2014 - A YEAR OF BREAKTHROUGH!

I get to choose how I see things - my perspective.  So can I say on this BEAUTIFUL, PRODUCTIVE, cloudy, rainy day that things are rarely as they might seem.

Did you know that on your worst day, your value never changes?  Somebody needs to hear this today.  There are so many people who are destroying themselves on a daily basis because they do not believe and therefore do not "feel" their value.  Beliefs are what allow us to think and feel anything that we do.

If you are a murderer, sitting on death row and if you've never heard the gospel or accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior; you are still so valuable that God sacrificed His only Son just for you to know Him as Father, to have your debt of Sin cancelled, to live the rest of your life clean and forgiven, and to spend eternity in heaven.  What a beautiful thought.

And if you, the person reading this at this moment, find yourself in a position anywhere North of the one in the foregoing paragraph  -Oh Happy Day!  You're not only that valuable, but your circumstances are far better and you have much for which to be thankful.

But what if you're not a prisoner in a physical cell, but you are still imprisoned in your mind?  Well, it's a NEW Year and time to set your focus on things above - more than what you're doing right now.  This year has been declared the year of the "glass half FULL".  It's time to change your perspective on things.  It's your choice.  You get to choose how you look at things, the comments that come out of your mouth about life and circumstances.  Are you going to see lemons or lemonade?

"Well, I've tried and I just can't seem to shake this negative perspective!"  Well then, you need to repent.  If you cannot make choices in the natural, it's time to kick over into the supernatural.  You need to ask God's forgiveness for allowing unwholesome talk to come out of your mouth (Ephesians 4:29).  You need to ask God's forgiveness for choosing to think negative thoughts (Philippians 4:8).  You need to ask God's forgiveness for not taking the thoughts captive - the ones directed into your mind by the enemy (2 Corinthians 10:5).  You need to ask God's forgiveness for giving the enemy any right to bring you into such captivity to do his will.  Stop being his puppet.  Don't let him control your thoughts nor use your voice any longer!

2 Timothy 2:20-26 describes this very well..."But in a great house (the house of God) there are not only vessels of Gold and Silver (those who are free: who steward their minds well, who guard their mouths well, etc.) but also of wood and clay (believers who still act like they are imprisoned); some for honor and some for dishonor.  Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter (because that is OUR responsibility as God has already given us victory through His Son's death and resurrection) he will be a vessel for honor (its your choice), sanctified (mind set on the truth and living as such) and useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.  (Now Paul turns his attention to instructing Timothy about these precious ones who need to realize and live out their freedom so they can be useful...)

v. 23..."but avoid foolish and ignorant disputes knowing that they generate strife (why? because people who do not have their minds set on what is right, even believers, will argue and make excuses til the cows come home!)  And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel (so why do we?) but be gentle to all, able to teach (and teachable I might add), patient, in humility correcting those in opposition (King James actually renders it better saying "those who oppose themselves".  When we allow the enemy to control our thoughts and come into agreement with those thoughts, we are shooting ourselves in the foot and allowing him access to a place he has no rights too.  How does he have power?  We give it to him.  Jesus died to take it away and we give it back by letting him borrow our thoughts, our words, and thus our actions)...if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they might know the truth and that they may come to their senses (aha moment!) and escape the snare (trap) of the devil, who has taken them captive (stronghold of the mind) to do HIS will."  (There you have it - a believer who becomes a puppet for the enemy.  I've done it.  You've probably done it.  It's time to stop doing it.)

