The Greatest Weapon

Feeling exhausted from fighting your own battles? Have you allowed stress to pile up and control your life? Hardships can easily take off our focus on what truly matters in our life. So what is the greatest weapon to fight our battles? 

Exodus 14:14 says, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

We have the greatest weapon against Satan and that is God.

Your wealth, family, spouse, and even yourself cannot save you. The only one who can fight for you and win is God. God does not need you to fight his battles; he only needs you to be still in him. 

Whether you are fighting sickness, sin, or any other troubles, know that this isn't your battlefield - it's God's battlefield and he knows it, and he is fighting for you. 

This is your Greatest Weapon.

Why Good Things Must Go

Has God ever asked you to let go of something good in your life? Ever wondered why good things need to end? There will come a time when we will have to let go of things in our life - not just any thing, but good things. This is certainly not easy to do, but it is something that must happen for us to grow in Christ. 

I have been struggling these past few weeks over a request that God has asked of me. I tried putting it off of my mind, but the guilty feeling of knowing that I was ignoring God's request just killed me. Every sermon, scripture, and devotion time that I had with God continued to hit my heart. God has been challenging me to let go of my music studio that I have invested my time on for 5 years. I could not understand why God would ask me to let go of such a thing that has been so good to my life. Why would God ask me to let go of something that has brought me joy and prosperity?

I continued to ask God the "why" questions, and it wasn't until recently that I finally understood why God might want us to let go of good things in our lives. 

It is because God wants us to live our life to the fullest. 

We will have our own definitions of what a good life is, but it is only God who knows what is best for us. There are many good things we could have and do, but not everything is best for us.  Trust God when he asks you to let go of something - even when that something is good.  God knows the future and he knows what is best for us. 

Jeremiah 17:7 says, "But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him." The fact of life is that we cannot trust ourselves. As much as we want to be confident that we know it all, only God knows it all. Trusting God will require us to let go of our own securities. We can either trust God 100% or 0%. We cannot say we have sincere trust in God if it is not 100% - it's all or nothing. 

When we place our lives in God's hand, we can be confident that he will have a hold of it and will bring our lives to the fullest. Trusting God requires us to sacrifice our lives and to go through the fire that God will place us at. We can't eliminate our own desires because it can only be eliminated by God. We must go through the fire and allow God to permanently burn away our desires that are not grounded in God. 

If we want God's will in our lives, our own selfish desires must first be gone. That is why God places us through fires so that our own desires will disappear while his will appear. So what is the fire that we have to go through? The fire is anything that will hurt and purify you. For me, the fire that I had to go through was letting go of my music studio. It is only through sacrificing my music studio that I could burn away my selfish desires and surrender my life to God. 

To have God's will present in our lives require us to sacrifice our lives to him no matter the cost. The only way we can live our life to the fullest is if we give our fullest to God. Don't think that sacrificing your life is something out of the norm because we all sacrifice our lives for something. Whatever you are living for, you are sacrificing for. If you are living for your career, then you are sacrificing for your career. If you are living for your Jesus, than you are sacrificing for Jesus. There is no such thing as life without sacrifice. 

What are you sacrificing your life for? Matthew 10:39 says, "Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it." The only way we can live our life to the fullest is to give it for God to hold and mold. God has the life you want in his hands; give up yours in exchange for his. So remember, good things must go for the better things. 

How To Hear From God in 3 Steps

Have there been times when you waited to hear from God but heard nothing? Read the bible or prayed but received no revelations? Came to the conclusion that God has nothing to say to you? The fact is that God would love to take any moment to speak to you. So how do we hear from God? 

Reading the bible can be a dread when the passage does not connect to any part of your life. I used to experience this as well and my approach of reading the bible was, "Maybe today I will get something from reading the bible..maybe today God will speak to me." But I have now learned that there should be no maybe's - God wants to speak to you and he would take any chance he could to speak to you. If you only dedicate 30 minutes of your day to God, why would he not want to use that time to talk to you?

