Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
How many of us are feeling light and easy on a Monday morning?
Do you find yourself in any of those categories? Are you in a relationship right now that is a constant drain on your time, energy and finances without adding anything valuable back into your life? Do you say yes to projects because you don’t know how to say no and then find yourself wishing you never signed up?
If you find yourself in a state of being perpetually tired and stressed, ask the Lord to reveal why you are experiencing that. Ask Him how you should address those areas. He will show you how to prioritize the activities and release the baggage you have if you follow His instructions.
To be stressed is to not trust God. Trust Him with every detail of your life. You have seen how the vision for your life is coming to fruition. Why would God leave you hanging now? Give all that doubt and negativity to Him and exchange it for joy and peace of mind instead.
Matthew 11:28-30 (New International Version)
28″Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
God has a plan for your life and that plan never changes. What changes is you! You can ignore the plan, run from the plan, trip yourself up, get lost somewhere in the wilderness, blame God and everyone around you, but He still has the blueprint in His Hand. The longer you run, the longer you delay entering the blessedness of His Will.
The Lord has given you the ability to choose. Are you happy with what you have chosen? Do you see His peace, joy and love unfolding in Your life? Or are you experiencing the same things day in and day out? Do you find yourself continually caught up in drama and conflict with other people? Do you wish for the spotlight and the praise of others?
When your actions are based on a desire to please man rather than God, you are not in line with God’s will. You cannot receive God’s best for your life if you are trying to impress people! Is this hard to understand? Who gave you your life? Who has the power to transform your life?
God is the only One who can transform your life. However, this will not happen unless you really want it. If you want to change, you have to be willing to put people-pleasing in the past. As long as you are trying to impress someone, you are only performing. You have no real relationships because you are not real. Most of the people you are trying to please do not love you, possibly because they have never met the real you.
The God who loves you has a plan for your life that you may not even be able to imagine right now. He has the best things in store specifically for you. He is waiting for you to accept His Will. It does not matter how much time you think you have wasted or how much you may have messed up. God didn’t rip up the agenda. He knows how to redeem the time and get you up to speed. Just surrender to Him today.
Lord I thank you and I pray for my brother and sister reading this right now who genuinely want Your best for their life. I pray that You would remove the distractions and the voices that discourage them from being all that they can be. Help them to see themselves through Your eyes, Lord. Allow them to feel the warmth of Your love and know that You will be with them every step of the way. I pray that they would surrender to You and allow You to transform their lives. Remove the weights Lord, remove the shackles that hold them back . Free them to be complete in You today Father. In Jesus’ Name! Amen.
Hebrews 12:1-3 New Living Translation
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. 3 Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.
I was recently looking at a venue with the intention of holding an event there and I was somewhat disappointed with the setup of the room. I am usually able to look beyond the way something appears at the moment and see the potential in it, but I was having a hard time seeing how this space could transform into what I needed it to be.
It was not until I returned to the room on a different day when the sun was shining and most of the furniture had been cleared out of the room that I began to see how the vision could unfold in that particular space. The prior setup had actually obstructed my view of how that space could really be used. I needed to see the room as a blank canvass, ready to be designed and created into something entirely new and different.
I reflected on how my view of the space had changed when the old setup was removed and I was able to see it in the light of the sun. I thought about how this happens in other areas of my life. God may sometimes show me a vision of how something will be and I cannot conceive of it because I am trying to understand it in the context of my prior experiences.
I realized that even though I have submitted my life to Jesus Christ and now have access to a new covenant with God, I don’t always see myself as a new creature. I still need to make a clean sweep of my preconceptions and view life in the light of the Son who makes all things new.
God is able to transform a seemingly useless, dull life into something shining and magnificent. He can turn an impossible situation into something miraculous. He can take what is cold and ugly and transform it into something lovely. He has done that for me many times over and I know He wants to do the same for you.
Access the promises of God through His Son in your life. See your life in light of the new covenant that God has made with His people. See how He has washed you in His Blood and is transforming you day by day in His glory.
