Are Women Fairer And Weaker? / Perceive

Today we, close out our month of Lessons In Love, a few have been about marriage, so we have to talk about the differences in men and women. Aside from the obvious, there are even more differences but God really created woman to help the man and the woman so the man would not be left alone. Some though, you do need to leave alone, and we know what they can get into trouble without us, right? All kidding aside, God had and still has the perfect plan for couples, man and woman.

God is male, the strong and loving father, but He had love and compassion like a mother, so He created male and female. He created the ideal couple in the garden, but they had free will as we all do and allowed their perfect world to fall. It took a long time for God to send Jesus, but He knew the right time. Again, He was rejected and had to die, but He gave His life so that we might live eternally with Him, He came for the Jews and then offered eternal life to the Gentiles.

While there were many customs and styles of the times, and women were often treated like property, and were concubines and slaves. Jesus changed a lot of that. A lot of women have trouble with submission, it doesn’t mean what you think, it is like being on the same mission or page. In essence, being together, when the two become one, and while you may not agree on everything, your home does not have to be a battlefield. It goes back to perception and deception, and how we perceive each other, what we think the problem is may not be it at all.

Men like strong women to an extent but can perceive them wrongly and some are intimidated, and the silly, babyish, women are not the type of wives for Christian men to me, I read a story about a flirt who was finally told she was the mistress type, it hurt her but she had perpetuated that image. Still, we want men to respect and care for us as women and equal. God knows who and what you are, but He is not looking at us the same way we do.

Men should never perceive women as weaker in the sense that they can not be strong in the Lord. But they are to be sensitive to the Spirit and perceive their roles as a husband and father and not be swayed into some tyrannical man that dominates his wife and family, that is not God’s way, He is firm and loving, protective of women and daughters, giving them the idea of what love and family is like in God’s kingdom. Women are help mates and daughters should have good example of love to follow. Or they will choose the wrong man.

Jesus went out of His way for women, He freed them. While He pointed out their sins, He drew them, like the water from the well. He was not condemning. He was sitting at Peter’s house with a child on His knee when asked about divorce. He gave the reason to be infidelity.  But I know there has been forgiveness and reconciliation, and other times He has made a way for the woman to leave. He hates abuse.

As for women being fairer, they are, look at Rebekah at the well, they do like clothes and makeup, perfumes, and we know men like the sports and fishing, golf. They can sit around in a dirty shirt, many have no idea how to turn on a washer. Men need women and they need men. As examples of Christ’s love, security, guidance and protection. Not just to work for them, or just to clean house or have children, but to love like Jesus does.

I once wrote about suicide and a girl from the military was included, when a man commented and said that women shouldn’t be in the military, I think I surprised him by agreeing. Most women probably should not but there are exceptions. Women are strong in ways men are not, but sensitive also in ways men are not, but Christian men should be, and to the Spirit, to their wives. Men are naturally and physically stronger, but the Proverbs describes wisdom as a woman, and I am not saying that men are not wise, they may not always use wisdom though. Think I’m wrong? Look at the judges, Deborah and Samson.

What we fail to recognize is that God looks at hearts. In Christ, you are neither Jew or Gentile, and really not male and female, of course, He knows what you are but that is not what determines your walk with Him. Men are strong and so are women. Women are loving and so are men. Men should never be afraid to show that sensitive side to their wives or to cry, to pour their hearts out to God in prayer with her.

Men should treat women with respect, and as unto a weaker vessel as the Lord says, like a fine china figurine or crystal  vase. But don’t underestimate them or Him. I grew up in a time when women were not allowed in ministry, other than the nursery or teaching Sunday school, there is still  lot of that mindset around. While women remained quiet in the temple as was the custom it was because they did not sit with their husbands and were not to talk or ask questions. Paul sent out couples to minister. And ladies, brag on him, and even more on Jesus, pray for your husband and for wisdom in marriage.

I like to have the door opened for me, groceries carried and being treated like a woman. I had an older man call me  ” little lady ” the other day, but please don’t call me ” baby “. Women call me honey. That’s okay, I want to be sweet even if I can be annoying at times. See what I mean? While women were working so hard to be equal or have freedom, Jesus had already provided that. You can be strong and feminine, strong and masculine and both should have the tender heart of Christ.

