Are you asking well?

​Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.
MATTHEW 7:7 AMP

Born again believers in Christ Jesus are blessed beyond what we ever imagine. We are the righteousness of God, our sins are forgiven, we can have an amazing relationship with God, and we will live on forever in Heaven with Him. It truly blows my mind. God is always good, and He loves us beyond what we can imagine, even when we fall. Then we read this verse in the Book of Matthew, and think “Wow! If God is so good, I can ask Him for anything”, and we start praying to win the lottety, have a very expensive car and move in a castle. Does God care about you? Yes. Does He wants to provide for you? Yes. But God wants to provide for all of your needs. Not all of your worldly desires. Can you pray for a spouse? Of course. God does not want us to be alone all our lives. What God really want you to pray about is His gifts, his promises, his blessings, and what we are supposed to pray about, stated in the Word, like putting on the full amour of God, bringing our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ, etc. We cannot focus on our needs. Our focus has to be on God first. First in everything. Then, He will provide for all your needs. When you pray and knock, ask for divine things. Knock for God to grant you discernment, wisdom, and understanding. Ask Him to bless you according to His will, cause He alone knows what is best for you. God’s favorite prayers to hear are “Increase my faith in You”, “I trust You”, “Change me Lord”, and “Use me Lord”. At one point in your spiritual life you really have to come to terms with this truth: It is not about you. It is all about what we can do to serve Him. So ask and knock hard for spiritual, divine things and believe. God will answer! ❤

Light that does not shine

​Do everything without murmuring or questioning [the providence of God], so that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish in the midst of a [morally] crooked and [spiritually] perverted generation, among whom you are seen as bright lights [beacons shining out clearly] in the world [of darkness],

PHILIPPIANS 2:14‭-‬15 AMP

As born again in Christ believers, we are called to be the light of the world. We are called to be a example of Christ to others. Yes, sometimes we are in situations that require a huge amount of faith and decency on the Word of God. And there can start self pity, grumbling and complaining. But expressing out loud the others those negative emotions counteracts immensely with our calling! How can others see the light, the power, the love of Jesus Christ when, by our own grumbling and complaining, we portrait a God who does not listen, keep His promises, Who does not love us? Other people mostly give their lives to Jesus by conviction and wanting what we have.If they are showned a bad portrait of God, they will not want a relationship with Jesus. They will think that this relationship comes with hard trials and a severe God that does not answer prayers! To avoid complaining and grumbling, there is a solution: we cannot wait for hard situations in our lives to have a huge amount of faith and dependency on the Word. We have to live in full dependency on God, walk by faith, and renew our minds with the Word, every day. We cannot wait for bad situations to live that way, if not we will never experience the blessing, loving, guiding and fantastic relationship with Christ Jesus. Faith requires of us to live expectantly, with joy and peace of mind. So set your focus on God and cease complaining and grumbling at once! ❤

Divine Partnership

And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.

ROMANS 8:28 AMP

God is our partner is our labor. So many of us think that we are alone in our hardships of life. But we are not! God is extending His hand literally to be our personal partner. We don’t have to endure the hardships alone! We can partner with God! Partners usually share burdens, trust each other, help each other, call upon the other in need. The good news is you don’t have to help God, He does not have any burden, He does not need your help. But He wants you to ask Him for help, He wants to carry your burden, He wants to help you. All you have to do is let go of your burden, let Him carry it, ask help when you need it, but most importantly trust Him. All partnerships without trust fail miserably. Trust Him!❤

Waiting season, not waisted season!

Psalm 27:14 amp
​Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.

Waiting is not everybody’s strong suit. Waiting for a green light, waiting for a bus…but those types of waiting are not so bad considering the fact that we know for sure that the light will turn and at what time will come the bus. But in what state are we when we are waiting for things like a job, a spouse, a child, a miracle, a healing…and God is virtually silent? When we feel like God is not cooperative or even too late for our taste? First of all we have to get out of me-thinking and realize once for all that God does not exist to serve us…it is more the other way around. As born again believers our lives have a purpose and this purpose is to serve God and walk in the good plans He has for us. It does not mean that God does not want to bless us (the Word says He longs to bless us), but we have to seek God and serve Him first and He will provide for our needs in His timing, the way He wants to. Of course, when He is silent the first human thought is that He left us in our waiting, and doubt starts to settle. But a silent God is not an absent God. He is always present. A waiting season is never a waisted season! Know that God works on us, our circumstances and others while we are waiting. Let’s say that you are praying for spouse and it is a long and somewhat painful waiting period for you. In this very moment of waiting and of God not speaking, He is working on you because he is using this time to teach you patience (which is very important in a relationship), He is working on your future spouse to bring that person to where you two will meet.Every waiting period has a definite purpose. Most of the time it is more complicated than the example I gave you, it is God working on everything before our prayers are answered. Sometimes God will not give us what we are praying for because He has something better in store for us. The best way to wait is to be vigilent not to fall into temptations (if we do God is faithful, He will forgive us if we ask), pray without ceasing and spend time in the Word everyday, proclaiming and praying God’s promises to us, praising Him because He is always good no matter what we are going through.💜

