Encouraging Word

Yesterday we talked about God’s Word being breath to us. We can breathe in The Word and be refreshed. Today we are going to talk about having a conversation. Take time every day, all through your day to talk to God. He loves you the most, and cares about every detail in your life. He like us to love Him back, and care about what He cares about. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he responded with the Lord’s prayer. When I used to drive our kids to school, everyday I would pray that with them on their way to school. We need to be reminded every day of the verses in Matt 6:9-13. Say it with me if you know it. Our Father who art in Heaven, holy is your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven, Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, AMEN! Breathe in His presence as your breath out your prayers today. It will recharge you from the inside out!

We are a three part being; body, soul (mind, will and emotions) and spirit. Most of us take care of our body, we eat regularly, and hopefully keep ourselves in good shape. We probably keep our soul in shape, but often we neglect the most important part of us. Our spirit. When our body is in charge, the physical calls the shots. When our soul is in charge, our mind, will and emotions call the shots. What we really want is for our spirit to be in charge, because then we can be Spirit led. That should be the goal of every believer. There are four areas that help our spirit be in charge, and the first one is to read our Bible. It is like plug, recharging us by breathing God’s breath into our world. His words are spirit and life, which actually means breath. So breath in some Word today, and make spending time in the word with your Heavenly Father a daily habit. Read it, meditate on it, memorize it, live it.

We ask all the time the question WWJD, or what would Jesus do? How about asking the question, WWJT, what would Jesus think? We know the process, what we think about is what we do. Attitudes lead to action. I love the scripture in Philippians 2:5-8 where we can see Jesus’ attitude. His thoughts are higher, and we are told to think like Him. I encourage you read these verses and make a list of the thoughts Jesus thought. Make them a part of your life, and begin living higher. What was Jesus’ attitude? He knew who He was, but made himself a servant, He humbled himself and was obedient, and because He was willing to lay down his life, God exalted Him. Those are some pretty awesome steps when it comes to following Christ. How can having His attitude change your world? I think you will notice changes in so many wonderful ways. Let’s have Jesus’ attitude, and expect His Spirit to personally recharge our life. Let’s think like Jesus.

Attitude changes everything. While watching the morning news a while back, they reported that an airplane had made an emergency landing on the highway right in Boise. That pilot was having a bad day! His altitude was affected by the attitude of the plane. You can tell I’m married to a pilot by my superior flying knowledge! Praise God no one was injured or died. For those of us who aren’t pilots, we appreciate that the laws of gravity can be overcome, and that airplanes help us arrive safely at our destinations every time! In our everyday life, we can make a change in our attitude and fly higher and accomplish more, with joy. The way we think, really affects all of life. It can change the way we feel, and it can change our actions. It will even change how we see others. Your recharge thought for the day; adjust your attitude, and soar.

Intro:
Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with your dailyeword. I think we all want to live in a way that people love being around us, just like people loved being around Jesus. People aren’t drawn to fake, inauthentic, self righteous, religious people. They are drawn to life-giving people who breathe energy, peace and joy into their world. Here’s some words to recharge your battery this week. Here is your dailyeword.

How is your attitude? Will you change your attitude please? I think I may have said those lines in our home to our anonymous teenager 100’s of times in the last few months. Being a parent definitely isn’t easy, and I am an advocate of watching attitude even more than action. Get the attitude right and actions will follow. It works for adults too. So how is your attitude? Do you need to change your attitude? How can we let our attitude reflect the light of God? Those are great questions to ask ourselves. We represent the King, and if Jesus really is Lord of our lives, our attitude will reflect Jesus. Jesus was real. He knew that being his best self required spending time alone with His Father. He was authentic. He asked for prayer when he faced His hardest season of life. He never was self righteous, and he was the direct opposite of religious. Although he was a Jew, and knew and participated in Jewish life, Jesus was more interested in connecting with people. Do you have someone in your world who will be real with you? Real relationships help us keep our attitude in check! If we are willing to adjust our attitude, we can be personally recharged, and then we can help recharge others in our world.

