The world’s ways can consume us like the suffocating world of smoke from the fires around us! It’s like pressing into the glass of your ice water in hope to get a breath of fresh air while escaping the heat holding your glass. How do we get a breath of fresh air in a world filled with so many different ways to find relief from the smoke? The smoke is like all the pressure around us from all sides telling you to do this, think this, run from that! It blinds you and even distorted what is right in front of you! How do we live in a world full of distractions that keep us on the purpose God has for us to do in the consuming smoke around us? We are called to live a life set apart from the ways of the world. John 15:19 NIV, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” Instead of searching wisdom through the internet, we need to be searching for God’s wisdom in the Bible!
How do we react when pressure in life is like wearing a mask in the heat while the air is filled with smoke? Do we stop and Pray and run to scripture (Bible) to find and match up what going on with what God says we should do or go with what feels right and even search for it in the internet? There so much controversy over who thinks what is right or wrong! The only solid truth that we can stand firm on comes from the Bible! We need to remember and be reminded! “Remember, your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:7-8). God is the same yesterday, today and forever.
We are seed planters everywhere we go either good or bad! How we handle pressure in this world is an opportunity to plant seeds to those who don’t know God’s love yet or water the seeds already there! We have an influence wherever we go and each day we choose who we will we serve. You can only choose one, because you can’t serve two masters. You will love one and hate the other. Matthew 6:24 NIV, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” What kind of seeds do we sow? The seed you plant comes from the master you serve, God or money (world) What you put into your mind comes out of your heart and it effects your choices. Do we sow in The Spirit, by loving God and everyone with love and respect or the flesh, love when you feel like it at the time or because you know your suppose to love. 1 John 4:18 NIV, We love because he first loved us. It is impossible to love without God because it’s His love in us that make it possible to love the way He loves. You cannot give someone a drink of fresh water when your container is empty. Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world,but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Father God, praying that we will be all You called us to be for your Will to be done on earth as it is in heaven for your Glory! Praying for for Unity as all our sisters and brothers in Christ cling to your ways and hold onto truth according to your living word in the Bible! As all, sisters and brothers, everywhere gather in prayer for one another be Unified in you, living for your purpose for our lives in everything we do to further your Kingdom. I meditate on your living words all throughout the day, it refreshens me (a breath of fresh air) way down deep in my soul, as “we are hard pressed from each side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV). I keep my eyes on you, Jesus who is the Author and perfector of my faith who has good planned! I trust everything you said in the Bible, that you want us to have an abundant life in you! All scripture is from your breathe! I will not give up on doing what is good because I trust in your plan and will drop my ways for only your ways! I will not overlook the urgency you put in me and all of us, to share the Good News about Jesus, your one and only Son who came to save all people, once and for all because you love all and want no one to perish but have life in you! I will fix my eyes on you even if things like when I slipped of the counter in the process of moving last year made it difficult to move around. I will lean heavily on you because I desperately need you to guide me day and night! As you fill me with your strength and not my own, I am able to continue and will never give up! Praying with All my heart, that I become lesser (i) as YOU become more in me to further your Kingdom Come forever with you in heaven!“Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21 NIV)
Psalms 1:1-6 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.1.1-6.NIV
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”
2 Corinthians 4:7-12 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/2co.4.7-12.NIV
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”
Romans 6:5-10 NIV
https://romans.bible/romans-6-8
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.12.1-3.NIV
