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“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14 NIV

Moses is talking to the Israelites in a very emotional moment in this verse. They are at the edge of the Red Sea and the Egyptians are about to catch up to them and overtake them. At that moment, as the Israelites are scared that they are about to die, Moses reminds them that they serve God. He tells them that God will fight for them, but they have to trust, believe and remain calm.

I can imagine their fear was great, but God is greater. As the Egyptians came closer, Moses did as God instructed him to do. He lifted his staff over the sea and the waters parted. The Israelites crossed the sea on dry land, not muddy land, not wet land, but dry land. God delivered them, He fought for them and they just had to not try and solve the problem themselves. They needed to be still.

For Moses to tell the Israelites to be still as thousands of Egyptian chariots, horses and soldiers were racing towards them, took a great deal of courage. There were thousands of Israelites and they were panicking. When someone is panicking, it is very hard for them to think rationally or listen to logic. As Moses told them to stop and be still, they could have overtaken him, harmed him out of fear and frustration that they had walked all this way to then die, but they didn’t. Moses wasn’t sure exactly how God was going to save them but he knew God would and they just had to be still.

There are many times that the idea of being still is hard for me. I become anxious about a situation and feel like I need to fix it right at that moment, instead of letting go and letting God do what He is going to do. Being still is hard for a lot of people and in this verse, the Hebrew word that is used actually means to not only stop talking or complaining but also to stop moving. It literally means to be ‘still’.

When we stop relying on God for small things in our lives, the things we believe we can handle all by ourselves, we can get in trouble. We can become used to doing it all ourselves and forget that we serve God and our God can do anything. I am not saying that we shouldn’t do for ourselves what we can, but we shouldn’t cut God out of the equation of how we are going to do it either. It is easy to rely on God when we see no other way or the challenge is so big that God is the only way to solve it. However, He wants to be involved in each part of our lives, not just when we see no other way other than relying on Him.

In each situation, as we come to God, we need to practice the idea of being still. When we become still, not talking or wishing and physically not moving, we can hear God talking to us. We can’t hear Him when we have everything else going on because God doesn’t yell to talk to us, He whispers. He wants to know that He has our attention, that we want to hear from Him. He doesn’t want to have to fight to get our attention.

So, how hard is it for you to be still? Do you include God in all of your situations, big, small, important or trivial? He wants to have that relationship with us, He didn’t send Jesus so we can only have Him involved in our lives during the ‘big’ times. God created us, loves us and wants to be a part of our lives each and every day.

My question for you today is this…..

Will you let God fight for you?

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

In the Gospel of John, John is writing to the new Christians in his time and he was explaining who Jesus is. As in other books of the Bible, John is recording what Jesus has said and done. Jesus used common examples from everyday life to explain to the people around Him, Who He was and what He was able to do.

In the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John, John records that Jesus is talking to the crowd around Him which included Pharisees, those who thought of themselves as the individuals who knew and practiced the true and pure ways of the Jewish religion. As Jesus did many times, He uses a common job, role or item to explain a spiritual concept, and in this case Jesus is describing what He has come to do for mankind.

Jesus used the role or job of a shepherd for this explanation. A shepherd was a common job in Jesus’s time as most of the population either had a shepherd in their family or knew a person who was a shepherd, so they were be able to relate to the duties of a shepherd.

A shepherd’s main job was to keep his flock of sheep safe. He is to do whatever it takes to protect them, feed them, care for them. In turn the sheep will follow their shepherd’s voice and commands as that is who they know to be their protector and provider. The sheep can tell by the tone of the shepherd’s voice if it is really him, as his voice is full of concern and love for his sheep. So as Jesus talks to those around Him, He compares Himself to the shepherd and His followers to the sheep.

In the first half of this chapter, Jesus addresses false prophets, those who are only pretending to be the Shepherd. Those who actually want to harm the sheep. Jesus describes these individuals as a thief. A thief has only selfish thoughts and they want what they want, which is usually to harm others, take what others have and leave tragedy behind.

Jesus uses this particular comparison to show that as a thief is coming only to cause harm to others, He, Jesus is coming to provide safety and life. Life, that is not just an existence but life that has true and deep meaning to it as the person lives life connected to Jesus. In the last part of this verse, Jesus says that He wants us to have a life that is to the full or in other translations it says more abundant.

More abundantly refers to having a life that contains more than what is absolutely necessary to live. Jesus wants that for us, He wants us to have a relationship with Him that is so much more than just a religious connection to God. He wants us to live a full spiritual life while we are on this earth but also He came to ensure that we were given the opportunity to choose life in heaven for eternity with Him.