Is your love for God alive? How are you at loving the body of Christ? How about the people in your church? If you are on your way to church, or have already been to church today, what do you feel for the people who sit around you? Have you introduced yourself? Have you opened up your life to them? Have you asked how things are in their world? As much as we want to have people care for us, people all around you need care too. My sail gets filled by praying for others. Not just “going through the motions” prayer, but sincere heartfelt prayer, taking their need before the Father, and believing that things can change in their world. Circumstances can change, physical bodies can be healed, relationships can be restored, provision can be made, all because someone listened and took time to express the need to God. So make church and your small group, your recharge time. . God can do something amazing because we ask him to. And then he can use you to help recharge someone else.

What makes you special? I love the thought that everyone has the fingerprint of God on their lives. He has a special plan and purpose just for you. In the big picture of life, we can look around and think there are definitely people in my world who are way better at many things, but God still chose you He chose me. We do the best with what He gave us and then give it back to him. If we really want to experience greatness in the kingdom of God, there is nothing more vital than being empowered by the Holy Spirit. On our own we can do ok, but empowered by the Spirit of God, we have that X factor, we have the power source, we have the ability to go beyond our ability and do something great for God. So be filled, stay filled and get refilled like it says in Eph 5:18. The actual original text says be being filled with the Spirit. That means continuously continue being filled with the Spirit of God! That’s the x factor you are looking for! Sounds like your are ready to get recharged!

What are some ways that you feel refreshed and revitalized? I’m an outdoor girl, who loves the sunshine, so being outside with the sun on my shoulders doing anything, walking, hiking, skiing, biking, on the water, whatever it is, that is how I get recharged. I also know my drains. Computer issues, feeling overwhelmed with housework, or just work in general, or just having more things to do than time to do them in, not only drains me, but makes me feel stressed. So when I do have to do the stressful, draining things, I make time for the things that refresh me. So if it is just a few minutes outside in the sunshine between working on the computer for a few hours, or making a plan to actually go on a hike in the mountains during a stressful week. One thing we have to do is recharge our battery. Get some fresh energy blowing in your life. Do something refreshing today! Fill your sail and start sailing free.

We all have done this…we’ve done something thoughtless, or said something insensitive, or worse forgot an important date, and then we kick ourselves over and over and over. Sometimes we can be so hard on ourselves. One way to quit the self abuse, is to begin finding humor and laughing at our mistakes. It is way easier said than done, because we don’t want to appear that we didn’t take seriously our mistakes, but really, we all do dumb things. Give yourself a break. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Pick yourself up, and start laughing. We are human! Can you imagine how Peter felt after denying Jesus three times? I’m sure there was serious kicking of self going on. This Jesus who Peter and followed and loved, even warned Peter that this would happen, and it did. What a failure he must have felt like. What do you do when the worst happens? You pick yourself up, in Peter’s case, he got filled with the Holy Spirit, and a whole new man emerged. His past failures didn’t hold him back from a awesome future. God still used Peter mightily, and He wants to use you too. Get ready!

Do you live with purpose and focus everyday? I would love to answer yes to that, but all of us have our off days. How can we keep our sense of purpose and stay focused on what God’s plan is for our lives? One of the things that has helped me is to write it down, make it plain, and give myself reminders. In the book of Habbukkuk, it says, write the vision down, so that those who read it can run with it. Running with it, means make it come to pass. If we want to make things happen in our world, we have to have a bullseye to shoot at. With out a target, your arrows will never hit the bullseye. So take the time to write things out. Keep a notebook by your bed. If you get an idea in the middle of the night, write it down. I love the notes icon on my Iphone. I use it all the time. If I think of a sermon title, or a illustration, or even a hook for a song, I am writing it down right away, because when you don’t, it will go away. Even if you think you will remember, you probably will not. So write it down, make it plain, so you can run with it!