Priorities

Psalm 9:10 amp.

And they who know Your name [who have experience and acquaintance with Your mercy] will lean on and confidently put their trust in You, for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek (inquire of and for) You [on the authority of God’s Word and the right of their necessity]. [Ps. 42:1.]

In today’s world, we almost all have cell phones, a tablet or a laptop. We have Facebook, Twitter, and God knows how many other social medias. Have you ever tried to go a week without your cell? Have you stopped going on Facebook for two weeks? What about not watching television for a couple of days? For many of us, these kind of interruptions in our lives would not be welcomed nor pleasing at all. Why? Because we rely on these things in some way or another. Being without those things could even cause panic in some people. But all these things, tough not bad, have a way of changing the focus of our lives and the most important thing to do, which is spending time with our Lord every day.Our real necessity as believers is to know Jesus, lean on Him and confidently put our trust in Him alone. Putting our trust on things (including money and people) is a grave mistake. God will never forsake those who inquire for Him by the authority of His Holy Word. Those who trust in God alone. When your tablet and your cell are closed there is nowhere to go but to God. Our true need is not to have a million Facebook friends. Without spending time with God and leaning on Him alone for fulfilling our needs we will loose our focus which ought to be on God alone. Social medias and the web are not wrong, but they cannot be our priority. To renew our spiritual strength, faith and hope, God has to come before everything else every day. Make God first in your life and He will provide for all your needs according into His riches in Christ Jesus our Lord.Keep your computer and television, but keep your priorities in order. May God bless you in the name of Jesus, amen (so be it).

Need a happy pill? Be thankful!

1 Thessalonians 5:18 amp.

Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will].

When good things happen in our lives, it is truly easy to be thankful to God. When bad things happen to us we are more like “Why God why? I just do not understand!”. These two reactions, although very human, are not the will of God for our attitude in our born again Christian life. God’s will for is for us to be thankful in every and all circumstances. The best way is to start with the little things: thank You God for I have running water to drink. Thank You God for giving me a roof over my head. Sometimes, we do not tend to thank God for this because our job salary paid the house or apartment. But God gave us the job. Everything we are and everything have comes from God. So we start by thanking Him for anything and everything. The bed you have to sleep at night, the food in the fridge, the car, the TV, thank Him for coffee (I had to slip in that one cause I always thank God for my so needed coffee in the morning!). When we are down, or bad things happen to us, the first thing I always pray is “Thank You God for this hard situation for this is an occasion to glorify Your name in it and give me Your peace, strength and grace to go through it with You” When all you wanna do is cry your eyes out, thank Him for His love for you, thank Him that He is with you and that He will never leave you nor forsake you and that none of your tears are waisted for He takes them all. To thank God for every little good thing in your life when everything is wrong is exactly like taking a happy pill. It makes you feel better, it makes me feel better. And after all, don’t you think that Your Creator and Savior deserve all the praise? We have to revere God, and being thankful in every circumstance, no matter the circumstance, is the best way to revere Him. Start being thankful today, and start being happier!

Rid yourself of guilt, nobody is perfect

Hebrews 4:16 amp.

Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].

Do you have a problem with feeling guilty, so guilty of your failures that you just turn your back on God for a little while because you feel so unworthy of Him? I have very good news for you! I have struggled with guilt for a very long time so I understand you completely. Most importantly, God understands! You need to know this precious Truth of God; We were not created to feel guilt. At all. Read carefully the verse above. It talks about the whole base of our born again Christian faith, and how we have to live our day to day life. God wants us to be fearless, confident and bold when we come to His throne of grace. What is God’s grace? It is the unmerited favor to us sinners. We were created to run to God’s throne of grace when we sin. What pleases Him is to grant us His forgiveness and give us well-timed help coming just when we need it. Does it say God will strike you after our failures? No! It says He is there, loving us, walking with us, holding our hand, ready to give us well-timed help and grace when we fall. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace and we must accept the uncompromising truth that it is free for us, every day. Yes, the fact is, we are all very unworthy. But God’s grace is more than enough. He does not need or want our guilty feelings. Do not doubt His will to forgive us. Just run to His throne of grace with thanks.💖

Victory over the flesh

Psalm 105:4 amp.