Are women fairer and weaker, yes, we are. But we are strong in the Lord, and wise enough to let Him help our marriages. What do we really want to perceive, how about what Jesus does? How does He perceive us? I have enjoyed the # Write 28 days and I hope you have, thanks, ladies God bless, please visit me on FB or Pinterest…as we March Into His Rest.

Jill Wellington / Pixabay

The Secret Place / Hibernate

I do like to write and be ahead on my posts, I have to admit this word threw me. Me, who is never at a loss for words. My mother gets credit for this suggestion, and while I was going to look up hibernating, and go into how many creatures sleep the winter away, living off their stored fat, hmmm,hmmm, and with a slower heart rate, I went another way.

Think of that, curled up in a den, safe and secure from the winter storms, the snow and ice. Waking up to spring and sunshine, God did prepare ways for creation, the birds of the air, He feeds them, they know in the morning just where to find food, if people are not feeding them. I am going to slow down, writing about rest, I have been napping already. Some who were snowed in recently took advantage to hibernate, I sure hope we can and wake, perhaps, even resurrect in the spring.

We are all familiar with Psalm 91, and dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, it is talking about the presence of God and the mercy seat, under the shadow of His wings, the cherubim cast a shadow on the tent, when the Ark was there. Bur that secret place is real to a believer with Christ at home is His heart.

Do you recall the ridiculous question Nicodemus posed to Jesus about reentering his mother’s womb to be born again? That is what the secret place can be, a womb. God’s mercy is like that and the actual Hebrew word for womb is comparable to it. Fatherly strength and motherly love. Nicodemus just didn’t get the spiritual aspect even a learned man. Lots of people may be intelligent, educated but religious and miss a lot of spiritual insights, not us.

The secret of the Most High, like a womb, a safe place to be nurtured and to grow, safe in your mother’s womb nine months, safe in God, forever. And we don’t have to wait for storms or winter, we are safe in any season. In the secret place, we can meditate, hibernate, in His word and His love. It is a peaceful place of rest.

In place of an umbilical cord, we have the three fold cord, of the Father, Son and Spirit. Instead of the heartbeat of our mothers, we hear the heart of the Father, who has good plans for us and longs to give us the desires of His heart, as ours delights in Him. The Spirit searches the deep things.

While Nicodemus story and hibernating are an unusual study. It is very relative to the way we approach God, while we truly cannot be born again and it is a silly question on the surface, it is a great analogy to His mercy. We can climb right into our Father’s lap of mercy and be loved, secure, in any crisis. We can be born again in the Spirit, and go back anytime to a womb of mercy.

A prayer closet, can be a place to intercede and let the Spirit intercede, but the secret place, is an even deeper place of rest for the soul, we can be soul weary, and He will give us rest, my topic for March. While you may see people do all that regression therapy and hypnotism, the trance referred to in the Word, in Peter’s instance, is a vision but is a deep rest in the Holy Spirit, while in prayer. You don’t want to go the other way into false and occults practices. But meditating in the Holy Spirit, operating in spiritual gifts and being led by Him, learning to discern His voice, will certainly put you into a place of rest and safety in Him.

We are all at His mercy, and He is extremely merciful toward us all. How blessed to even be allowed into His presence through Christ. Much less, be sheltered and protected thete, allowed to hibernate.

He dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1

xiangying_xu /pixabay

Who Do You Enable?

 

I had to look up the word for a clear definition. I know what it means and it is the opposite of disable. Enable is to provide with the means or opportunity, to make able, give power to, competence, or ability to. It means to allow or give the power for something to happen. That said, I thought about all the people we enable in our lives.

I know there are those who enable, substance abuse and other lifestyles. We do let our inability to deal with problems often get the better of us. But there are times when we don’t have the answers and we cannot control the behaviors or others, not what they say, do or think, there are consequences and a ripple effect to every stone thrown into a pond.

That is just the way it is. We are all affected by our choices good or bad, and so many times by the bad ones of others, whether or not we enable them, But I wanted this post to go another way because God is able, and we should enable Him to work on our behalf.

Many times, we think it is our fault, we let guilt and pain hinder us and in doing so we are still enabling that person and perhaps even ourselves and maybe, even disabling God from helping us. I think it is time look it another way. have we truly turned over our problem to God? I know it can be difficult. We try to fix it ourselves and can’t. And He doesn’t really need our help, He chooses to allow us to participate in life as a believer, intercessor or prayer warrior.