Choosing heaven is the gift that we receive when we are saved. To be saved we need to admit that we have sinned, need forgiveness of those sins, believe in Jesus, and confess with our mouths that He is our Lord and Savior. Jesus wants us to be with Him for eternity. He does not want us to believe and follow false prophets, those who present themselves as people who are messengers of God, but in reality are messengers of the devil.

Who do you choose to follow today…the thief or the Shepherd?

Today, I encourage you to examine who it is that you follow.

 “So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV

I have seen this verse posted different places to remind us that no matter what we are doing we are to do our best to glorify God while we are doing it. That is a tall order but it is what we, as Christians are to strive to do…..everything for God. A new Christian may find this verse overwhelming, which I can understand. So let’s look at the context a little.

Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he is addressing the idolatry that was rampant in Corinth. Food and drink were used a lot in Paul’s time as examples of how to bring glory or not to God which is how it is being used here. As he wrote to the Christians in Corinth, he was trying to help them understand that even the smallest of things that they did could be done either for God or not. The non-Christians in Corinth were idol worshippers but were still family members of the new Christians, which meant that they were still in the Christians’ lives and ate meals with them.

Being a Christian back then, as it is now, was hard. It was a new way of thinking and living that was not steeped in years of tradition. The leader of this way of thinking and living had been crucified on a cross, one of the most violent ways to be killed in that day, as well as a way that was reserved for the worst criminals. So everything that a Christian did was looked at closely by others to see if the Christian was truly following this new way of living. If Christians chose to follow the rules of their new way of thinking and living only on some days and not others, than they were no less a hypocrite than anyone else who chose when they were willing to worship whatever idol they were choosing to worship.

Paul is trying to help the new Christians of Corinth to understand that God created us, that He is the One True God. That as His creation, He gave them free will which allows them, His creations, to choose to honor Him or to ignore Him in everything they did each day. Paul informs the Christians of his day that honoring God was not reserved for only certain days or certain actions. They were able to honor God every day and with ALL of their actions.

Paul’s teaching is relevant today as well. We are able to honor God in everything we do each and every day. Things as ordinary as eating and drinking, can be used to honor God or dishonor Him. Most importantly, our intentions in regards to our thoughts and our actions are what we should be paying attention to each day. Are we working at our job to simply pay our bills, or have we considered that maybe God has placed us in our current job to show someone the Light of Jesus through us? Do we complete our tasks around the house so that the house looks nice or could our intention be to purposefully take care of what God has blessed us with in this life?

God is alive, not like the idols made of pieces of wood, bronze, gold, silver. He can speak and interact with His creation, much like a parent is able to interact with their child. In the same way that a child can honor or dishonor their parent, we can honor or dishonor God. As His creation, His children, we can show Him how we feel about being His child.

God has given each one of us everything we need to live life on this earth, from our ability to do the tasks we need to do to make a living, to the desire to love the people in our lives. We can choose to live our lives being thankful or not. We can choose to bring honor to our Creator or not and no action is too small to be used to bring that honor.

What do you choose to do today? Bring honor to God with all of your being, in everything you do or not? The choice is yours.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

The last area of the Fruit of the Spirit is self-control. A person who has good self-control is able to prolong gratification, make wise choices and keep their thoughts in line with the will of God. A person who does not have good self-control tends to do impulsive things, say what they are thinking as soon as it comes into their mind and make choices that end up causing them trouble at some point.

Why would self-control be part of the Fruit of the Spirit? When I think of a person who is demonstrating the Fruit of the Spirit as a whole, I think of a loving person, who puts others first, who is calm, generous and loyal. I believe that if that person was not able to control their thoughts, their feelings and/or their actions then they would not be able to be a loving, calm, generous, loyal person who puts others before themselves.

To be loving, you have to control your thoughts of distrust and hate. To be calm, you have to control your feelings of excitement or depression. To be generous, you have to control your thoughts of wanting to keep what you have for yourself and your actions of actually giving what you have away. To be loyal, you have to control all of those because our thoughts about distrust which can turn to feelings of depression. When you are depressed, you are not as likely to be thinking of others or very giving of your time or resources.

Controlling oneself can be difficult if we try to do it on our own. As we develop this area of the Fruit of the Spirit, as with each of the other areas, we need to rely on God for help. He put the seed of each one of the areas inside of us and He is the One who is able to water the seed, feed the seed with His word and help it to grow. Trying to grow or develop this characteristic in particular by your own power can be problematic because of how intertwined it is with the other areas.

