Author: debo

Maybe you’ve heard people say, “God’s put this trouble/trial/sickness on you to teach you something.” Or maybe someone’s well-meaning advice was: “God has allowed this trouble/trial/sickness to come upon you to help you grow.”Not true! It may sound spiritual to say something like that, but it is very, very wrong. If you think that, then you won’t know what to stand against. If you think God caused your trouble, how can you believe Him to deliver you from it? You can’t. We have to get this straight: God is good and the devil is bad. Don’t get confused about it, because it can undermine your faith. Know who your enemy is!

Say, for example, someone needs to overcome sickness. If they say that God put sickness on them to teach them something, then they’re saying that it is God’s will that they’re sick, right? But then they take medicine or go to the doctor to try and get the illness to go away.I want to say to them, “Wait a minute. If the sickness is God’s will for you, if this is how He’s going to train and teach you, then why are you taking meds and going to the doctor to try and get out of God’s will?” Of course we can see that’s ridiculous. Of course a person who is sick wants to get better. And God wants that person to get better too. It’s never His will for people to be sick; it’s always His will to heal us. He always has been and always will be a healing God. He said, “I am the Lord who heals you” (Exod. 15:26). Jesus Himself bore your sicknesses (Matt. 8:17) and by His stripes you were healed, more than 2,000 years ago (1 Pet. 2:24). Lets talk about this more tomorrow.

Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with your daily eword. I have asked my friend and fellow writer, blogger and speaker, Karen Jensen Salisbury to be a guest blogger for me this week. She is an author of two great books, and is also a wonderful friend. I know her words will encourage you to overcome in every area of your life. As a bonus, her son Josh is our youth pastor at AGF. I know you will enjoy Karen Salisbury’s words as you listen to me them to you on your dailyeword.

We all like to hear about being an overcomer, but here’s the thing: any time you hear about someone overcoming, it means there was something to overcome. In other words, there was trouble! So we can’t be surprised about facing trouble in this life – we live on an earth with a curse. Trouble is going to come! Jesus Himself said in John 16:33, “In the world you will have tribulation…” He warned us! So we shouldn’t be surprised when trouble comes. But we should be ready. And we should know where the trouble comes from – it doesn’t come from God! We have an enemy, Satan, and if we don’t understand that, we won’t be able to overcome him.

Thankfully there is more to that verse in John 16. Jesus finishes His sentence by saying, “But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” That’s great news! If Jesus overcame, we can overcome. It’s our very nature to overcome. Jesus gave us His authority to overcome every trouble the enemy sends our way (Luke 10:19).

Happy Sunday! Happy Church day! Happy Worship Day! God is calling everyone to come and worship Him together. Every Sunday, we have the opportunity to come to church and bring our family to worship God. It is an awesome way to begin our week, and it is an awesome example to our families that God really is a priority in our life and our world. It’s easy to turn on a worship DVD, or listen to a podcast, or even watch AGF online, but there is something really special about coming to the house of God to worshipping in person on a regular basis. We get the opportunity to worship together, and being together corporately is really wonderfully special. The anointing is multiplied in corporate worship. I’ve heard it said you can learn on your own, but you really need others to grow. If growing spiritually is our goal, I encourage you to come and worship at church. Make it a priority, and come to church every time the doors are open to worship!

I am so thankful to be filled with the Spirit and have experienced worshipping God extravagantly. One of the things Jesus said was that He wanted true worshippers who would worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well when He said this, and I think He was getting to the heart of worship. He wants our whole heart, and worshipping Him takes focus and commitment. It also is important that we know Whom we are worshipping. It’s not a building or an idea, or not the one leading worship, it is God who deserves our worship, in spirit and in truth. We have the opportunity to give the one true God our whole heart for our whole life! We aren’t subject to Old Testament rules for worship, we give God the best of our life for the rest of our lives. As we do, we will continue on our path to knowing God more deeply. Let’s be the kind of worshippers that Jesus is looking for, those who worship Him in Spirit and in truth!

There is a lot of junk in the airways! I’m sure you have noticed! There are some music stations that you don’t want to subject your ears to. I am so glad for great ones that pump encouraging positive lyrics out 24/7 (Like KAGF!) Do you remember the little kids song that went like this…Oh be careful little ears what you hear, oh be careful little ears what you hear, for the Father up above is looking down in love, oh be careful little ears what you hear. The main message of this song is that we need to be aware of what we are listening to. And just like a computer, what goes is what comes out. We want to guard our heart and our ears, because, out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth will speak. The best kind of things we can let into our heart are things that encourage and bless our lives. And worship music is high on the list! Make your home and your car an oasis with music that brings you a little bit of heaven on earth. Make worship and worship music an important priority in your life, and the life of your family.