So are we tying the hands of Christ, the nail scarred hands of love? Are we tying up the angels who are charged with angelic protection and divine intervention. Is fear holding us prisoner? Are we taking thoughts captive? There are so many distractions in our lives in the times we live in and so much destructive and toxic behavior.

I think it is time to step back, and give God a chance don’t you? Let’s start to praise Him for His healing, deliverance and peace over problems, for breaking the chains that are holding our families in whatever the situation, for loosing angels on our behalf and demons from the evil assignments against us.

Let’s enable God who is able to rescue us.  Let’s rest in His peace and assurance to provide Him with the means and opportunity, He is able, all powerful. He has the miracles and the means. He is competent when are not and we must keep our confidence in Him.  For He has the ability to slay giants, calms storms and move mountains. Our faith, hope and love enable Him, as we are the righteousness of God. By all means  give the go ahead and power for something to happen.  Good things are coming from a God who is good all the time.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Act 2:4

Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Acts 4:29

For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose. Phillipians 2:13

Everything written in the Scriptures was written to teach us, in order that we might have hope through the patience and encouragement which the Scriptures give us. And may God, the source of patience and encouragement, enable you to have the same point of view among yourselves by following the example of Christ Jesus, so that all of you together may praise with one voice the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15: 4-6 Good News

So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of His call. May He give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. 2 Thessalonians 1:11 NLT

Patience And Her Perfect Work

 

 

I love to do word studies and though I don’t actually pick apart every single verse I read, I do find an occasional Hebrew or Greek that appears in the feminine form. Like I said, I don’t always check to see what is used in the masculine or feminine context of the word but I do run across some, and they amaze and they apply.

One of those word is patience, and the verse corroborates it.

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. James 1:4 KJV

Now, other translations will say it’s but we can also find in Proverbs that wisdom is referred to as a woman. One of the words I researched for rest even has a feminine for. Not only is God male with the heart of love of a woman, He created both men and women to both balance and compliment each other.

Jesus says the we are saved completely and that He completes us, a couple who can walk together in Christ is certainly what He had in mind when He instituted holy matrimony. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, so as a believer, we are walk in all nine. They work together, and I like to think in tandem or in threes. I tell people to stop counting to ten but run through them a few times, to quash anger. Though they are gifts, like all the other gifts of God, that have to be received, opened and enjoyed, not put aside.

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

Just before this you can read the list of bad character traits, and while patience can be translated as endurance, I think it is more than that, we often see patience at work in one person and not another and I don’t believe we are to just accept or tolerate whatever comes along, we let patience work with the other fruits, prayer and persistence, waiting and rest for His guidance.

Love, joy and peace are the three main fruits we all desire. They activate patience, goodness, kindness, and get us to faithfulness to God as He is faithful to us, gentleness, something so many believers either let slip by them or when they are the are open to hurt and accusation, but operating in self control and letting patience work we can go from doormat to overcomer. Turning the other cheeks is a far cry from abuse or persecution. The Spirit will stand with you. He is firm and loving never forcing love or opinions on those who refuse to receive.

But for women of faith and favor, His grace allows us to grow in Him, and patience will work for us, to perfect and entire, and wanting nothing. Meaning perfect in God’s way, none of us are perfect but we no who is and it is He we follow as our example, Jesus operated in all spiritual gifts, and He is patient.

I was reading a commentary describing patience as God allowing thorns, rather than paving our path with rose petals. I disagree, He is using the thorns that buffet us, that come from the enemy, and the Rose of Sharon is with us and in us, making our path, clear and peaceful even in the midst of trouble, we follow the light that is Jesus.

And men can be patient, but somehow patience looks like a maternal sort of word, either way it us, all believers will benefit from ingesting and digesting the fruit of the Spirit and letting patience work. It starts with love and ends in self control.

When We Ask For Bread / Persistent

Don’t you just love my title and the photograph? And our word is persistent. My post is from Matthew 7, ask, seek and knock. we are to ask, and receive. Seek and find, knock and it shall be opened. I personally got tired of hearing people say to storm or pound on the gates of heaven, prayer is not a takeover.

Jesus said that we could have whatever we ask the Father in His name and for His glory, and I know prayers aren’t always answered immediately, people were healed immediately, from the hour and as they went. Many never returned thank Him, did thy remain healed? Perhaps, not.

