Encouraging Word

Don’t you love the word More?  We are talking about receiving more from God as we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, will cause an incredibly positive change in our relationship with God.  The Word of God will come alive, and you will begin to see and understand things you never noticed before in the Word of GOD.  Revelation will begin to flow! God wants us to receive revelation knowledge and to understand things in the Word of God.  We need this NOW.  As we pray in the Holy Spirit, we build ourselves up on our most holy faith, as it says in Jude 20.  We are enabled to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit as it says in I Cor 14:14.  We can pray the perfect will of God, without earthly interference.  It brings us rest and refreshing to our spirits and our bodies, and helps us keep our tongue in line with the Word of God.  No man can tame the tongue, but with the help of the Spirit of God, we can speak words that uplift and edify. It is a beautiful avenue of worship as well, and a way to give thanks and magnify God.  One of the most unusual benefits of praying in the spirit is that it is a sign to unbelievers that God is a supernatural God.  I Cor 14:22 says that it is a sign to unbelievers that God is present and very real.  Instead of being concerned about offending unbelievers, we should be excited that it will be evidence to them that we serve a living, powerful, amazing GOD.  How encouraging is that!

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Each year, I have ask God to give me a word for the year.  Last year’s word was joy, and boy did my joy get tested!!  More is my word for this year!  I was hoping it wouldn’t be more tears, more junk, more heartache!  Some of that has come, but I know the more God has for me has to do with more of what God has stored up for me.  He has treasures we haven’t even touched yet.  He has more blessings, more joy, more peace, more love for us than we could ever imagine.  Do you want more of God?  I sure do!  He wants more of us too! What does more mean?  It means added, extra, additional!  Whenever I think of more, I think of the scripture in Eph 3:20,   Immeasurably MORE than we could ever ask or imagine, according to His power at work within us!   In the amplified version more is translated superabundantly, far over and above all! If we want that superabundant, far and above MORE, we NEED HIS POWER at work within us!  We want that great power available, effective in its working as it says in James 5!  That is the kind of more I am believing for in my life. I hope you are encouraged to believe for more too!

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We are talking about desiring more of God, and how it led me to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Continuing on from yesterday…….What was so cool is that search happened just before I met my future husband, Lynn,  who already was a spirit filled believer. He was raised in a church that believed in being spirit filled, and he had been filled with the spirit since he was a 7 year old.  God had a plan! I was reading about being spirit filled, visiting a church that was positive about  being spirit filled and I became more convinced that I wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Once I was convinced, I went for it! I prayed and asked to be filled with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.  Being filled with the Holy Spirit changed my life forever.  It was a welcome addition to being part of God’s family.  The Holy Spirit in my life has enhanced my Christian walk in every way.  Because in Him, I have found the more I was looking for!  Since that time, my passion for God has only increased, and I am so thankful that what I prayed for has become such a vibrant part of my life.  Act 1:8 really is true, when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you receive power  and you become a witness for Christ. That happens right where you are and around the world if we go or are sent.  One of the amazing benefits of being able to pray in the spirit is that we can pray for things that we don’t know about.  If we feel the unction to pray, we can pray in the spirit and pray for people around the world.  What an encouraging way to live!

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Intro

Have you ever felt left out, ignored, unnoticed, underappreciated or even forgotten?  I’m sure we have all felt that way on occasion.   Hi this is Dorette Schaal with an Encouraging Word for your day.  Maybe even today you had some of those thoughts!  God doesn’t want that for you!  He loves you and enfolds you into his family.  You are important to your family and to your church family.  You are important to God!  He has not forgotten you! There is someone I think that many of us have left out, ignored, under appreciate and perhaps have even forgotten, and He is the Holy Spirit. As we talk about the Holy Spirit this week, let’s give him the place of honor he deserves! Hope you enjoy your daily eword.

 

Monday:

As a teenager, who loved God, I had a sincere desire for more of God.   I got saved at VBS between kindergarten and first grade and from that time, I have loved God with all my heart.  I had a desire to serve him, and felt a call to serve God full time, and I truly desired all that God had for me.  I loved my Bible, loved being in church, and I loved worshipping God – and I still do! I wanted to know God as deeply as possible.  So I started looking for more!  In the church I was raised in, the Holy Spirit wasn’t totally left out or ignored, but He definitely was in a box, and anything outside of the box was certainly unacceptable. In fact, I heard that being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues was evil.  I knew in my spirit that couldn’t be right.  I knew the MORE that I wanted was to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  I knew in my spirit, that what I had read in the Bible about the Holy Spirit, and Him begin present at the beginning  of the New Testament church was going to be an important part of my Christian walk.  My longing for more led me on a search that ended with  becoming filled with the Holy Spirit. I looked for more and I found Him!

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I love talking about the House of God. I have loved church all of my life.  When the church door swings open, I swing on in! I would be there all the time if I could!  I think I love church so much, because it has all of the elements I think you would find in heaven.   It is a place of beauty and order. Being a music lover, I love worship with instruments, with voices in choir, or praise and worship teams, all kinds of music that I’m sure is evident around the throne of God in heaven.  I love the reverence you feel in church, because people are getting fed the Word of God which is able to save their souls, it is like a feeding trough for faith. I love people being saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, sharing their faith, growing in God, and making disciples. I love seeing people become fruitful as they learn about taking dominion of the earth, operating under submission to the Father and exercising the authority that Jesus told us to operate in. I love church being a place of encouragement for the body, where people finding solutions and answers to life issues, and learn to have a prosperous soul. I especially love church when joy is abundant, jealousy is non existent, and where people feel like they’ve experienced heaven on earth.  Just like a plant that will only flourish when it is planted, so it is with our spiritual life.  We grow and flourish in life, when we are planted! We can do that when we are plabted in Church! I hope you love to put down roots, and are growing lasting fruit, in your life.  That is what I call heaven on earth!