There are 3 steps to hear from God: 

1. Acknowledge that God exists

2. Desire to hear from God

3. Wait on God and expect him to speak to you

We cannot hear from God if we do not first acknowledge that our God exists. 1 Samuel 3 in the bible is a great example of how to hear from God. The chapter talks about how Samuel heard a voice calling him but did not know it was from God. He could not hear the revelation from God until his leader Eli told him it was God who was calling him. 1 Samuel 3:7 says, "Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him." 

Samuel could not hear God's revelation until he acknowledged God's existence. Samuel said to God, "Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:10).  Once Samuel spoke this, God spoke to him a revelation about Eli. We must be like Samuel and acknowledge God and have the desire to hear from God. Samuel in his request told God he was listening, and it was evident that he had the desire to hear from God. God could have spoke to Samuel right away, but he wanted Samuel to acknowledge and desire his presence. 

Matthew 7:7 says, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." God will never force anything upon us and he will never force his voice over our life. God wants it to come from us - he wants us to desire him. 

The last step to hear from God is to wait and expect him to speak to you. If we do not expect for God to speak to us, then we will never have the will and patience to wait on him because we never expected him to speak. If we just lingered a bit longer and mediated on God's word, we could have received a revelation that would change our lives. God is here to not only give us salvation, but to guide and mold us daily into becoming more like Christ.

Samuel in his request to God told him to speak because he was expecting God to speak to him. 

Before you pray or read the bible, ask God to speak to you. Use what Samuel said and say, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening". The Holy Spirit is there to guide you to be closer and more sensitive to God's voice. Lean on the Holy Spirit for guidance and expect to hear from God because he does have something to say to you.

We were not meant to only hear what God has to say from pastors, but to also hear directly from God. Only God himself knows what we need to change about ourselves and he alone has the best word for us. Ephesians 1:17 says, "the glorious father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better." 

It is not God who has to speak more, but rather us who has to listen more. We need to change our perspective when approaching God and reading the bible by believing he will always have a revelation prepared for us. Receiving God's revelation directly will take our  Bible reading experience to a new level. God wants to speak to us and he longs for an intimate relationship with each of us. So remember, you can hear from God. 

The Weights of Worry

Do you have a list of unlimited worries and burdens that you carry around everyday? Feeling distracted from your daily tasks because of your fears of the unknown? If so, how then can you remove the worries off your mind?

It was Sunday morning and I found myself fussing over a small argument with my partner. I could not get the burden off my heart and focusing on the sermon became so hard. But it was at one point in the sermon when God spoke to me and revealed to me where the situation was going towards. Instead of praising God and focusing on the sermon, I allowed the small worries of a silly argument block my focus towards God. I was wasting my time and energy worrying about unnecessary things, when I could have been using the time to glorify God.

Big or small worries both bring the same results - they all add a heavy weight of burden on our shoulders. From this experience I learned the truth about worries: 

Worries are distractions from Satan. 

Satan will always try to fill you with worries to distract you from what God wants you to worry about. His plan is to pile up worries in your mind so that they will distract you from the calling God has for you. Do not let worries such as financial problems distract you from doing what God has called you to do. 

Matthew 6:31-34 says, "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?'..but seek first the kingdom of God and and all these things will be given to you as well." God does not want us to focus on unnecessary worries, but rather to worry about God kingdom matters. God wants us to worry about reaching the lost and spreading his gospel to all.

 Of course no one is susceptible to worries, but God never intended for us to dwell in our worries - that was Satan's plan. God will never ask us to carry our own burdens; he wants us to throw all of our worries to him. Psalms 55:22 says, "Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you."

Don't let the worries of this world take your eyes off of what truly matters. You will never be able to win the race towards God if you have all the heavy burdens of worries on your shoulders holding you down. Satan wants to pile up more burdens on you so that you will never reach the potential God has for you. Satan will do anything he can to slow you down. Be careful to not let your worries pile up because they will leave you still and useless. 

Throw all your worries to God and let him carry the heavy weight for you. God wants you to cast his cares on him so that you can have the freedom to accomplish the great plans he has prepared for you. Do not let satan distract you with your worries. Trust that God has a hold of your life and continue walking towards your calling and purpose. So remember, do not let the weights of worry slow you down.