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If you were a kid, would tax day even be on your radar? Kids don’t care about April 15, for kids, it is just one more day closer until the end of the school year, and at the end of school is SUMMER! I am a summer lover! I enjoy the outdoors and love getting outside to get stronger physically everyday. Good fitness doesn’t have to wait till summer, it can start right now. The good habits you establish right now give you a better chance of including fitness in your life for your entire life. So have you been outdoors, playing, shooting hoops, kicking a soccer ball, running around, playing football, playing baseball, going swimming or playing volleyball? If you have kids at home, you might be doing some of those things. But most adults do more couch sitting that hoop shooting. Why not take time to get outside everyday and do something that makes you more fit! This summer the Olympics will be happening in Brazil. You know the athletes that will make it to the Olympics are practicing right now. Those athletes have trained their very best and are believing to make the US team and for excellence in their sport. They have learned that perseverance is necessary to fulfill their dreams of greatness, so that they can be and do all that God has for them. I hope you know that too! I hope you go for God’s best in your life.
GOING FOR GOLD
We are running our race
With the goal in our sight
We are Championss
Serving God, day and night
We are aiming real high
We are making a goal
With our eye on the prize
We are GOING FOR GOLD!
I hope that you know God’s dreams for you are Olympic size (that means really big)! He has a good plan for your life, to give you a future and a hope. Are you preparing for greatness? It is important not only to be strong on the outside, but to be even stronger inside, knowing that God’s power is working in you! Make it your goal, to GO FOR GOLD!

One of the cutest things I’ve ever seen is a little tiny girl, under 1 year of age, with her physical eye on a ball. Her daddy said, “Sweetheart, put your eye on the ball,” and she did just that, she put the ball up to her eye socket. Can we take the Word of God that literally? God does want us to keep our eye focused on Him. We are to keep Him in our sights all the time. We have this tendency to get distracted by the things of this world, and the cares of this world, but we are to have a single eye and be single minded. Let’s stay in focus. I got glasses as a 13 year old, and was just amazed that you could see leaves on trees, and that details of things far away could be clearly in focus. Before I knew any better, I thought everyone saw like my eyes were used to seeing. Maybe bad eyesight is why Monet painted pictures like he did! Once I got the lens I needed in front of my eye, and whala, I saw things in a very different light. What can be blurring your focus? Is there something that is distracting you, or making it hard for you to see clearly? Are there perceptions or belief systems that shade or skew your view or even how you think? Are there confusing points of view that are trying to pry you from the truth that you know? Let’s keep our eye clearly focused, and then let’s keep our eye on the prize. We don’t want to miss out on a reward because we got distracted. Let’s live without distractions, keeping our eye on the ball.

Jesus told us that to enter the kingdom of heaven we should become like a child. How can adults be more childlike? The first change we talked about yesterday was becoming more trusting. Another kind of change we need to make is to enjoy the simple, mundane things of life. Can you find greater joy than the hearing the laughter of children? They laugh from the heart over the silliest things. They get excited about simple things like swinging from a tree, jumping off a diving board, or playing in the dirt. Instead of praying for a day or a week to end, they don’t ever want their day to end, and are sad when they have to go to bed. Sometimes as adults, our lives are so “full”, we can’t even find time to enjoy a glass of lemonade sitting on the porch swing watching our kids play in the yard as the sun is setting, and we happily flop into bed longing for bedtime to come sooner.

I know the summer will soon be here, so I want to encourage you to make this the best summer of your life. Do you want some of this renewed vigor and joy in your life? Find a way to be around some kids! If you’re a grandparent or a neighbor to children, take some time to find a way to build into their lives. If you’re a parent, loosen up and have some fun with your kids. Run through the sprinkler, have a tickle contest, just find a way to laugh and have fun, because life is at it’s fullest when you find joy “just” in living. Say yes every time they ask to play. Their joy is contagious and you’ll find that their joy will rub off on you!