Seek, inquire of and for the Lord, and crave Him and His strength (His might and inflexibility to temptation); seek and require His face and His presence [continually] evermore.

The absolute beauty of our relationship with God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ is that our Lord, once human, experienced everything we can ever feel. Yes, everything… even depression, despair, loneliness, anxiety, fear, anger and so on. Yet, He never sinned; He never acted on His feelings. That must have been hard for Him, so hard! But He was in constant contact with His Father and that gave Him the necessary strength to accomplish God’s divine plan for humanity. We, as born again Christians (as new creatures in Christ), struggle everyday to make the right choice, the one based on the Word of God. Sometimes we do not have the strength to resist to temptation and choose to sin. Do not kid yourself, every Christian has the same battle. The battle the Word calls it the war between the flesh and the Holy Spirit. Before I found the this verse of Psalm 105, sometimes I had a hard time. The basic Truth is our strength is not enough, but this verse gives us the tip to make it much easier. Pray : ask our Lord to fill you with His inflexibility to temptation. Act : Be in His Presence. Put on Christian music of the type you prefer and sing to the Lord, Praise Him with all your mind, all your heart and all your strength. If you are in a position that you do not have access to music I am certain you must know at least one by heart. If you do no, then make one up! Always remember that Jesus said in Matthew 6:34 amp ….Sufficient for each day is its own trouble (read the whole verse, it helps to know it by heart). Therefore  when temptation comes, start seeking our Lord face. Have compassion for yourself: it is not OK to fall, but God knew you were going to do it. Ask God’s forgiveness, receive it and get back up, returning your thoughts to pure heavenly thoughts, to God. Jesus, by His finished work on the cross made sure that sin has no more power over us. Through Jesus’s we have everything we need to live a victorious life, one day at a time! 💜

The magnificent exchange

Psalm 55:22 amp.

Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail). [I Pet. 5:7.]

We humans all have triggers that when pushed create all kind of emotions. Emotions are an awesome gift from God; wouldn’t life be so boring without them? Good emotions are impossible to live without.Some people unfortunately were never given good emotions like love and care from their family and they suffer from it all their lives. So we have the “feel good” emotions, and we must thank God for that. The “not so good” emotions like stress, anxiety, pain, sadness, etc. Those emotions tend to want to take the lead of our days. All day we face stressful situations, situations that can bring anxiety. Now listen to me carefully: if you feel extremely anxious 24/7 without any reason to be, you better go visit your doctor and inform yourself about generalized anxiety. This is a sickness and it can be controlled very easily. Okay, so the negative emotions, we really do not necessarily to feel the effect silently. God is there for us in those time. Cast your burden, the weight of it, all the negative crap on our Lord Jesus. It will not bother Him at all. This process is an exchange: we give Him our crap, He gives us His peace. We just have to receive it. I do that many times a day. Because when these negative emotions are triggered it somehow pushes us to commit a mistake/sin. Your stress can cause you to snap at a cashier at the supermarket because she made a mistake (but it was her first day…) or it can make you snap at your kid because he/she asked you the same question 3 times…or you can be rude with your spouse/husband when they really don’t deserve it. Really giving it all to Jesus prevent us also from all of that. And yes, it is true, I grasped the concept so well that God doesn’t allow me to be moved. Calm in the middle of a storm, yes, that’s me. Jesus saved me from those negative emotions that were ruining my life, let Him do the same for you! 💜

Purposely alone with God

Mark 6:46 amp.

And after He had taken leave of them, He went off into the hills to pray.

Prayer is the most amazing privilege we have. God, the creator of the entire Universe gave us a direct link to Him! That link is always open, God is constantly at the other hand listening. On this post I will elaborate a little bit more on how Jesus prayed. He always prayed for His Father’s will to be done and He was very often alone. Being alone with God is also very important to us. We are often very busy but as we set time aside to take care of ourselves purposely, we must put God first, not us. So whether it be 5 minutes alone with Him in the bathroom or an hour or two in the early mornings, it does not really matter. The important thing is to be alone in the presence of God, talking to Him about anything and everything.(That is correct!) He cares about every little detail of our lives. Thank God! 💜