Hebrews 9:11-15 (The Message)
But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven’s “tent”—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all. If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.
Here I am at this crossroads once again. How many times have I stood in this spot? Why am I here again? There must be something I missed in the directions you gave me, Lord. What street was I supposed to turn down? I don’t want to keep revisiting this awkward place. I want to move forward to my destination.
Even though I feel uneasy here, I’m standing still. I don’t want to rush ahead and get lost. I need to hear from You before I make another move, so Lord, I am waiting for Your guidance. I am not going to panic because I know Your plans for me are good and I want to be in the center of Your Will for my life.
Speak Lord. What would You have me do? How should I respond? I don’t want to handle this the way I have in the past when I did not place my trust in You. I am inclining my ear to Your Voice and Yours Alone. You have the blueprint so You know how this thing should go. Thank You for Your Love, Your Protection and Your Peace, that is beyond my understanding and guards my heart and mind.In Jesus’ Name, Amen!
Psalm 23 (New International Version)
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
We have been redeemed by the Love of the Father, washed and made new by the Blood of Jesus. In His Presence He reminds us of the bright future that He has in store for us and we are filled with hope. So what’s next? How many of these encounters do we need with the Holy Spirit before we believe what God says?
We can keep second-guessing God or we can start walking in the favor He has bestowed upon us.
Believe that He is faithful to complete the work He started in you. Believe that He will prepare you for the place He is bringing you to. Walk with your head held high because Christ in you is the hope of glory! Know that you are the righteousness of God and confess it over your life daily.
Thank You Father for this brand new life You have given me. Thank You for stirring up all the gifts You have placed in me and thank You for going with me as I step into destiny!
2 Corinthians 5:20-21 (Amplified Bible)
20So we are Christ’s ambassadors, God making His appeal as it were through us. We [as Christ's personal representatives] beg you for His sake to lay hold of the divine favor [now offered you] and be reconciled to God.
21For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [[a]endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].
Where I live, we believe that “April showers bring May flowers.” I think the hope of the beauty that arrives in May helps us cope with the dark, rainy days in April.
However, our hopes seem to have been shattered this year as April showers turned into May showers, which turned into June showers. Here we are almost in July and its still raining! Not surprisingly, I’ve heard several talks of a new Ark being built.
All this rain from the start of Spring to the start of Summer is pretty unusual and I do not believe in coincidences. So I found myself asking “Lord, what is the meaning of this? What are you saying with all this rain?” I waited for His response. I began thinking about how many plans have probably been changed or canceled throughout this region during the past couple of months because of the unexpected rain. A few events I was scheduled to attend needed a rain date for the rain date!
So what do you do when God steps in and completely “changes the plan?” Is He really changing the plan? Perhaps what we were anticipating was never part of the plan at all. We may be looking for flowers when God has a bigger harvest in mind.
Take some time to find out what God is saying to you about this season of rain. If you are experiencing unexpected delays due to a stormy season in your life, ask the Lord for your rain date. He will tell you whether it is time to move forward or be still. He will reveal the next steps, in His timing. Trust that His plan is still better than yours!
Proverbs 19:21 (New International Version)
Many are the plans in a man’s heart,
but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.
Lord, I am coming before You right now because I do not want to lose focus on You. I want to stay right in the center of Your will. It seems like just when I think I know how your Plan for my life is unfolding, everything changes. People do not do what I expect them to and the things I expect don’t always happen.
Sometimes I wish I could see the end in all this. Where will this lead? What does this all mean? Yet and still, I trust You. Even though I do not have all the answers, I will be obedient and complete the tasks You have given me. I will keep my eyes focused on You.
So many times I could not understand what You were doing but You worked out every situation better than I could have imagined. I used to think that I could see the bigger picture, but I forgot that You hold the picture and all of its details in Your all-powerful Hands.
As long as I keep my eyes on You, I do not have to worry or be afraid. You are taking care of me and I will see Your goodness in the land of the living! (Psalm 27:13)
Psalm 27:8 (New King James Version)
8 When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