On Palm Sunday our church, Amazing Grace Fellowship, celebrated kids, big time. It is always so much fun to spend time with kids because they have such enthusiasm, and are so full of life. One of the most remarkable things about children is that they find wonder in simple things and they love learning new things. What a joy it is to be able to impact them and help them see their future and the hope they have in Christ. (Jer 29:11)

On Palm Sunday we had 100’s of kids who were surrounded by an abundance of volunteers who set aside their time and talents to build in the lives of children. Jesus had great things to say about children, and how we as adults would be wise to be more like them. In fact, in Matthew 18:3, it says that we must change and be like children if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven.

What kind of changing must we do? I think one major change is to become trusting like a child. Often we get less trusting as we get older. Have you noticed how kids believe what you say? We should be like that about spiritual things. If the Word of God says it, let’s just be childlike enough to believe it. If we’re believers, let’s believe!!! Tomorrow we will talk about another change we can make to become more childlike!

How childlike are you? Jesus told us to enter the kingdom of God we need to be like a child. Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with your dailyeword. We know there is a big difference between being childlike and being childish. Being child”like” is being pure, innocent and trusting, compared to being childish which is acting immaturely, being irresponsible and foolish. Our aim should be to live with the attitude of a pure, innocent child, with wide-eyed amazement. I hope this week’s dailyeword makes you desire to live life everyday with childlike wonder.

I often use the illustration of a cow chewing her cud to make a visual reference to how important meditating on God’s Word is for a believer. We should daily take a morsel of God’s Word, and chew on it all day long. If we have an area we need to work on in our own life, we should find the scriptures that relate to our situation, and get them down deep into our heart. If we want real change in our life, we have to renew our mind to the Word of God. Rom 12:1 and 2 says that transformation takes place in our life as take the old thoughts out, and put the new thoughts that are “the truth” in their place. In II Cor 10:3,4,& 5, we can see that thoughts become imaginations, and imaginations can become strongholds. A strong hold is anything that holds us strongly. That explains the progression of how we can be in bondage because by the way we think. How do we change our thinking? A great place to begin is by meditating on God’s Word. Most of the time when we need an answer, God is just waiting for us to ask Him. Its easy to go to everyone around us to find out their opinion or what their solution for us would be, but God wants us to ask Him! So do it! Be like a child and ask Him, and then meditate on His Word that applies to your specific situation. When we do, be encouraged that God will make His Word become freshly spoken to you, and give you the wisdom and revelation you need.

Today my husband and I celebrate our wedding anniversary! Happy anniversary babe! Its been a fun and adventurous 34 years. The Bible tells us to keep the Word on our mind, and speak it from our mouth, in other words, meditating on it, and saying it. That is something we endeavor to do everyday as a married couple. When we as Christians hear about how “new age” people meditate, sometimes we shy away from any type of thing that would connect us to them. What is interesting is that God thought up meditating, and everyone else who does is just trying to imitate what God invented! Joshua 1:8 is a terrific scripture to look at when we talk about meditating on the Word. It says very clearly that if we want to experience prosperity and success, we should keep the Word of God on our tongue and on our mind all the time, and then be obedient to do what it says. Experiencing prosperity and success can also be translated from another version of the Bible as dealing wisely in the things of life. I know I want to deal wisely in the things of life, and be able to give good advice to others who want to deal wisely in the situations they are in. It so important that you and I spend time meditating on God’s Word every day.

Have you ever eaten anything that makes your jaws tired? One thing that really does that to me is beef jerky. It tastes so good, but it can be hard to chew. You can chew and chew and chew, and still might not break it all down enough to swallow it for a long time. Well this might sound a little funny, but I want you to think of God’s Word like beef jerky. If you want to meditate on God’s Word, you need to chew on it a while. That really means, think it over, mull it around in your brain, and just bring it back around to your thoughts again and again. Maybe you’ve never thought of God’s Word like beef jerky! The best part about chewing on the Word of God is that the more you meditate on a specific scripture, the more real it becomes in your life. God can bring fresh ideas of how to put it into practice in your life, and even give you some specific information that will bless your life through the words you are meditating on. The Words that you read in the Bible won’t just be black ink on a white page, it will become the very Words of God, that He wants to speak specifically to you. So just like you’d chew on some beef jerky, chew on God’s Word, take a little bit at a time, and then chew away. Soon it will be broken down into bites you can swallow, and will bring amazing nourishment to your spiritual life. Why not try meditating on God’s Word today. Your jaws don’t even have to get tired!