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. That scripture is found in  Ps 92:12-14.  One of the greatest goals in my life is to encourage people to flourish in life, and this scripture tells us how to do it.  If we are planted in God’s house we will flourish…..hummm, flourish, that sounds a little bit like experiencing heaven on earth! Flourish means to thrive, to prosper and to be in peak condition.  That is my desire for every one of you.  What is very cool is that is God’s desire for you too! In  III John verse 2, John penned these words inspired by the Holy Spirit….I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all will go well with you, even as your soul is prospering.  Soul prosperity is having a mind that is renewed to God’s Word.  It is making choices that lead to abundant life.  God gives us the opportunity to taste heaven on earth – that is flourishing.  We can flourish more and more as we grow deep roots in the church body where God has planted us. The positive consequences of putting our roots down in the House of God, is that our whole life can flourish! We will have a good root system, become a strong tree, with great tasting, lasting fruit. It’s the kind of encouragement we all need to hear!

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This is the day of destiny.  The day that Jesus was born for was the day He would die on a cross.  It’s hard to see the sweet baby Jesus and realize that He was born to die.  In most all of the world, this is a sad day.  As Christians we take this day to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross of Calvary.  It is Good Friday, but it is also destiny Friday.  When we think about having an intimate relationship with Jesus, the reason we can is because Jesus was willing to take on the weight of the world, through the stripes across his back, and through the crucifixion.  The proof of His love for us was the scars that he bore on his body.  They were also proof of the resurrection.  He bore the marks of death, but was dead no longer! Maybe you can use today to think about the hurting people around you.  They have scars and wounds.  God put you in their world to be his mouthpiece.  Tell them about his love, and his healing power.  Usually the very thing you have overcome in your life can be an avenue of blessing in someone else’s.  One of my favorite verses is in II Cor 1:3 where it says that the very areas you have received comfort from the Lord, He will use you to comfort someone else.  You really do become a minister of reconciliation to your world.  That’s the power of the cross.  That’s the power of knowing the love of God.  That’s the power of obedience!

 

If you live in the Magic Valley area, we invite you to join us for Easter services this weekend at Amazing Grace Fellowship.  With Saturday night services  and two Sunday morning services, it is easy to find a time that works for you.  AGF could be a great fit for you and those you love.  So join us at AGF, every weekend at one of our 3 main services.  We are proclaiming the goodness of God!

How can we make what Jesus went through be effective for us?  When we see His struggle in the garden of Gethsemane we see what we might call the flushing out of the flesh .  We all would rather take an easy path.  It is the path of least resistance that we prefer.  Discipline, self control, and patience are all part of walking the path God has for us.   The path Jesus took wasn’t easy.  His flesh wanted another option.  I think we have all been there on a much smaller scale.  We may want to do one thing, when we know that something else is the plan of God for us.  Jesus wanted to redeem the world, He just wanted to make sure that this really was the only way to do it.  When He said, “not my will, but Thine be done,” he was saying, I won’t choose the selfish path.  I choose the path of righteousness.  That can be our response as well, when we are faced with decisions.  Often our decisions to follow God really are just an act of self denial.  To think that Jesus was willing to sacrifice it all demonstrates the kind of love that He had.  “Amazing Love, how can it be, that my king would die for me.”  So our encouragement today is that whatever decisions we need to make to have intimacy with Jesus Christ is well worth the effort.  Take time today to meditate on His Word, to look introspectively, and then to celebrate all that He has done for you so that we can have complete communion with Him.

 

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Chosen, accepted, established. What a wonderful place to be in Christ. We become chosen, accepted and established, not by our works, but by His work in us.  It is time to just receive the love that God has for us.  When we are in His Presence, we benefit  the most when we take time to just receive the love of God.  Love was manifested in a manger.  Love was crucified on a cross.  Love was raised from the dead to bring resurrection life to us.   Jesus is love personified.  Through Him we are accepted, forgiven, and received into the family of Go d. His love is placed in our heart, and that heart to heart connection is what breathes life into us.  We get to experience intimacy with God all because of Jesus’ willingness to pay the price for our sin.  Once we are where God wants us to be, we can begin to love like Jesus.  The people in our lives get to experience the love of God manifested through us.  We get to let them know they are chosen, accepted and totally loved.   We then get to see the power of God at work in the lives of those who we come in contact with.  Let’s be aware, and have our spiritual senses fully awake and alert.  Someone you know needs to know they are loved and accepted.  Jesus made the way for them, and He wants to use you to be his hands to them on earth!

 

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If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you will bear much fruit.  Apart from me you can do nothing. Jesus spoke these words in John 15:5. Have you ever noticed that a tree or vine that has no life in it, bearing fruit? If there is no life, there is no fruit.  If we want to be fruitful, life must be flowing from the vine into the branches.  As Christ’s followers we have been grafted into the vine.  Our life flow as a “branch” is now connected to the source. Our source of life came because of Calvary. Because of what was accomplished on the cross, we can spend time in the presence of God.  We develop that heart to heart connection when we are joined together, intimately connected through fellowship on a daily basis.  His life is indwelling in us! We are a branch firmly fastened to the vine.  It is a heart to heart connection.   Just like with the flow of blood in our veins, life continues.  With the vital connection to the vine, life flows through us to produce godliness with power!  (2 Tim 3:5!)

 

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