Chasing Purpose

In all that you do you should constantly be living a life with a hopeful vision that is derived from the desires of your heart and aligned with God’s will. As you shape your vision you should always be chasing after purpose. If what you are pursuing does not have serve a purpose for your life then you should stop and seek God’s will on what he wants you to do. Your purpose will always be tied to God showing his glory. Through His glory, people will be able to see the example of how God can work in our lives and it will be a strong testament that people will use to come to the Lord. Your purpose, which is derived from the Lord will also renew strengthen your faith. 

What is the vision you have for your life? A vision should be aspirational and positive. It should be heartfelt and should align with God’s perfect will for your life, because his perfect will always comes into completion.

When you describe the vision for your life it should be plain and clear. Are all of your decisions in alignment with your vision? What is God’s vision for you life? Are they the same? “To humans belong the plans of the heart,but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue.” -Proverbs 16:1

God certainly has a plan for hope in our lives: For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11. Is the vision for your life sad and dismal? How could it be when God’s plan is to prosper you and give you hope?

When establishing your vision be sure to commit it to God. “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” -Proverbs 16:3.

How to Encourage Yourself

Exhortation is a spiritual gift and God has given me the ability to edify encourage and uplift others. Rom. 12:8: – “To come along side of someone with words of encouragement, comfort, consolation, and counsel to help them be all God wants them to be” The Greek Word: paraklesis means calling to one’s side. Everyone needs encouragement, some of us need it moreso than others.

What do you do when you need to be uplifted in a time of doubt, fatigue, fear, shame, depression, hopelessness, uncertainty, desperation, anguish, timidity…or any other feeling you may feel that requires encouragement, yet there is nobody around to help you get through your darkest hour? You may not even be at the lowest point in life, you may need a simple word of encouragement to keep you going through a time that may not even be so tough.

What do we do when nobody is around to encourage us? What is the source that we can derive hope from that will sustain us and encourage us in times of need? 

It starts with keeping our cups full. Our cups are a symbolic mental image we can use to parallel our souls to. Our cup represents our souls which God pours his love and hope into endlessly until it pours over. The key to encouraging ourselves and others is to always be full of hope so that we can draw from it when we need to the most. Here are some scriptures where we be reminded of the Hope that awaits us:

1 Corinthians 2:9 – Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him.

Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Psalms 86:4 – Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Romans 5:4-5 –  And patience produces character, and character produces hope. 5 And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. He gave us his love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us.

We have to be able to speak faith, hope and love into our own lives and draw from the strength of the Lord to in order be strong. Nehemiah 8:10 says “Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” 

We have to learn to be our cheerleaders, not our own worst critics. We have to encourage ourselves and allow the Lord to fill us with hope. Seek hope in the word of God and through prayer he will overflow your life with hope. Others will be able to draw from this hope as it spills over from your life and the evidence of God’s presence overflowing. John 15:7 says 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” Let there be evidence of hope in your life.

God Hasn’t Forgotten About You

The fervent prayers of the righteous availeth much. (James 5:16)  But what do we do when we are being faithful to God and praying fervently and hear no response from him. What do we do when our prayers seemingly don’t get answered?

God has not forgotten about you. When you hope and pray for him to answer your prayers and you get a “No” when you need a “Yes”, or a situation get’s worse before it gets better-that doesn’t mean God is left you, has stopped caring, or got to busy blessing everyone else that he can’t meet your needs right now.

Sometimes as we are praying, God is working, and his timeline for our blessing isn’t always the same as ours. He may be preparing us for his blessing before we get it, so that we will be able to glorify him with the blessing instead of glorify ourselves. Sometimes as we are praying, he is waiting to see how patient and obedient we will be as we wait on him. Will you wait on the Lord, or will you create a quick fix to your problem according to your own knowledge and strength? Abraham and Sara did it. Sara had been trying to get pregnant for many many years. She was an elderly woman and figured her time had passed so she allowed her husband to impregnate their servant…that got messy…..But then shortly after the Lord blessed Sara with a child, even in her old age because he is faithful on his promise, even though his timeline was different.

We can not bless ourselves better than God can. When God does not immediately respond in the way we expect him to, it can mean he is orchestrating a series of events and allowing for things to happen that will work in our favor in a way that we could have never done on our own! God out thinks us, and out blesses us. He knows all, hears all, and sees all. When we fully submit to his will and his way of doing things, we fully submit to some powerful blessings.

God can always see the big picture, even when we are discouraged, doubtful, exhausted and most importantly short sighted. When we have prayed to a point where we have run out of words, God even hears our groanings. Romans 8:26 says “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” The holy spirit will intercede, step in and pray for you!

