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We are God’s sheep and we know his voice! In the 10th chapter of John, the example of the shepherd and the sheep is used to demonstrate the relationship with have with the Father. I love that as His sheep, we know what his voice sounds like. That also means that we know when it isn’t God’s voice. There are a lot of voices out there and it is up to us to be familiar with the voice of our Shepherd, the true Shepherd. There are wolves out there who are out to destroy the sheep. The enemy is the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came that we might have life, and that more abundantly as it says in John 10:10. There is that word MORE again! More abundance, how amazing is our God! Just enough would be enough! But OUR God, our amazing God, gives us more. In the Message Bible it reads this way, I came so they can have real and eternal life, MORE and better life than they ever dreamed of. That reminds me of Eph 3:20 where it speaks of exceedingly abundantly above all we could ever ask or think! It is all because of His power working in us by the Holy Spirit. So as God’s sheep, who know His voice, we know whose voice to listen to. We also know who gives and who takes, who brings life and who kills it, and who blesses and who destroys. We need to keep it that simple. Good is from God, and bad is from the pit. Our shepherd, God our Father, is the giver of life and blessings. The enemy, the devil is the taker who steals and destroys. So know your shepherd’s voice, and be listening and aware when He speaks to you. Be MORE a tune to the Holy Spirit!

I’m sure you are like me and are so thankful for the Holy Spirit’s leading in your life. I’m so glad that when Jesus left the earth he left us the fulfillment of His promise in the Holy Spirit. It is to our advantage that Jesus left us the Holy Spirit. It says in John 14:26 that the helper, the Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in my Name, will teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all things that He said to you. So along with the amazing comfort of the Holy Spirit’s presence, I am thankful for the things the Holy Spirit teaches me as I read the Word, and that when I need to remember a certain concept from the Word, that the Holy Spirit brings it back to my memory. It is such an added benefit to our life to have someone called alongside us to help us. There are times when we don’t know what to do, and if we will listen to our knower, what I call our spirit, we will know on the inside what we should do. We are never left in the dark when we depend on the power of the Holy Spirit within us. When we need to learn a lesson, or when we need to encourage someone else, God’s Spirit can get the message we need to hear , to our knower (aka our spirit)! The more time we spend in communion with the Father, the easier it will be to identify His voice. It works like that in the natural realm. The more time you spend with someone, the more you know how they act and react, and what they like or dislike. Let’s do that with God. Our desire is to please God in every way, and it gives Him pleasure to teach us, comfort us and encourage our inner man. That is living in the MORE God has for us, and what a wonderful way to live.

This year, I want to encourage you more than ever to get more of the Word of God in your life. In Ps 119:11, it says, your Word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin again you. If we really want to live in the MORE God has for us, we must prioritize getting more of God’s Word into our life. That means it needs to penetrate not only our mind, but it needs to do that 18 inch journey from our head to our heart. Head knowledge is superficial, but heart knowledge goes deep. It penetrates our life and really makes God’s Word come alive and turn from words on pages to God’s Word freshly spoken to us, jumping off the pages in HD 3D! It is like fresh dew from heaven. Refreshing, and life changing, it penetrates our life to cause supernatural change – that is lasting. To make the commitment to prioritize daily Bible reading takes discipline. Discipline isn’t a popular word, but it is a GOD word! Discipline is important with eating and exercising, no doubt. But if we want MORE in our spiritual life, we have to give God’s Word the priority it deserves. That discipline affects us in dramatic ways. We have boundaries and make choices in line with what God’s Word says. We see black and white, with no gray area. There are lines we will not cross, and there is a level of holiness and excellence that we rise to. If we want that “MORE” God has for us, we go the extra mile, we step it up a few notches, we rise above average and mediocre and go for excellence. We can do that do as we hide God’s Word in our heart, so that we can live in and be the righteousness of Christ to this world, and in this world. That is an awesome way to live!

How dependent are you on God for everything? We all know that God can transform our life, but do we really give Him the opportunity to do that? Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with an encouraging word for your day. Let’s depend on the Spirit of God fully, 24/7/365 days of this year by being fully immersed in the Word of God, and living fully in tune with the Holy Spirit. Do you know that God has MORE for us than we could think, dream or imagine? Why not start today believing for more in every area of your life. You were made for more, so I encourage you go for it, and live the life that God has for you. Let’s start this year strong. God has more for you. Here is your encouraging word for today.

