What is Hope? The definition of hope is, a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. The biblical translation of the word is a little stronger, it is the joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation. Jesus Christ is the God of hope, He is the foundation of our faith and His power can become our power through the almighty presence of the Holy Spirit. Do you believe this with all of your heart? Many times it becomes difficult for us to depend on God in areas where we excel. We may see things everyday and be able to do things with ease that others struggle with; consequently, when it comes time for us to depend on God in this area we have a major struggle because we understand things so well. I believe this is why so many doctors struggle with divine healing. They simply cannot believe that God heals because of their knowledge and understanding. I know not all are this way many doctors are Christians with a strong faith in Christ and a complete understanding that He so often heals and does things that cannot be explained. Many scientist struggle with the miracles of God because their knowledge interferes with their faith. The abilities of the doctor are gifts from God. The knowledge of the scientist is a gift from God. Pray today as you face your difficulty that Jesus Christ will fill you with the joy and the peace He speaks of in Romans 15:13. This scripture says abound in hope, the word abound means to exist in large numbers or amounts. This can only happen by the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray today that the power of the Holy Spirit inside you will empower you to live full of Hope, full of peace, full of joy knowing that the mighty hand of God will take care of you. Whatever you face, He faces. Whatever mountain you have to climb, He has to climb. Whatever binds you, He will loose. Let go and let God take care of you as only He can. Find His peace, embrace His love, Fear Not, because is mighty and He is LORD. Call on Him today. Trust Him today. Abound in His Hope today!Reaching for Him, Brother Big Daddy
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John 14:25-27 25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I. I want to ask you a question, what is Holy Spirit teaching you? What did He bring to remembrance yesterday and are you on the look out for His lessons today? Do you walk around with eyes wide open looking for Him to teach you and to show you the way? As a teacher it is obvious when you have a student who is soaking up every lesson. One who is studying the information, applying it and trying to get the most out of their education. Are you trying to get the most out of your relationship with Jesus Christ? Are you looking for the lessons He is teaching you and then going to the scripture to further understand what the Word says? This is the cool thing, the Holy Spirits dwells in our hearts, walks with us, and talks with us teaching us to live Christ like. When we stumble it is the conviction that corrects us and puts us on the right path. When we step out rightly in faith He confirms our steps and empowers us powerfully. Today, walk powerfully with your eyes set on the lessons at hand. Make the most of every situation. When the Holy Spirit teaches, look to the Word of God to further expand your knowledge and gain more and more understanding. He is at Work today. He is teaching. What an awesome, awesome blessing to walk with Him so close and to feel such love. Heads up, run the play, love life. Reaching For Him, Brother Big Daddy Matthew 6:9-13 Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen Finishing our prayer time is important, Jesus finished with identifying just who God is. The kingdom of God IS. Present tense, in the now wonderful, this very moment. Yours is the power. The kingdom of God is where the power is. We need to understand this absolute FACT. We have spent a week now breaking down this prayer to our Heavenly Father. We must believe and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our God has all the power, and all the glory forever and ever. We are finishing our prayer as we started, addressing God with praise and adoration. Our Lord is all powerful, He is almighty, He is glorious, He is Great, He is awesome, let Him know it before you get up and prepare to work in His mighty kingdom. Now you have been praying for quite some time, so get up and go to work. Work in this kingdom knowing it will last forever, run the play, be ye doers of the Word and not just hearers. Now go out and do the work of God all day long, praying to Jesus, praying with all your heart and pouring yourself into His work. As you pray, you absolutely must pray believing that your Lord and Savior can and will provide for you in every way. He is always watching, always protecting, always prepared. Surrender today to Him! Surrender every moment to Him. When difficulty arises pray. When the walls start caving in pray. Please listen to this last statement, when you are having the most awesome time of your life, when all is great and you just feel outstanding, please pray. This is generally a time when we focus on self and get caught up in the good. Get caught up in the good, which is Jesus. Praise Jesus and stay focused on Him. Reaching For Him, Brother Big Daddy Matthew 6:9-13 Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen. Sorry about no blog yesterday. We were traveling to Daytona for bike week. We had a great ride but now let us get down to business. We are now in a place in the model prayer where we must really unzip ourselves before almighty God. Ask God to help you with the specific temptations in your life. Yes that is right, you need to be specific with God about the temptation in your life. If you are struggling with alcohol, ask specifically for deliverance from alcohol. It doesn't matter what the sin is but you need to be specific, be open and honest with Jesus. He already knows, but prayer time is a time where you come into the presence of God ready to be changed. He is a God of deliverance and He wants to set you free. Many times we don't want to speak our actual sins to God; we just want to be cleansed from all our sin. Somehow we think if we don't speak of it specifically it somehow is not as bad, or it is not as awkward with the Most High. We need to understand not only does He know everything about your sin, He is drawing you to come to grips with this so He can deliver you from this. God exposes these things to you through the convictions of the Holy Spirit to bring you to a place of restoration not a place of destruction. Trust this but be obedient in your surrender and admittance to sin in your life. The blood of Jesus Christ was shed to deliver you from the bondage of sin. Be honest and admit you are in bondage, identify what has you bound and seek release. God is true to forgive. 