Jesus did not say no, although I hear people say that God says no. He might say, wait or I have something better, but He will not refuse a prayer asked in faith, as we remain in Him. Sometimes, the person being prayed for does not receive the answer or even miracle. I can tell you that I know of someone who was prayed for, she was told thst the minister saw in the Spirit an angel bringing her a new set of lungs. Even after revivals and being a believer, she passed away. Why? I can’t honestly say, she was a believer, though I don’t know for how long. I don’t think she held on to that promise, didn’t have enough teaching or the right discernment, or just got weary.

Another woman, went down to see what someone would prophesy over her, and she has had that career for years, she just received and went on with the work that was promised. Is a career easier to believe for, or money, than health. No way, at least not to me. We often forget that though Jesus answers, the adversary would steal, hinder or lie about His answers to your mind or heart.

My main verse is this, ” or which of you, if your son ( or daughter ) asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!

So we ask the Lord for bread, He doesn’t give us a rock to eat. He did give us Jesus, the bread of life and the rock of our salvation. In the story of loaves and fishes, He certainly didn’t multiply snakes and rocks, and yet, there are still those who believe they are being punished, what a meanie God is, when He is just and loving, He still takes the blame for the enemy’s doings when He is actually keeping him from doing even worse. It is we who are perishing with a lack of vision, and knowledge of the Word, rightly dividing, the devil is not in control of us a believer.

I asked for healing, oh, it was coming. The more I learned it was like the worse I got. I would be praying and thanking Him for healing me and have bouts of bronchitis that lasted weeks, migraines, you name it. I think sometimes now, the devil was throwing everything at me but the proverbial kitchen sink, no, actually that was stopped up or the toilet. I can laugh at some of it, it was just to rob me of my health and faith, and the fruition of His plans.

He didn’t give me a rock or a snake. He gave me love and healing is in His hands and so I am. I hope you know you are. And sometimes we may be asking amiss it says in James or not at all. Were you afraid to ask your earthly father for fear he would say no? So many women did not have a loving father as an example and even those who do or did, they don’t compare to God, so ask, and don’t waver, even if your boat is rocking, and you step and fall like Peter, He is there to keep you safe.

The woman with the issue of blood is such a wonderful story, she was so determined to get to Him, certain He would heal her. She asked for healing and got health. Jairus came to ask for his daughter’s health, the servant thought it was too late but He her brought her back to life. Sometimes, He has to bring us back  to life in a way when we get so overwhelmed. We have to rest in Him, and yes, I do know of several people back from, if not actual death, near death.

So what is being persistent in prayer? It is not attacking the gates of heaven, though I know the verse about taking it by force, it is more seizing or embracing it to me. We don’t have to keep asking. But we can keep being thankful until it comes, we can remind God of how good He has been to us, that will go a long way to growing our faith and growing up in grace.

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. Ephesians 6:18

That verse refers to speaking in tongues which is a powerful gift available to all believers, you should study before asking, 1 Corinthians, 12,13,and in 14. But even if you do not operate in spiritual gifts, you can still pray His word over your life and others. Anytime and anywhere.

When we ask for bread, He gives us bread and when we ask for Jesus, He gives us Jesus, in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Here is a link to my poem. When We Ask For Bread

When We Ask For Bread

https://biblehub.com/esv/matthew/7.htm

Perception A Lesson In Love

The Holy Spirit taught me a lesson a few years back and it changed the way I look at things and the way I realize that people perceive me. I am not ‘ holier than thou “, just because I talk about Jesus or have to tell someone that something is wrong. In fact, years of condemnation that was not from Christ, Romans 8:1 had me concerned that I was doing something wrong. Where were my blessings? Oh, they were there, in the secret place of the Most High, and in me.

Jesus is all about perception. He was not a minder reader, something else I was accused of trying to be. He perceived people’s thoughts. Believers can tell what a person is thinking many times. It is like a mother with eyes in the back of her head, you know when a child is up to something, don’t you? That is perception, and he cut them down to size many times, didn’t He? Like the lens of a camera, can focus, zoom in close or magnify, we see through the lens of the Spirit, many times, what a person’s motives are and He looks at hearts, He knows better than any of us and He will fill us in if we listen closely enough.