Sometimes I think that this area is the hardest area to develop/grow into maturity. As the sinful, immediate gratification seeking people that we are, telling our flesh ‘no’ can be difficult. If we struggle with small areas of control such as what we say out oud or what we eat or what we watch, how much more difficult can maintaining our desire to follow God’s will be?

God asks us to make statements and perform actions that we do not have the strength to say or do on our own. The wonderful news is that we don’t have to do any of it on our own. God is willing to be with us each day, in every situation, letting us lean on Him and giving us what we need to do what He is asking. That is great, but there is one thing we have to do and that is be willing to let Him help us.

We have to be willing to say ‘Lord, please help me’. We have to be willing to follow His lead when He instructs us on what we are to say and how we are to say it. We need to follow His lead about what He wants us to do and how He wants us to perform the action. We have to be able to take whatever amount of self-control we posses and use it so that we don’t run away from God when He asks us to make a statement that we don’t believe we can make. We need to not run when He asks us to perform an action that we don’t believe we can perform.

The number of times over the years that I have argued with God about saying something to another person that I felt uncomfortable saying because I didn’t know how they would respond, is too large a number for me to even imagine. The sad thing is that what God was asking me to say may have been exactly what that person needed to hear, but I was not willing to control my fear and rely on God in that moment.

I have developed this area over the years, but I am not even close to where I need to be. Thankfully I believe God isn’t done with me yet and is still there to help me each step of the way.

Do you struggle with self-control? If you do, have you ever asked God for help in this area? Be ware though, because just like patience, the only way to develop self-control is to experience situations where self-control is required. I believe that every one of us can do this with God’s help. He is not willing to leave any of us behind, so I encourage you to go to Him and ask Him for help today. Don’t put it off, He is waiting for each one of us, patiently.

Have a great day and stay connected to God.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

What do you think of when you hear the word gentleness? Sometimes gentleness is compared to meekness or weakness, but I would argue that gentleness is very different. I believe that gentleness actually takes strength to show. Meekness is defined as submissive and weakness is defined as lacking strength. However, gentleness is defined as being tender or having softness.

It is easy in this day and age, in our society, to become harsh with someone who is not fulfilling our needs. For example, if someone isn’t moving their car quick enough for us to park, we yell at them, or make motions at them. We all have pushed our way through a situation or two reacting in a harsh manner.

Developing gentleness is truly a gift from God.

Our actions and words carry weight with others and affect the people around us. When we are harsh in either one of those areas, we can hurt others, tear down self-esteems, and drive people away from God. Being able to be gentle with others whether it is physically or verbally, has a greater chance of having a positive outcome than being harsh. Having the ability to restrain yourself from acting in a harsh manner and then being willing to show that gentle side of yourself takes strength. Strength in knowing who you are in Christ and that He is in control of the situation, if we let Him.

An example of gentleness can be a person who is typically known for being rough and tough, going into a hospital and sitting beside their parent, lovingly holding their hand as they battle disease. It is the ability to remove yourself from the center of the situation and place the other person there, right in the center. Being able to place their needs above your own because you know that they matter more to you at that moment than your own needs or desires.

Christ showed this gentleness as He held children while He was talking to large crowds about their sins and how they could change their lives. Jesus also showed us great gentleness when He took the beatings that the guards gave Him, carried the cross to His place of death and then let them nail Him to the cross so that we could be given the chance at forgiveness. Jesus could have struck down everyone of the guards the moment they lifted your rods to hit Him, but He didn’t. Instead He forgave them for doing what they were doing. Jesus then gave us a chance at eternal life in heaven because He placed our needs before His own. He placed the need to save our lives above keeping His life on earth.

Are you known as a gentle person? If you are not, God can grow that area of the Fruit of the Spirit inside you, you need only to let Him. He will not push His way into your life, however, please remember that He only wants what is best for you. I pray that today you would talk to God about gentleness and how with His help this characteristic can be developed more in your life. I know that I am going to be talking with Him today about how it can be developed more in my life. Have a wonderful day.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

As we discuss faithfulness, loyalty comes to mind. For example, a person who is faithful to their spouse is also being loyal. They are not devoting their time, their feelings, or their resources to any one else. They are consistently mindful of their commitment to that other person. They are not faithful only some times or when they feel like it, it is all the time. Being faithful to God is the same idea, we are to be devoting our time Him, connecting with Him, being in prayer with him and reading His word so we are able to get to know Him better.