Today is my husband’s birthday! Happy Birthday babe! Did you know that taking time to meditate on God’s Word is one avenue of receiving supernatural revelation in your life? Having the mind of Christ, as it says in I Cor 2:16, comes as we are led by the Spirit of God. As we talked about earlier this week, being led by the Spirit of God is often a direct result of spending time meditating on the Word of God. In I Cor 2:9,10, it says that eye hasn’t seen, nor has ear heart, or has it even entered into our heart what God has prepared for those who love Him. Verse 10 says this… But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit! It is like the light being turned on our path. A shazam moment! The things that were once concealed are now visible to us. When we spend time meditating on the Word of God, the Word becomes not just ink on pages, but line upon line, and precept upon precept of living letters written specifically and directly to us. God’s Word will speak, and we will hear and understand. Above the noise, above the crowd, I can hear Him speak. I am His sheep and I know his voice. My ears are attentive to my shepherd. Those are words that we should say on a regular basis, not only because it is directly from the 10th chapter of John, but because we believe them, and we operate in them! God does want to give us specific direction. He isn’t hiding His will from us. He gives us liberally all the wisdom we need if we ask of Him. He even has given us the mind of Christ, so we can know in our knower what to do in every circumstance. He said His Word is a light to us! He doesn’t want us walking in darkness, so expect there to be light on your path, expect to be His sheep who not only knows his voice, but listens and obeys.

“Word of God Speak”, is a song you’ve probably heard on the radio. Another song by the duo Branded with a similar theme says this – speak to me words of life, speak to me words of truth, speak to me words of healing, to my heart, to my soul. I know just about every Christian I have ever talked to wants to be led by the Spirit of God. No one wants to take a misstep, or to walk the wrong direction, or to turn away from the will of God. We want to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to us. In my life, I have found when I need a specific word from God, in a specific instance or circumstance, when I take time to meditate on the Word, God will lead me by His Word that has already been planted in my life. His Word will speak to me! He will bring back to my remembrance what He has previously taught me when I was meditating on God’s Word. That means I can have confidence that when I meditate on the Word of God, even if what I am meditating on right now doesn’t apply to my life specifically right now, it is being stored up for future reference. So think of your time meditating on scripture like this….it is an account being stored up for future use., just like a trust fund baby! It is the best kind of account to have, because it is advance preparation for exactly what you will need in the future. How encouraging is that? It definitely encourages you first, but God can do the same thing for other people too! You can know inside your knower, (your spirit) that God wants you to share a specific scripture with a specific person. So be sensitive and be ready. Keep filling up the reservoir of your spirit so there is more than enough to give away at a moment’s notice!

One of the greatest things about meditating on the Word of God is that it makes day dreaming respectable! Isn’t it great that God wants us to sit and rest and think? God’s desire is that we mull over His Word, ponder it, think about it, wonder about how it applies to our life, and then actually do that; apply it to our life. This is easy to do, everyday, all day long. If I begin the day by thinking about a specific scripture, and say it over to my self a time or two, then when I have a moment to ponder, I do just that; I think about it. Then I ask if I am being obedient to what it says. Do I understand what it means? Sometimes straight from heaven, a fresh revelation will penetrate my heart about that scripture. Just by thinking about it, God will reveal some aspect of what I was wondering about, and shazam!!!, it becomes totally clear. Sometimes I’ll think about, ponder and meditate on one scripture for a week or more. It will be one that keeps coming up in my heart. One that has captured my attention for quite a while now is in Eph 3:20,21 where it says, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we could ever ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory, in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever, amen.” The three phrases that have captured me are “above all”, “power that works in us”, and “to all generations”. As I think on these verses, I realize that God wants to do powerful things on the earth that are way above what we can dream, that will affect all generations, through His power in us! Is that mind blowing or what! Think on that a while! That will encourage you!