Many times, we are focused on the wrong problem, the wrong idea. I like to make life as simple and stress free as possible. I was always grasping at proverbial straws, or what Jesus called straining at gnat. The Jews would filter wine or perhaps even water to get them out, but He said they would swallow a camel. Yes, people will sometimes believe anything but the truth. Give then a lesson in love and they strain it, while the devil is sifting them like Peter, and feed them a loaf of lies and they gobble it up. The devil does that all the time, insisting we won’t ever make it, that we are not smart enough , good enough pretty enough or whatever, get the picture?

While Jesus walked on earth, He perceived everything perfectly as God in the flesh, but as a man He went through it all and more than any of us. He was all about perception, He had to disappear through crowds that would have stoned Him, avoid arrest, and being killed, in order to lay down His life. The Spirit led Him to be tested, but it was the devil tempting Him. He, no doubt grabbed Peter and rebuke the devil’s words he was repeating. For the King had not come to become King but to set up a heavenly kingdom of peace in the hearts of men. And one day He will rule, and Jerusalem is now the capital, isn’t it? Wouldn’t have been nice if they could have believed Him to be the Messiah? Jesus is all about perception, you will know if someone is for or against you if you know God is for you.

Deception on the other hand is conniving, contriving, plotting, like the Nazis used fear of poverty to promote their agenda and cause, and when coming to power deceive average people into thinking they were a master race, they followed maniacal rhetoric, like people were deceived that it was alright to own slaves, beat their wives, go to mass and gun down fellow gangsters.

Deception makes people suicidal, homicidal and much more. People who think God is cruel when He is love and just are deceived, they deceive themselves by believing there is no God or He would not allow suffering, He sent Jesus for that very reason to redeem those who would believe. He said we would have trouble but we overcome by His blood and our testimony, He came to give life and life, more abundantly. It is the devil who comes to steal, kill and destroy. John 10:10, and the devil is deceiving you by telling you he doesn’t exist. Intelligent people are deceived, ignorant people are more easily deceived and that is not you education level, it is is the condition of your heart. Is it troubled, fearful or unbelieving? Has it been hardened by life, don’t go away from grace or abuse it either, the Spirit knows the truth.

A well dressed woman can walk in her home and be a hoarder. An average woman can be completely gorgeous. Children can be good at school and monsters at home.  A man can be a good boss but a tyrant at home. Or a tyrant at work and a loving husband. You can give your own examples and draw your own conclusions.

A minister I learned from long ago once said, ” Your words locate you. ” And they do, but I can add the tone, manner, posturing, all contributes. I get angry, and sin, and repent, I get angry and sin not. I am not perfect, though I have heard that as less than complementary, but I know the one who is.

I pray today for the Lord to, by His Spirit, sharpen and put into focus, our perception and deceptions, that He will open doors and close or better yet, slam them on the enemy, and I pray we receive and perceive that the greater one is in us and for us, and that He is speaking His gift of peace to us.

Not everyone who is trying to be helpful really is, not everyone who hurts you means to. Not every one who says, Lord, Lord, will enter and not everyone, who voices a complaint or even an expletive at times, or has a drink on occasion will be turned away. He judges hearts, and I am glad He does.

But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Matthew 22:18

Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Luke 5L22 NIV

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. Psalm 139:2

Greek aisthésis (ah’-ee-sthay-sis)  perception, understanding, discernment. It can understanding with the senses. An Aramaic translation is taste. Not a sixth sense, like divination but a gift of the Spirit. There is no way the enemy is an equal. God reveals Jesus from the beginning to Revelation.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Ephesians 5:6

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says James 1:22

Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return. Galatians 6:7

And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression. 1 Timothy 2:10

Adam, a perfect man became a willing sinner, Jesus, the second Adam redeemed with His blood.  The Hebrew word for deceive is  ” nasha “, to beguile. like in the garden. I want the discernment, don’t you?

There are lots of other verses and word studies.

Sunnita Leunen / Unsplash

Do I Resemble Jesus?

When I got to the word resemble on the list, I thought of a post I had already written and decided to update it, and I will leave a link to the original.

We all have those family photographs and once in a while we take them out and look at them. I still like albums, but whether they are on a disc, or in a frame, we resemble someone in the family. Jesus said if you’ve seen Him, you have seen the Father. I look like mine, only he left when I was two.