When we talk about our feelings in being faithful to God, we are talking about continuing to serve Him even when we don’t get what we want, whether that is a situation not ending the way we wanted it to or we don’t a material object that we wanted. We need to stay connected even when we don’t feel like it, even when praying feels hard and we are tempted to try something different. These are the moments when being faithful to God is important. Remembering our commitment to God can help us stay focused on Him and not the gratification that our flesh is desiring at that moment.

In regards to our resources, we should be willing to share what God has given us with others so that the kingdom of God is able to expand. I am not talking just monetary resources but also time. Spending time helping others come to know Jesus in your church or community is giving of your resources as well.

Being faithful to God can be hard and we all face the temptation to walk away from Him. We are tempted daily because we want to fit in with the crowd of people who are important to us. However, walking away from God when we don’t get our way or when the temptation we are facing seems easier than remaining close to God is the opposite of faithful and let’s remember that God has been nothing but faithful to us.

Heavenly Father, Thank You for always being faithful to us even when we are not faithful to You. Temptations are strong to walk away from You and fit in with the crowd around us, so please help us to want to cling to You and not take the easy way out. Please be with anyone who is facing those temptations to not be faithful to You today. Be with us as we go through our day, hopefully showing others what being faithful to You looks like. In Jesus’s name. Amen

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

Goodness is the next area of the Fruit of the Spirit contained in these verses. When we are discussing goodness as a characteristic that someone is able to possess, I think of someone who is morally upright. A person who does what is right not only when others are looking but when they are alone. Someone who is genuinely able to empathize with others, who puts others’ needs before their own.

As one of the areas of the Fruit of the Spirit, goodness has parts of the other areas embedded in it. As a person develops love, joy and kindness, they are able to develop goodness as well because they all have similar components to them. They each consist of having concern for others more than one’s self, giving of oneself to help others and showing the love of Jesus.

The main way to develop and grow in any of the parts of the Fruit of the Spirit is to maintain a connection with God. That connection is through prayer, reading His word, studying His word, and surrounding yourself with other Christians. There are other ways as well such as listening to music, to sermons or podcasts that are devoted to God.

Most people consider themselves to be ‘good’ people, and I believe they are, but being ‘good’ and consistently demonstrating ‘goodness’ is different. ‘Goodness’ is a characteristic or a trait that a person possesses, where as being ‘good’ is an action that a person does. We can all perform actions for a while, but possessing a trait is showing that characteristic consistently over time.

Heavenly Father, I come before You now and ask that You pull anyone who is struggling with this area of the Fruit of the Spirit in closer to You, so they can feel Your love. I pray that they would seek Your guidance daily. Thank You for always being near us and being willing to help us. I pray all of this in Your Son’s most precious name, Jesus. Amen

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

I always thought that being kind and being nice were the same thing. Over the years I have come to realize that there is a difference. Being nice can be defined as being pleasant and polite, using words to make others feel good. People who are nice are usually agreeable and do not want to cause any problems. Where being kind can be defined as a quality of being friendly, willing to be honest with others in love.

Being nice can be thought of as being self motivated in that a person who is being nice sometimes expects something in return for the act of being nice, typically praise. Expressing kindness can be thought of as being selfless in that the person who is being kind expects nothing in return for the act of being kind.

For example, a nice person will tell you that the outfit you have on is flattering even if it isn’t because they don’t want to hurt your feelings or make you upset. Whereas a kind person will tell you the truth about the outfit, in a loving way, so that you do not go out in public in an outfit that is not flattering on you.

As children of God, we are often called upon to be kind to others, in the most loving way we know how, but unfortunately, we are not always kind, instead there are times when we are nice. We are nice sometimes because we don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings, however, we are not truly helping them to address an issue or grow in a certain area when we are not being truthful with them.

In demonstrating growth in our spiritual life and development of this area of the Fruit of the Spirit, we begin to be able to distinguish the difference between niceness and kindness so that we are able to truly help others, not just make them feel good. Being nice is easier than being kind, you don’t have address anything or figure out how to tell the person something in love that may hurt their feelings.

We are also called to be kind to our enemies. As humans we can hold grudges and the thought of being nice, let alone kind to our enemies, can be hard for us. God has instructed us to do that very thing though, we are told to love our enemies and be kind to everyone, not just nice. After all, God has been kind to us, helping us to correct our sin and He did it through love by sending His Son as a way for us to be able to be forgiven and to live in eternity with Him.