Since we are only two weeks into the new year, it's not too late to repent to God (submit to God first James 4:7), then renounce the works of darkness (not taking thoughts captive, believing lies about how precious we are to God, ignoring Scripture when it says that we are actually TEMPLES of the Holy Spirit, doing harm to ourselves out of selfish lust).  After we bow our hearts and look up to God in humble repentance, receiving His cleansing; then we need to turn our sights and our words towards the enemy of our souls and say to him, "By the power that lives inside of me, I renounce you in the Name of Jesus.  I take authority over you and I will not shrink back from this any more.  Grace will keep me and I will take my eyes and thoughts off of the things you're proposing and I will once again set my focus on the King of Glory and upon that which is right, just, pure, lovely, praiseworthy, and of good report!  Then make yourself accountable to the people who have to listen to you day in and day out.  Get into the Word as never before!  Take a Scripture break every time you sit down to a bite of food.  Before you put one bite of food in your mouth, I don't care if it's a piece of gum, crack open a small bible or pull up the Word on your phone app and make yourself accountable to the Word of God - who is Jesus - the author and perfecter of your faith!  Smith Wigglesworth did this and the man raise his wife from the dead 3 times!  He is no better than you.  He was just a love of truth, grateful to God for his salvation and deliverance, and ready to put his gratitude into action.  So can we.

Finally, keep a song of praise on your tongue.  It doesn't matter if you can sing or not.  Do it anyway.  Talk to the Lord as if He is there - because He is!  The Holy Spirit is not leaving if He's on the inside of you.  Truth is He's probably waiting - a long time - for you to even acknowledge Him.  So do it every day and throughout the day, when you're awakened at night.  He's your constant friend and one who always listens and who always has something to say if you will choose to have ears to hear.

2014 is like a bridge from where you are right now in your thinking, in your circumstances, in your life's season - to where you're supposed to be, where God has already spoken to you about going, where you may be dreaming about going, etc.  Please do not hesitate to get on that bridge this year!  In 2015, I believe that things in our world are going to change in such a way that deception and confusion will set in on us if possible.  Don't allow it to be!  Set your heart, your thoughts, and your words in agreement with what the Spirit of God is doing in you right now.  Regardless of how far you feel you have to go to get in alignment with the Holy Spirit and God's will for your life, the anything that you do is better than the nothing that you've perhaps been doing.

Sit down, write out what you KNOW that you are supposed to be doing and are not doing.  It might be as simple as being a intentional parent to your kids, being an intentional spouse to your mate, coming back to your first love - the Lord!  It might be writing a book (or at least getting started and making goals to do every day a little bit to get it done) or anything else you KNOW that you're supposed to do because God has placed that dream in your heart.  Heaven and earth are counting on you!  There are good works prepared in advance for YOU my friend.  No one can do what you've been fashioned to do like you can!  The earth is GROANING for you to become what God smiled about when you were about to be conceived in your mother's womb (regardless of the circumstances of your birth!)

So write down all your excuses - get it all out.  Then repent, renounce, break the power of the enemy (and get someone to agree with you in that prayer) and get on with the joy of this journey and the lasting fruit that will become an eternal tribute to your obedience.  C'mon!  You can do it!  God never called you do anything He hasn't already empowered you to do.  Don't allow your belief, your thinking, and your words and actions (or lack of them) hold you back any longer.  Break free in your mind!  That is who you've been since the day you were born again.  And if you're not born again, know that God so loved you so much, that He gave His one and only  Son so that YOU could believe upon Him and have everlasting life!  Just say, "I believe that.  And Jesus, I receive that!  I put my trust in You.  Open up Your truth to me as I commit to get to know through Your love letter to me - the Bible."

And may all of us, in 2014, know the truth (which is embodied in a person - Jesus Christ the Righteous), do what the Bible instructs (as we receive the the Holy Spirits empowerment to do it), find our rest in the Lord (knowing there is nothing we can ever do to make Him love us less), and just enjoy our fellowship with Him and start living in those benefits Jesus died to pay for.

Hey, your stuff is in the storehouse - still wrapped up with a big bow on it.  Go get it!  You have the keys.  Take your gifts, your inheritance, your assurance, your confidence, your joy, your strength - take it all this year.  It's yours for the taking.  Refuse to live another day without all that is yours in Christ!  And may we narrow our focus upon only those things that we've yet to do in His strength, believing that the God who has called us WILL DO IT!  Amen!