1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. When you get through praying get up and walk the walk today, as temptation approaches look for the escape that Jesus Christ has provided for you. It is there will you find it? Reaching for Him, Brother Big Daddy Matthew 6:9-13 Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen. As we progress through the Lord's Prayer we see that Jesus models to us, that we are to ask God to forgive us as we forgive others. We need to think about this in spiritual terms and not in physical terms. We struggle to see sin the way God sees sin. It is very hard for us to view lying equally with murder. It is just a mindset that truly brings to life the Word of God when He declares that His ways are not our ways. We certainly see degrees in sin. We have a moral compass that declares to us one lie bigger than another, one sin more horrific than another, but God views them all as sin, they are all a departing from holy and righteous guidance. Simply put they all require the blood His Son shed on the cross. So Jesus says to you and I, that in our most intimate time with the Holy Almighty God, we should request from Him that we be forgiven with the same measure as we forgive. Probably one of the most scariest thoughts you will ever imagine. You saying to God, You will put your own forgiveness on how you forgive others. This pretty much determines that you will forgive. Have you ever thought about what it means to forgive. According to Webster's it literally means to stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake. In the Greek it means, "to let go." So we see that we are asking, excuse me, we are pleading with God to let go of our sins the same way we let go of the wrong done to us in life. This matches lines up pretty well with the scripture because after all we are told in Matthew 18:35, "So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses." I will let you read verse 25 -34 and see what we are talking about. Forgiveness is not optional, we must do it if we are to be forgiven. Do you think it is easy. Certainly not? That is why Christ Jesus must forgive through you. When you think it is difficult, think about this, Jesus Christ perfectly innocent and perfectly created came to this earth and walked on this earth as a man. He was beaten, whipped, spat on, cursed at, punched ridiculed and many other horrible things. The prophet Isaiah says that He was beaten so badly that He was not recognizable as a man. Yet He says to His Father, forgive them father for they know not what they do. They were not even seeking forgiveness, yet Christ Jesus died to provide forgiveness. Listen sometimes this is hard, sometimes this feels like someones is driving spikes into your gut; however, freedom comes when we let it go. It is great we we open our hearts to a whole new world. When we let Jesus mold and shape us especially in the area of forgiveness we draw so close to Him because we are so like Him when we are forgiving. For your own sake let it go. Release the shackles and the chains of unforgiveness, experience freedom like never before. Reaching for Him, Brother Big Daddy Matthew 6:9-13 Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen. The next part of the Lord's model prayer for us is a prayer of provision. The question we must ask ourselves is what are we asking for? God clearly states that we should ask for our daily needs. We many times ask for needs months and years in the future. Jesus demonstrated asking for our daily needs. What are you facing right now and what do you need from God to get through today. For example, lets say you have a job interview coming up in a week, what are you praying for today? A good interview? Ask God to help you with preparation of your resume. Ask Him for the things that you will tackle today for the the job INTERVIEW. Tomorrow will take care of itself if God is meeting every need leading up to tomorrow. I know God will take care of tomorrow when it gets here. I will pray for what I need today. Matthew 6:34 states, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Are you praying for 20 loaves of bread? That is fine if you are running the soup kitchen, but if you are just a small single dwelling why are you asking for everything under the sun. I think this is where he says we ask but we ask amiss planning for our selfish pleasures instead of His kingdom work. James 4:33 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Pray God takes care of your every need today. List them specifically. Then walk and trust, run the play with the assurance that He has you! Then tomorrow get up and do the same thing. And the next day you guessed it, get up and do the same thing AGAIN! Reaching for Him, Brother Big Daddy When you go to God in prayer what do you seek? We are studying the model prayer and examining how Jesus demonstrated prayer to us. Yesterday we discussed the holiness of the Name of God. The next part of our prayer touches what our heart is seeking. Are we seeking our own desires? Have we truly surrendered to the will of God? Jesus tells us to pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we enter the throne room of God and we begin to pray to God are we self seekers or God seekers. You see, you will not find yourself. Selfish individuals are never satisfied. They always want more. Many times we seek God as self seekers. We want God to do what we want, instead of wanting to do what God wants. Our prayer should and must center on God's will. God's perfect will on this earth just as it is in heaven. So what would that sound like? "Dear Jesus, I am seeking you as I prepare for a job change. I do not want to be outside of what you are doing, so I am asking that you give me eyes to see my next step. Please make sure that as I interview, send out my resume, call and diligently seek a fresh start that I do so with my eyes focused on you and my heart seeking your will. Dear Jesus, let every decision I make be confirmed in your word and may you empower my every step. As perfect as your will is in heaven, I am asking that you touch down in my life today the same way. I don't want one ounce of me stepping out of the direction in which you have pointed me. May I stay laser guided towards a destination that you have determined. Wherever you lead, I will go. Whatever you command, I will complete. Whatever you require, I will give. I am asking with all my heart that I do not seek my own pleasures but only those things that will bring forth the words, well done my good and faithful servant. I need your will to be done in my life today. I love you and need you! ..." This is what God wants to do in our life. He wants to bring His perfect will into our life in such a way that we become a light to a dark and hurting world. This is the second part of our prayer time. Make it personal, what is God asking you to do? Surrender to His will, die daily to self, and experience the abundant life. Reaching for Him, Brother Big Daddy |