As much as I love worshipping with others, to make time to worship on my own is one of the most encouraging, reenergizing things we can do. We can put on a worship station on pandora, or you can sing your own tune, with your own melody and lyrics, or sit down at an instrument, and worship your heart out. Being a busy mom, with work, church and home responsibilities, finding time to worship God on my own, happens only intentionally. Sometimes it accidently happens when there is a random slot of time that appears, but most of the time, personal worship happens because it is on my schedule and I give it a priority. As beautiful as it is to have time on your own, if you have little ones at home, or are a mom or dad of school age kids, take time together with your kids to worship God every day. Turn off the TV, the computer, your phone, and any other distractions, and worship God together as a family. Sing fun silly songs, and then do some real worship songs together. You are modeling to them how to worship and that time will minister to you personally, and you can experience the presence of God at home with your kids. What a great way to train your kids at the same time. WIN!

One of the reasons Sunday is my favorite day of the week is because it is the day we get to worship together. We are called to worship, and coming together to worship each week, not only blesses God, but blesses us. As we worship together, God does amazing things in our midst. We minister to Him, and He ministers to us. He meets us right where we are. If we come in to the sanctuary hurting, with broken hearts or broken bodies, He wants us to leave whole, with mended hearts and healed bodies. If we come in discouraged, He wants our heart lifted and encouraged when we leave His house. If we come to church without hope, He wants us to leave with hope. All those things can happen when we worship together. Besides just the beauty of worshipping together, there is also a multiplied anointing that happens as we all join together to worship. God inhabits the praises of His people, so He lives in the middle of our worship. Worship is God’s love language. God’s power is made manifest as we worship together, so get to church, worship with other believers, and see God do amazing things!

I love to see kids worshipping God. Seeing kids on their knees, with lifted hands, and tears running down their faces is one of the most beautiful sights on the earth. It feels like what we will experience in heaven. I have even seen tiny babies find a way to lift their little hands in worship. What it shows is that they have seen their parents or grandparents worshipping God, because babies imitate what they see. What kind of worshipper are you? Do you fold your hands and sing softly? Do you open wide your mouth, but keep your hands in your pockets? Do you just stand there with mouth closed and a grimace on your face? Or do you unabashedly sing from the top of your lungs, and lift your hands high as you worship? Can we let the little children lead us? Let’s be like a child, go all out in worship, not caring about what anybody else thinks of us, but thinking only of giving God our best, because He is our audience of one. Let’s make it our goal to worship like a child and continue to make extravagant worship a priority in our day.

As big as I am on making things look good on the outside, that certainly isn’t the heart of the issue. The heart is the most important issue. We all know that just changing outward circumstances doesn’t make a change on the inside. Real, lasting, effective change happens from the inside out. That usually means making some adjustments, changing our thinking, controlling our thought life, and making the decision to live and serve others with excellence many times a day. What happens on the inside, will dramatically change what people see on the outside.

If we want quality on the highest level – the treasure on the inside of us needs to be expressed. Paul said hold a treasure in an earthen vessel. That’s the KJV way for saying that Christ lives in people, who are simply cracked pots! It doesn’t sound very flattering, but when you think that a King would want to take up residency in you, it makes you feel like royalty. It makes me want to clean up the earthen vessel, make it as beautiful for the King as possible. It also makes me want to use the gifts and talents He gave specifically to me to the best of my ability, because they are the stamp of God in my life.

Are you willing to step up a notch? Are you ready to get bigger and expand on the inside so God’s glory can show up on the outside? I hope you are ready, because God wants to use you for His glory! Let’s be our best for the King of Majesty

Anything worth doing is worth doing right. I’m not sure where that quote is from, but my Dad gets credit for saying it millions of times while I was growing up. Whether it was cleaning my room, arranging some flowers, or mowing a lawn, you do it right the first time, and do it with excellence, because Dad said so!

Since we’ve been talking about excellence this week, and how important it is to do things well, as believers we need to realize that we represent Christ on the earth. We are his ambassadors, and when the world, those who don’t know Christ yet, look at us, they should see a good facsimile of who Jesus is. That kind of puts the pressure on – but in this case, it is good pressure! We should be much more than mediocre. We should be much more committed than average. We should be people of impeccable integrity and character. We should be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, not only when people are watching, but every moment of every day.