He was creative, and I have a sketch in a frame that he did of my mother and I. She was beautiful and I was bald and he was gone. For years, I struggled with my creativity, I thought that my mother didn’t understand it, because of him. I heard all the stories, years later, I let it come to mind what life would have been like had their marriage worked, and then I let it go. I was sure I would have been a disappointment to him and he to me. After seeing some of the shows that reunite people for a while I was sure letting that go was the right thing to do.

As a mature adult, I finally asked my mother, she told me the truth that I had believed the lies about, that I was a baby and he stepped on over me and walked out. It didn’t happen that way. It is strange how family squabbles can turn them into ruin and the perception become deceptions, delusions that leave sensitive children with guilt. I have seen some that could care less. And you can still have guilt even in parents are together, and argue. Father wounds affect children and they can be healed.

But it was she who read to me, helped me write my first poem, let me color and draw. I was still secluded in my creativity. Mother was so busy and worked way too hard, I wanted a fatherly approval and I had God’s. Even if single or divorced mothers remarry, as my mother did, there is still a father wound. It is why we have such a problem accepting God as a loving Father and realizing, when believe His son died for us and sent us the precious Holy Spirit, that He is a seal, a guarantee of what is to come, that He approves of us because of Jesus sacrifice.

Even if father and mother forsake us, He will never leave us, we are adopted. And people may still think they look like a family member. I have seen pictures of my aunt as a child, how one daughter resembled her and the oldest who didn’t look like her is now her spitting image. Sometimes, we see doubles. I saw a boy in a movie, he was Asian but looked just like my cousin, when he was little. We all see people who look like other people all the time.

I’m glad people think I look like my mother, I wish I had her legs. One day, we got in an elevator and a teenage girl asked if we were twins, and I said yes. By the time we got to the top floor, she realized I was kidding. She had me at seventeen, she will tell you that is too you to marry. We are like sisters, close, because we have always been together, in many ways, in different seasons of life, all we had was each other and the Lord, and a promise. She almost died having me, my aunt said I was blue, but God spared us for a reason. A good reason. We bless others as He blesses us.

And I resemble my heavenly Father, He is the creative one. I hope I resemble Jesus. I think I must sometimes when people are cruel and accusing, they hated Him for no reason. I read once that if God had a refrigerator, our pictures would be on it it. I think mine might sit on one of His grand pianos I hope so. I’m sure He has all those manuscripts I threw away in tears of rejection, tears that are in a bottle, or a well that is also filled with living water to wash them into both purity and maturity.

Father wounds need to be healed in order for us to be. Mother wounds have to do with church, we have all been wounded by others, even churches, intentionally, and because they are human and make mistakes, and even unintentionally. These people are Christians and should know better. I am guilty of hurting, but never intentionally, I probably was hard on some who I thought should know what they were saying was wrong.

I did look for my father later, but found no records. In my heart, I felt he had died but was a believer. My aunt found a record, he has been dead some twenty years. People are walking dead without Jesus, the mother and father wounds, fears, anger, frustrations, the hurts and insults, losses and heart and mind rending wounds are keeping us from resembling Him.

While it is great to look like great aunt so and so, or uncle who ever. As His sons and daughter, created in His image, ( which is Spirit, but with a soul and body ) we should resemble our Father. If you saw Jesus, you saw Him, If you see us we should resemble Jesus.

One day, we will be changed in an instant, given that immortal body that is glorified and meet Him in the air. He is coming, I pray that we allow ourselves to be open minded and hearted and forgive, move on past the things that hold us in a vice like and deadly grasp, we need to let go, and let God replace mother and father, family wounds with His healing balm and Spirit, there are things and people we may have let go of, but we are loved and we want to resemble Jesus, even if others do not.

Renato Abati / Pixabay / NJS creations

https://adaughtersgiftoflove.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/do-you-see-jesus-in-me/

Recuperate Your Losses

I am happy that the # Write 28 Day Challenge has once again just blended in with my blog posts, and now for recuperate. Again being a ” wordy ” I looked it up. It means to recover from sickness or exhaustion; regain health or strength. And to get back something you have lost. Yes, I realize the word is recoup, but I have to believe God is breathing life and recuperating my losses. While recoup is more about money, and recuperate, health. it can and will work both ways, as God has rest on His mind, who else can we recuperate without His sovereignty?