Do you know that you have an assignment? As one of God’s children, he not only has given you gifts and talents, but he has given you a specific assignment that He has for you to do. You have several big assignments, like finding your passion in life and fulfilling your vision, but moment by moment, God has divine assignments for you to do each day. That is part of the MORE God has for you. As you move about your day, be attentive to the Spirit of God to guide and direct you to your assignments. Who knows what your assignment is? God does! In the process of living, we can be aware that we live not just for ourselves, but for our divine purpose. If we really believe God’s Word, then we will know when we trust the Lord with all of our heart, and lean not to our own understanding, and acknowledge God in all our ways, He really will direct our paths. If you were raised in church, you probably memorized that verse from Proverbs 3:5,6 when you were a kid. God not only gets us on the right path, He leads our every step, IF we are listening! This life really is a faith walk, step by step. We trust the Lord IN everything, WITH everything that is within us. If we just try to figure things out with our natural brain, we will talk ourselves out of following God’s leading and His direction. So if we want to experience the MORE that God has for us, let’s choose to be listeners. Stay tuned in, be attentive and aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence hour by hour, day by day all through the year.

What God says about you is more important than what others say or have said about you. As we talk about changing into the image of Christ, it is vital that we realize there is really only one opinion that matters, and it is God’s! We often end up with a warped identity, or one that is twisted or colored by words that have been spoken over our lives. Because words do have the power of life or death, words spoken to us, or about us have the power to bring death or life to us. That is one reason as a parent, the words we speak to and about our children need to line up with God’s Word. Perhaps you know the negative effect of words from personal experience. Unfortunately, many people have identities that are shaped by words spoken years and years ago. The echo of words spoken reverberate over and over in their mind, and all too soon, they are believed, and that is who the person becomes. So let’s think about the sentence I said at first. What God says about you is more important that what others say or have said about you. Even if you believed negative words and became who they said you were, you can change by renewing your mind to the thoughts that God thinks about you. So let’s start right now. Whenever you think a thought that lines up with the old you, immediately grab a hold of it, and capture it. II Cor 10:4-6 reminds us that the weapons we fight with are not flesh and blood, but are mighty through God to pull down strongholds. We have weapons available to us that can tear down wrong thoughts and win the battle that goes on in our mind. We can believe differently when we begin thinking differently. I want to encourage you to think God’s thoughts and begin to discover who God says you are!

In II Corinthians 5:16 Paul tells us that from now on we should regard no man according to the flesh. When I read that scripture it speaks to me of the importance of not judging anyone by what you see. In the next couple of verses, it goes on to say that when we receive Christ we are a new creation and the old is gone and the new has come. We immediately become an ambassador for Christ and are representatives of heaven on this earth. Verse 21 in that same chapter reminds us that Jesus became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. If ever you have a doubt filled moment, or your thought life takes you down a road of defeat, open up the Bible and go to these scriptures and let them reverberate in your heart. The old is gone!!! The new has come! God put you in his team, you are His ambassador! We don’t have to measure anybody by how they appear on the outside, and no one should do that with us! Jesus thought we were valuable enough to make you righteous, and give you right standing with the Father. That is a pretty awesome way to see yourself, and a pretty awesome way to see others. So we can quit being so hard on ourselves. We can realize that the old life really is gone….the mistakes, the mess ups, the wrong belief systems, the pain, the guilt, the frustration. God set us on a whole new path, and it is filled with light and life. It is a life filled with glory! Celebrate the new you that you are in Christ. Even if you have been saved for years, today is a new day. You are still a new creation today! Be the new, fresh, clean, forgiven, blood bought, believer that God made you to be. Celebrate today and rejoice that you really are who God says you are. You really can live from glory to glory. You really are the person God created you to be

Are you a grasshopper in your own eyes? Do you remember the spies that went into the promised land and came back saying that they were like grasshoppers in a land of giants? God told them the land was theirs, and all they had to do was possess it. They looked at the impossibilities and forgot that God said it was possible. Ten of the twelve spies said it was not possible. Two, Joshua and Caleb, said, let’s go for it, we can do it. For the ten, what they thought of themselves determined their level of victory and they never got to see the land that was promised to them, because they saw themselves as insects, instead of how God saw them. I’m sure that has happened to all of us on some level. We don’t try for a great job opportunity because we don’t think we are capable. We let go of a relationship because we don’t think we are worthy of being loved. We treat our body poorly because we don’t think we are valuable. I hope you are beginning to see the connection of our thought life to how we see ourselves, to how we act. The change starts in that great battlefield, the mind! To grow from glory to glory and really become who God says we are starts with aligning our thoughts with what God thinks about us. It takes discipline. It takes determination. It takes the power of God on the inside of us to be consistent about making sure thoughts that are not from God do not remain on the screen on our mind. Especially if they are persistent, we have to be extra persistent. We have to be as persistent positively as the negative thoughts are. One thing that has helped me in controlling my thought life is to immediately recognize where a contrary thought is coming from, and say out loud, that is not the truth. And then I say outloud, the truth is….. It is a great reminder that Jesus reversed the curse for us, and we need to remind our enemy of the same. All the enemy can do is lie, so the opposite of what the enemy says is the truth! The lie you heard in your mind from the enemy really is proof positive that the opposite is true! So are you a grasshopper? No way, you are an overcomer growing from glory to glory!

