeing healings and miracles flowing through my life.  I have read about in other people’s lives starting in the New Testament till modern times and I know that God is the same yesterday, today and forever and that He is no respecter of persons. If I am not walking in all that God has for me the problem is on my side, not His. This brings me to the definitions I spoke of earlier and here they are.    TENAC'ITY ,  1.  Adhesiveness; that quality of bodies which makes them stick or adhere to others; glutinousness; stickiness; as the  tenacity  of oils, of glue, of tar, of starch an

  The Pains of Growing.     Matthew 6:28   “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;   For the last few mornings, I have been taking part in a Bible study on Zoom. This morning the person leading read from Oswald Chambers My utmost for His highest and there was a comment in the book from this verse. Roughly, it went something like this; Lilies stay where they are planted grow. Thus, they are able to grown roots, unlike people who don’t stay where God has planted them. The person leading made the observation about people who just church hop from one church to the next when things get uncomfortable.  This keeps them from growing because the discomfort or pain was really when the growing time was starting.  She then made the connection with growing pains when one enters adolescence.  That led me to this. Pain and discomfort are things that, most of us, try to avoid.  There are billions of dollars that are spent every

  Hearing and hearing. Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We need to be hearing and hearing the word of God so that our faith grows and grows stronger. We need to not only believe IN God but also believe God, as in believe what He says. This is to have a living faith, to trust what God says and act on it. So hear and hear the Word of God daily by reading it for yourself and build your faith stronger and stronger

  How to get everything you pray for. 1 John 5:14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. We can have confidence that He hears us when we ask anything that is according to His will. Sadly too many Christians believe that the will of God is difficult to know or find as if He has hidden it from us and only a few special few ever obtain such knowledge. The truth is that God’s will has been given to all who will receive it. Anyone can find and know it. He put it clearly in His Word. So if we will read the Word of God and meditate on it day and night we would see exactly every time what God’s will is. BUT WAIT! There’s more. 1 John 5:15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. See this? Knowing that He hears us then we know we have what we ask. Knowing His will and praying in agreement with that will leads us to receiving that will into our lives. So in

  Patience and Trust The connection between patience and trust. If I am trusting God patience becomes easy because I know that He has it. When I become impatient I cause myself a load of stress because instead of walking in the comfort of patience through trust in the Lord I am now hurrying to do things in my strength, trusting my abilities to make it happen. I have looked at patience in the wrong context. It is not really a delay but a time of rest trusting God to do what I can’t do effectively anyway. I rest in Him, He gets the victory and brings me into it.

  Plowshares and Swords   This is from some things the Lord spoke to me on Sunday morning as the music was playing.  The plowshare and the sword are most effective when they are sharp. The plowshare pierces and cuts the ground so that it is turned over.  The sword pierces and cuts to defend. The plowshare is thrust into the fallow ground to break up the hardness, to make it soft and ready to be planted and productive. It takes what is on top and turns it under.  That which is dead or not productive becomes a biomass that helps nourish the ground. That which brings life is brought to the top. The plowshare helps in bring forth a harvest. The sword parries the attack of the enemy. It cuts things away that are not need or are harmful. The Sword of the Spirit cuts sin away from us and us away from sin. The Sword pierces to the heart.  Often it is said that the Sword of the Spirit is our only offensive weapon BUT really it is to be used mostly in defense against the attack of the enemy agai

  Fear of Punishment   Starting as children and then continuing into adulthood we make attempts to conceal, many times through deception, our mistakes, crimes, sins because our thought is that if no one knows or those in authority don’t know what we have done then we won’t have to suffer the punishment that is deserved.  Do you remember your parents telling you that if you had told the truth to start with and admitted what you had done that the punishment would have been less or even no punishment at all but because you attempted to conceal what you had done through deception the punishment would be worse? Sadly, many people, even Christians, forget that God knows everything that you do.  You can’t hide it and lying about it and trying to conceal it just makes it worse.  Now there are always going to be consequences for the things we do.  Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. Yet the ultimate punishment, wages for our sin,