God is about restoration, He restores  souls. I have discovered that a lot of time we don’t even realize how we have lost something, how the enemy had worn us out and bombarded us. Sometimes, it is our own ignorance of the devices and sometimes, it is spiritual warfare and then there are times, it is not our fault, stuff is just heaped on us.

I am gearing up for March, and starting a few posts. I am led to emphasize that rest is so important to believers, it will allow us to recuperate. I really hate to admit what I have lost. But on the other side of it, I feel that He had held a lot my blessings close to Him and to my heart. Writing has been one of the ways, He has had me recuperating.

Writing was my planned career, and though it didn’t go as I planned, God has better. A better covenant, better promises and a better time. A time for it to all be beautiful, when losses, money or friends or love, even your zeal for Christ, you finally, have restored and recuperate.

Having dealt with some illnesses, my own and others, some mental oppression, loss of family members and just dealing with difficulties as a believer, I understand loss and I like the idea of recuperating the losses. I have seen people with open heart surgery, being made to get up and walk in a day or two. That, to me, is not time enough to recuperate, It may be to others, but not to me. I find myself trusting God with mine, that kind of illness is invasive and painful I am certain, and I am sensitive enough already, nope. I do believe you can walk in supernatural health, I may not be there, and I never advise people to not take medication, but trust Him too, the Great Physician.

I have seen the years of depression, and even oppression, take a toll. I have seen people never fully recover from it, I believe I have never recovered from some instances, but He is sweeping my house for me, like the woman with the lost coin. He will help me find the money I need, the rest, the healing, the peace. It takes time to recuperate, God is patient.

I had a friend to pass away, she was a prayer warrior, but she would go back to work after bouts of cancer, the third round of treatment she did not survive. Maybe, she had not taken enough time to recuperate, she was fifty one. Lots of people say that it is your time to go, but is it? Had I not learned rest, favor and walked in His grace, it could have been me. Or perhaps any one of us. Though He loves us all many never find the rest and recuperation.

Another woman that I blog with has been through has been through cancer, and again and again, she goes back to work too. I find myself wondering that if we would take the time to recuperate, really recuperate, we might not fall ill again. Yet, we live in a fallen world, nevertheless God gave us Jesus to overcome it, The Lord works in seasons and cycles, remember the man at the pool of Bethesda, though He can heal anytime, then there was an angel sent to trouble the waters of the mikvah bath. He made provisions.

The enemy will try to copy things in cycles and season, and he operates, in evil and death. Why we need the Lord so desperately in order to recuperate our losses, to gain back health and possibly even wealth He had stored for us. The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just. Proverbs 13:22

Please don’t think me harsh about my friends, I know the Lord did not put the diseases on them, He uses what the enemy throws at us to teach us His love and ways by the Spirit, why our spirits have to be strong in His Word, I know people who are strong in faith, fighters, and they still have lost battles.

I pray we learn His rest and recuperate, through His great love. The Spirit is the balm.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? Jeremiah 8:22

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Isaiah 58:8

Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all. I Samuel 30:8

And how much more is the Spirit here for us and even prays for us Romans, 8:26, after Jesus’ sacrifice? Let’s take time to recuperate.

 

He Looks At Hearts / Peaceable

I was constantly in prayer about a particular problem, I never knew why the Lord was silent on an answer. Then one day, a revelation, a breakthrough, the words dropped into my spirit from the Holy Spirit, He wasn’t looking at that. And truthfully, He is not looking at the outside but inwardly on the heart. Too often we are focused on that and not Him.

I was looking at the outside, really, praying for a an answer to a problem He had solved long ago on the cross. He wasn’t focused on it, I was, because others were, it was a constant reminder of comparison, when He saw completion, It was a failure, a shortcoming, something humiliating to me. I was repudiated in the eyes of others, who lacked the wisdom and insight to see the beauty of Christ, in my words, and His presence surrounding me. Because you pursue Christ, even among believers, you can run into the one who put the outward appearances first, when God looks at the heart.

I always hated those beauty contests, and really  lot of competitive things. God showed me long ago that I was not in competition but in Christ. I worried too much about wrongdoers. So I was too focused and fixated on fixing me, I should have looked inwardly at my heart like He did, the words were there, His love was there, He was there, is there. There is enough of Jesus to go around. I did hate to see wrongdoers proseper or get by, they don’t really, because He looks at hearts.

