by Alisha | Jul 21, 2014 | Uncategorized
Are you going through a “drought” in a certain area of you life right now? You may be experiencing a dry season spiritually in which you are desperately searching for a way to get back in right relationship with the Lord. Or perhaps you feel emotionally parched – someone close to you or a difficult situation has drained all your emotional strength and you feel as though you are withering inwardly. Or maybe your finances or various streams of income seem to have all dried up.
If so, then I encourage you to call on the Lord today! He has showers of blessings to bestow upon you:
Ezekiel 34:25-26 (NIV) says, “I will make a covenant of peace with them and…I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.”
This word “shower” in the Hebrew is geshem, which means to “rain violently, pour down in heavy shower,” (Strong’s Concordance).
God wants to rain blessings in your life – and not just a light rain of blessings. He wants to pour down heavy showers of blessings on you!
Have you ever been caught up in a huge downpour of rain? I have many times. In fact, it happened again just this weekend.
My mother and I had scheduled a yard sale for Friday and Saturday. Up until a few days before, there had been very little chance of rain in the forecast. All day Friday the weather was overcast and dark, heavy clouds filled the sky. Every so often, a few light sprinkles would fall and we thought the rain would start, so out would come the tarps to cover all our items. But the rain actually held off all day long and we had quite a successful sale.
Then the rains finally came in Friday evening – and not just light, gentle rains – we’re talking huge downpours all through the night. Our Saturday sale was a total washout. Thankfully, we had covered most of the items so that they stayed dry. But early that morning, after we realized the rain would not relent, we had to pack everything up and get them to warm, dry storage. In.The.Drenching.Soaking.Rain.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love rain. So it didn’t bother me one bit to have to get out there and haul boxes back and forth while it poured. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it! I was soaked from head to toe. I had rain dripping off the tip of my nose. My clothing was heavy and completely saturated with rain.
And that got me thinking.
God wants to drench, soak and saturate His children with His love, His goodness, His grace, His mercy, and His kindness. He wants us to flood us with blessings!
2 Corinthians 9:8-11 (MSG) says, “God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. This most generous God…is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.”
In the natural, we experience seasons of drought. There are times when the grass and flowers will dry up and wither away because there’s been very little or no rain to water the earth. But no matter how long of a drought we have, eventually the rain will come.
And if we cry out to the Lord and continue to obey and trust Him even in the most difficult circumstances, He will show up in the midst of our drought, just as surely as the arrival of rain, and pour out His blessings upon us!
Hosea 6:3 (NLT) says, “Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know Him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”
The Lord doesn’t want you to live your life dry, parched and withering. He wants you to experience showers of His blessings in every area of your life.
Deuteronomy 28:2 (AMP) says, “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God.”
In verses 3 through 14 of the same chapter, the Lord gave Israel a huge list of blessings that would come upon them and overtake them if they would obey His commands. In fact, Jesus came to earth, died on the cross, and rose again so that we could live in those same blessings:
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” – Galatians 3:13-14 (NKJ)
Not only does the Lord want His blessings to come upon us, He wants to pour so much on us that we don’t have enough room to receive them all!
And Malachi 3:10 tells us, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house,and try Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”
The Contemporary English Version of this verse says, “…I will open the windows of heaven and flood you with blessing after blessing.”
If we are experiencing blessing after blessing, then we are able to turn around and bless those around us, as well as those in other parts of the world who are less fortunate than us. That’s what His blessings are all about – being a blessing to others, showing them the love and goodness of a kind and generous God.
So no matter what area of your life you may be experiencing a drought, I encourage you to call on the Lord, and by faith receive the showers of blessing that He so graciously wants to pour out on you! Believe Him for them no matter what your situation looks like at the present. He will come to you as surely as the rain!
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by Alisha | May 5, 2014 | Uncategorized
All throughout the Bible, we are told to “Fear not” or “Be not afraid.” But it is very obvious that there will be plenty of times when we will feel afraid. The problem comes when we allow those feelings to dominate and paralyze us – when we bow our knee to the spirit of fear.
Are you allowing fears (or even feelings of inadequacy) to keep you from doing what you know you should do? Are they holding you back from doing what you want to do?
If we’re not careful, we can live in bondage to fear and intimidation all of our lives and never fulfill the dreams in our heart. Join me over at Managing Your Blessings as I talk about facing those fears and overcoming them.
Don’t allow fear to rob you of your destiny!
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by Alisha | Apr 28, 2014 | Uncategorized
I believe that living to please the Lord has to be intentional. I don’t know about you, but I fall short in this area often. I get so caught up in the busy-ness of life that sometimes I forget to take the time to honor the One who gave me this beautiful life I live.