Do you remember the passage of scripture when Jesus asked, who do you say that I am? Well, He still asks that question of us, but let’s turn it around and ask, who do you say that you are? This week as we go about finding our true identity and growing from glory to glory, we will look at the importance of our thought life. It is so good to know that when we change what we think about and what we say , we can change our life. We can become more Christ-like by making simple changes in how we think. The Bible tells us so clearly when thoughts come into our mind, we have to capture them immediately. If we allow random thoughts that enter our mind to determine who we are, we will find ourselves believing things other than the truth. Your personal identity and self image are shaped by environment and by life experiences, but most of who we are right now, is determined by how we processed life experiences and how we see ourselves. If we want change in the here and now, we must examine the thoughts that we think. What is interesting is we can’t control a thought coming to our mind, but we immediately can determine if we will continue thinking about the thought, or will we take them captive and replace them with the Word of God, which reveals truth to us. If we get diligent about processing our thoughts through the filter of God’s Word, and begin immediately casting down thoughts that are contrary to God and His Word, we can begin to see dramatic changes take place in us. What a great start for growing from glory to glory! The new you can be revealed by taking control of your thought life! What a great step toward being more like Jesus, and becoming the person He says you are.

Do you know that every day we have new mercies available to us? Why not draw on the new mercies of God and make some positive changes in your life. You became a new creation when you received Christ, but as we continually walk out this new life, daily we can make positive changes and become more Christ-like. Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with an encouraging word for your day. This week we will concentrate growing from glory to glory and letting others see Jesus in us. You are who God says you are. You are the person God created you to be. You can live the abundant life God has for you! Here is your encouraging word today

Do you plan to be your best self for God? I know that it is my greatest desire to not only be who God called me to be, but complete what He called me to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is your heart’s desire too. Have you ever wondered how can we do that? We will take this week to find out how as we talk about growing from glory to glory. During this week we will begin to understanding that we really are- who God says we are. One of the key factors to changing from the inside out is to get a correct picture of who you are. This statement is so true. How you see yourself controls who you are. You see yourself as a victim, and others will treat you like one. You see yourself as an over comer and victory manifests in your life. You see yourself as a world changer, and you will change your world! What you think about yourself is the most powerful influence in your life. The Bible says how you think in your heart, so you are. Often we think it is the things on the outside that define us. How often do we let our age, our race, our gender, our social status, or things in the natural be what we identify with? There is a better gauge than outward things, and that gauge is God’s Word. What is revealed in the Word of God about who we are will help us find out how we should think about ourselves, and help us have the ability to overcome areas that may have held us back in the past. So this week our key to finding out who we really are in Christ will be in finding out who God thinks we are and getting our thinking in line with God’s thoughts, so we can grow from glory to glory. How encouraging to know that we can change from the inside out, as we begin to change how we think about ourselves. I hope you see yourself growing from glory to glory!

The day has finally arrived. After expecting and preparing, today begins the big celebration. We celebrate Heaven Coming Down… we celebrate Jesus. After being in captivity for 700 years, and then a period of waiting to 400 more years, Jesus, the best of heaven, came to earth to deliver God’s people. He came as a baby, innocent, fragile, and holy. He came as a King, longed for and long expected, who was mighty to save. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus that changed history forever.

Everyone longs to know that they have someone who will never leave them, disown them, or desert them. Jesus came as Emmanuel, which means, God dwells among us. That means we are never alone. In the moment of our greatest joy, or the deepest season of despair, Jesus is always there. His Name means that He is always with us. What can take comfort in His permanent presence.

He came as love personified. God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him. (I John 4:16) The God of love has come to never leave us, and to abide with us in love. Love is the greatest of all (I Cor 13:8). We should pursue love and be love to the world. One thing love does is cover – love is like the snow. The beauty of snow is in what it covers up. Everything can be dirty underneath, but put a blanket of snow over the top, and everything looks beautiful. That is just like love. We can bring beauty all around us when we cover other’s mistakes and when we extend grace to others. When we make an effort to cover everything in love, just like a fresh dusting of snow, beauty emerges.

Just as each snowflake is unique, God demonstrates His love to us in unique ways… what could be more unique than a royal king born in a manger? When each of us, like individual snowflakes, begin to manifest the love of God, the beautiful body of Christ can be revealed. And, when each member loves like Jesus, we can envision the purity of fresh fallen snow, covering ugliness and bringing loveliness to this earth.

Jesus has come, Heaven Came Down…..it is Christmas. He will never leave us, and His love lives inside of us. What great joy and comfort that brings. We are loved with the purest, most abiding love available – God’s love. Let’s be as committed to loving Him as He is to us. Let us never leave Him and let us always demonstrate His love to others – throughout Christmas, and all through the year. Merry Christmas!