All the comparisons, soul searches, and hurts from others, the enemy’s lies, confusion, and wrong teaching have put us into a wrong way of thinking, we are not affirming God’s opinions of us in Christ, not letting His peace rule our heart, they can get to being weary, troubled, worried and afraid. He longs to give us the desires of our hearts, our deepest longings, they are searched by the Spirit and they are God’s desires as we delight in Him. How can we delight with a heart that is without joy, the best medicine for it? It will break, be crushed in spirit, and it can even die without His love.

We want to see how Jesus looks at our hearts, so here are some verses, let them sink deeper into your spirit and heart, which are often interchangeable in the Word.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Psalm 51

So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm. Joel 2:13

Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.  Matthew 22:37

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me John 14:1

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27

And if you need the actual verse, here it is Samuel is looking to anoint the king and Eliab looks the part but doesn’t fit the fit in the Lord’s plan, even with David’s sins, he is a man after God’s hear and He says so, He forgives repentant hearts and in those days they did not have the Spirit in them but on them at times, so I tell everyone to keep a repentant heart, and stay under grace.

But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you. 1 Samuel 13:14

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7

I have been guilty of trying too hard to receive what is a gift. A peaceful heart is a gift.

A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones. Proverbs 14:30 New Living

God wants us to have a peaceful and untroubled heart, Jesus speaks peace and told the disciples to. I want to speak to you today and I hope you receive it, because healing comes from the inside not the out just like His love.

I Am My Beloved’s / Observant

I have always loved this verse from Song of Solomon. I don’t know that most people even understand the poetry and the prose, the symbolism to the beauty that is Christ and the way He loves us and that we are to love Him. How observant are we of His commandment to love, and do we observe and emulate the love we see in others? I find myself going back a different time and place, where love is values and morals the normal.

I even know how to say it in Hebrew Ani l’dodi v’dodi li. God is the observant husband over Israel and Jesus for the church, the symbolism and intimacy of marriage are perfect for a much deeper and spiritual love, agape. And His love could be deeper still, I am not even sure we have peered into His heart.

Nothing is deeper that Jesus or His love, so let’s look at some of the verses that are all about Him and is all about Him and His sacrifice and God gets the glory. Like God’s thoughts of us are so many, Jesus is thinking of us too, and while God is male, a loving and strong Father, He has the love of a mother, He created man and woman. We have been talking about Lessons In Love this month. And the one we adore can loves us all, each of us, as if there was only one of us and I believe He would have come to die for  only one.

But He will never do it again, why we should be more observant of out thoughts and words, actions. We can take delight in the Song of Solomon, envision the smells of fruit, the richness of the grapes, the taste of the wine and the heavenly kisses that He sends our way.

His hands drip with myrrh, and we are His beloved. How often are we observant of such love? How often are we walking in Son-shine and being Spirit led and kissed?

Let him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth!
For your love is better than wine;  1:2

His kisses are His words, but don’t be surprised for the Spirit to lightly brush across your lips.

I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys. 2:1   

The fragrance that is Jesus.

His left hand is under my head,
and His right hand embraces me! 2:6

The left hand can represent judgement and Spirit and the right an oath, allegiance, power, devotion and love.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away… 2:10

Jesus even asks the disciples to come away to a quiet place, there is rest in His solitude. And He wants to meet us there, He never has to sleep or slumber now.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away…..2:14   

Jesus is our beautiful one.  Verse 5:16, says altogether lovely in other translations.

My beloved is mine, and I am His. 2:16

The Father calls Jesus beloved and accepts us because of His sacrifice making us beloved.

His mouth is most sweet,
and He is altogether desirable.
This is my beloved and this is my friend…..5:16

Again His words, and Jesus is a friend to those in obedience and remining in His love.

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. 6:3

Oh, yes. Thank you, Jesus.

I am my beloved’s, and His desire is for me. 7:10

We are always on His mind and heart.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm…8:6

We are sealed by the Spirit, and His heart pierced for us, a seal on His arm represents power, being the Savior.

Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it. 8:7   

Nothing separates us from Him. Romans 8:38

….then I was in His eyes
as one who finds peace. 8:10

The one the Lord has redeemed and fights her battles.

Song of Solomon is passionate, but the so in Christ toward us, even the use of the phrase  ” Sister “, is a metaphor,  we are to grow in the love of Jesus and in grace and find Him a strong and tender love, that is ever faithful and always loving toward toward us. And I am glad He fights my battles.