Be strong in your faith. God is powerful and he has not forgotten about you! I encourage you to pray and ask God to reveal his will to you on a daily basis, so that when you pray for your wants and needs, His will and your will are the same…and His will always prevails. When you are walking in God’s will and living and praying and believing in his will, you can declare the promises of God, through your faith they WILL happen because God is faithful about making good on all of his promises.

Romans 4:16-17 says “Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”^c He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.” By speaking things as though they are, you are not merely “putting it in the universe”. By aligning your will with his, and declaring your faith out loud you are merely confirming God’s promises for your life and he will honor them, because he hasn’t forgotten about you.

iHope You Don’t Get Set Back

Throughout life its natural to grow and mature and sometimes there may be moments where we have “setbacks” that make us revert to an old way of thinking or doing something before we arrived at a certain  level of maturity. How do we come to a place where we can go through a very agitating, challenging, or tough situation without losing our composure and/or handling a situation with an immaturity that leads to regret afterwards? In our minds we can conjure up these ideal ways to handle a challenge with grace, wisdom, tact, patience and calmness; but none of those character traits will flow out of us unless we are filled with them in the first place. Luke 6:45 says “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”  What ever we fill our hearts and minds with will inevitably overflow and spill out of us through our words and actions.

True character always surfaces in the midst of a challenge. Romans 5:3-5 “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” With that being said, the truth is that the only way we will truly develop the kind of character those traits is through our suffering. But what better time to use them?! This is something that comes with practice each time we are agitated, anxious, frustrated or upset. But at least we know that through our perseverance the character and hope will be revealed through our actions and will then become a habit and eventually a way of life.

Everyone has “buttons” or at least one button. You may not know what it is until someone actually presses it. Some people may press our buttons more than others without even really trying, whereas some people do it intentionally.  Nonetheless, different people can bring up different issues or emotions that we have to face at one point or another. That’s just a fact of life. Sometimes a button may be pressed that makes us explode…sometimes we implode or simply let our minds spiral downward to a deep dark place where thoughts of anxiety and hopelessness send us into a depression. What ever the case may be the important thing is discovering what those buttons are and deciding if you are truly ready to either remove it, or in the meantime, learn how to deal with having that button pressed and adjusting your behavior in a way that reveals the glory in our sufferings that the scripture speaks of.

Don’t give anyone the power to knock the wind out of your sail. Your life is about the power of your choices. I choose to have a good day today despite of the fact that I don’t want to be here. I choose to influence this negative atmosphere with my positive outlook instead of allowing this atmosphere to influence me. I am going to remain hopeful even in this seemingly hopeless situation that probably won’t get better any time soon. Maintaining a sense of joy that sustains you is a goal worth obtaining and will surely change the trajectory of your life and your prospects of happiness, even when a situation is unfavorable or dismal. “The joy of the lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Off all things to draw from as a source of strength, Nehemiah used the joy of the Lord. What a positive mindset! God freely gives us HIS joy and that is really what we need to draw from in times where we would otherwise be weak or defeated or allow emotions to set us back. We are strong enough to suffer without being set back into our old ways. Be positive. Persevere. Be hopeful and joyful! Your good character shall stand the test of time.

Exercise: Ask yourself questions like: When ________ gets under my skin/upsets/agitates me, I react by ________. What thoughts surface when I think about how upset/agitated/emotional _________ makes me.  How can I change my thoughts in order to change my reactions? When was the last time I became disappointed about how I handled a situation and how can I build character by handling it better next time?

iHope You are Moving Forward

Have you ever sat and thought about your life and pondered: What’s next? Where do we go from here? Many of us have, especially if we have goals and are forward thinking or if we have gone through something that changes our perspective on life and need to make a sound decision. When I think of the the things that I have matured out of or saw unfitting for my life, I tell myself – I’m not going back, I’m moving ahead. My past is over. Every second of the day that passes leaves you with one more seconds that have passed away into your past….but God has a future for us and that is what we should always invest our hope in. Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” He has plans for hope and a great future….just for me, and I have faith in that. I’m excited about that. “Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him” 1Cornithians 2:9. . . I love the Lord so I know that the amazing things that await me profoundly surpass my wildest imagination.

As we constantly move forward in life, God will continue to faithfully renew his grace every morning and allow us to take a chance on Him. Enter into his grace with a heart of thanksgiving each time you wake up to a new morning. I am following God forward…..as he renews my heart, my spirit, my mind (“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2), my hope, my love, my life overall…..renewal is refreshing. “He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”-Revelation 12:5.

I am moving forward with God. I am stepping out on faith and embracing the hope that he has for my future! I love this song…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQfc7iQecw8.  He is making everything NEW.