But I don’t want that to be the “norm.”
Ephesians 5:10 (AMP) tells us to “Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him].”
As we learn the things that please Him, we must be intentional about practicing them. In my first post on Living to Please Him, we talked about how one of the very first steps in pleasing the Lord is to just spend time with Him.
If we want to be strong Christians, we will need to dig into the Word on a regular basis. And we will need to carve out uninterrupted time each day to fellowship with the Lord in prayer. The closer we are to Him, the easier it becomes to please Him.
In fact, I have found that when I don’t discipline myself to be in His presence, I become easily irritated with my family and others. My faith wanes and my feelings take over and can easily overwhelm me if I let them.
But the more I give myself to the Word of God and to prayer, the easier is to do two of the most important things that bring pleasure to the Lord:
(1) Walk in Love
Little children, let us not love [merely] in theory or in speech but in deed and in truth (in practice and in sincerity)… And we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we [watchfully] obey His orders…and habitually practice what is pleasing to Him. ~ 1 John 3:18, 22 (AMP)
and
(2) Walk by Faith
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. ~ Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)
I think that it’s quite interesting to note that our faith won’t even work without love. Faith expresses itself through love.
For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. ~ Galatians 5:6 (MSG)
So no matter what we pray and ask the Lord for, if we are not walking in love towards our husband, children, extended family, friends, church members, or that irritating clerk in the check-out lane, then our faith can’t be expressed. It simply won’t work.
Everything in our lives is intertwined — especially in the spiritual arena.
If we’re living full of the Word of God, if we’re living in continual fellowship with Him, then we will walk in love towards others and our faith will be strong and active.
A woman who lives in the presence of the Lord, who displays His love and kindness to others, and has a strong, vibrant faith life will be extremely pleasing to Him!
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by Alisha | Apr 14, 2014 | Uncategorized
Living to please Him. It’s what I want my life to consist of. And I’m sure it’s what you want for your life too.
Anyone who has walked with the Lord for any length of time knows what a truly wonderful God He is. He is perfect Love. He is incredibly generous in His giving. He’s unbelievably gracious and merciful in every way. He is simply amazing!
He has told us in His Word that He will give us the desires of our heart – whatever we ask – if we will seek Him and delight in Him.
“Take delight in the Lord,and he will give you the desires of your heart.” ~ Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
And…
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him.” ~ 1 John 5:14-15 (NIV)
He has bestowed marvelous blessings upon us: salvation, healing, provision, wisdom, direction, and anything else we need in life. All we have to do is receive these blessings from Him.
But in the midst of all the wonderful things He gives us each day, let’s not forget to give back to Him. Let’s find out what pleases Him and seek to pursue those things.
In Colossians 1:10 (AMP) the Apostle Paul prays, That you may walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things…
This should be the biggest desire of our heart to be fully pleasing to the Lord and to desire to please Him in all that we do.
And in Ephesians 5:10 (AMP) we are told: “Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him].”
So how do we know which things are pleasing to the Lord?
The most important way to find out what pleases the Lord is to consistently spend time in fellowship with Him. We do this by reading and studying the Bible and coming into His presence through prayer and worship on a regular basis.
Living in continual fellowship with the Lord changes us. We become more and more like Him. We learn to hear His voice more clearly. We begin to sense the things that are important to Him.
Time in His presence separates us to Him. It brings our will into agreement with His will. It aligns our thoughts and ways with His thoughts and ways. We grow to love Him and desire to please Him more and more each day.
In fact, the Bible tells us about a man who lived in continual fellowship with God. His name was Enoch:
Genesis 5:24 (AMP) says, And Enoch walked [in habitual fellowship] with God…
And do you know what else the Bible says about Him?
Hebrews 11:5 tells us, By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
How did Enoch please God? By walking in continual fellowship with Him. He had a genuine, living, thriving relationship with Almighty God.
We only have a few verses that even mention Enoch, yet we can see that because of his love and hunger for the Lord, he pleased Him so much that he was allowed to step on over into His very presence.
What an incredible testimony!
So, we understand that the first step in living to please the Lord is to live in unbroken fellowship with Him. Staying connected to Him is vital to pleasing Him.
Over the next few weeks, we will look at other attributes that please the Lord. Let’s make it our greatest ambition in life to live to please Him!
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by Alisha | Jan 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
Do you want to see the dream of your heart fulfilled?
Proverbs 13:12, 19 (NLT) says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy…It is pleasant to see dreams come true.”
Turning your dream into reality is really up to you!
If you want to experience the life and joy that comes from living out the dream in your heart, then I encourage you to join me over at Managing Your Blessings. There I am sharing 4 important steps to seeing your dream fulfilled.
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