As we move through our day, I pray that we choose to be kind to others even when we don’t feel like being kind. We are children of the Most High God and we are sometimes the only example of Jesus that another person may experience. Knowing that helps us to remember if we want to bring others to Jesus, then we have to demonstrate what being a follower of Christ looks like in all that we do. Have a wonderful day and be kind to everyone.

Today’s blog is a little different than my usual blog. Today I have an announcement that I would like to make and it may come as a surprise to some people. I have talked at great length over the years about hearing God’s promptings, submitting to His will and following through in obedience to what God wants me to do.

Well, today I am able to share with everyone a prompting I received from God about a year ago. As I have shared before, I like to study the Bible by taking a verse or passage of scripture and exploring it, writing down what I find about it. I do this very thing when I am writing a sermon.

At the time of the prompting that I felt, I had written approximately 30 sermons. So the idea of me writing wasn’t new to me. If you know anything about my blog, you know that I like to write but you would also know that I only began writing this blog about 2 1/2 months ago. What I am talking about, the prompting, did not take me 10 months to figure out how to follow.

During the summer last year, I felt led to write more than just sermons, so after praying about it and truly listening to what I feel God was saying to me, I decided to follow the prompting. I am very excited to be able to announce that as of yesterday my very first book is available for sale on Amazon.

I felt led to write a book on Ephesians 6:10-18, the armor of God. So I began writing a little at first and then more and more I would find myself making notes about something I wanted to include in one of the chapters. It took about 8 months to complete and when it was done, my husband, a dear friend of mine and my pastor at the time, all encouraged me to look into publishing it. After some more prayer and research, I found the publishing company that I believe I was meant to find.

So my first book “Wearing God’s Armor, What does that look like?” is now available for sale on Amazon by coping and pasting the link below into your browser.

https://a.co/d/dTfV5yb

I want to thank everyone who has supported me in the journey of writing my first book as well as continuing to write this blog. I am very blessed that God has placed the people in my life that He has and I am very thankful. So copy and paste the link into your browser, take a look at my first book and have a great day.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

Forbearance, otherwise known as patience, comes next as an area where we can demonstrate the growth of the Fruit of the Spirit. Patience has always been a rough area for me. Patience was never really modeled for me as a child and it wasn’t until my adult years that I had someone in my life who was actually a patient person. God placed that person in my life and I have watched them and learned from them about how to be patient.

Patience is similar to peace in that in order to develop patience you have to endure difficult times, times that do not go as planned, because if everything goes as exactly as you want, there is no need for patience. We can all think of times when the cashier at the store was not very fast or the person driving in front of us on a single lane road was driving under the speed limit. These are mild cases of when someone’s patience can be tested.

Another area is as a parent and it can easily be said that your patience is tested on a daily basis. Your child isn’t doing what is asked of them or they are doing it but at the speed of a turtle. Your child is acting silly during a time when you need them to be serious and they won’t stop being silly. These are just some examples of how a person’s patience can be tested.

However, as a child of God, when I am being impatient, I try to remember all the times I have tried God’s patience. All the times that I have not followed His will, or I have followed it but not completely. I think about the times that it has taken me two or three times as long to learn a lesson as it should have taken. Thankfully God has not given up on me, cast me aside or walked away from me. He has remained right beside me, being patient with me as I learn how to respond to Him, how to understand what He wants me to do.

Now I understand that none of us are close to being like God and being able to demonstrate the level of patience that God demonstrates, but as followers of Christ we are called to try to be like Jesus. We are to imitate Christ by following the examples He left by how He lived His life. We learn about His life by reading God’s word, and we learn what God wants us to do by communicating with Him through prayer daily. As we develop patience or forbearance, the calmer we become and the calmer we become, the more we can work on developing more patience. It is a wonderful cycle of growth.

I pray that as we all work on developing patience or forbearance, that we are kind to ourselves and those around us who are also working on developing patience. God is kind to us and works with us to develop this area of the Fruit of the Spirit and we should imitate that behavior with each other.

Heavenly Father, please be with each one of us as we allow You to work in our lives to grow this area of our walk. Thank You for always being patient with us and not giving up on us like we may have done with others in our own lives. Help us to understand that as we work to develop this area that we will have to face situations that will be difficult for us to show patience during. And even though we will desire to move through those situations quickly, please be with us, and continue to guide us in the right direction. I pray all of this in Your Son’s most precious name, Amen.