All posts filed under: Faith

Thanksgiving in Every Step

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“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord And He delights in his way.” ~PSALM 37:23 The beauty of living our lives to the glory of Christ is that we can rest in the full assurance that no matter where our foot may fall, whether circumstances seem good, bad, or neutral, that our steps are ordered by God our Father. Now don’t misunderstand. This doesn’t mean that we, in our ‘good intentions’ can’t get ourselves off track and go places God never ordained or intended, because the truth is that we all have. What it means is that, if we find that we have made a bad step, the Lord is not only able but faithful to work that step to our good (ROMANS 8:28). He is able to turn what our own misguided direction wrought into something good. Let us give thanks for that! Let us give thanks that because we are now His righteousness through faith (II COR. 5:21, we are assured of always gaining victory. Let us give thanks that our repentance, turning …

The Triumph in the Trial by Briana Lassiter

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When trials come at us it feels very overwhelming in the midst of it, and the unpredictability of whether or not we will make it through can try to weigh on us and make it feel impossible to ever come through at all, much less successfully. However before we ever even entered the trial, we have the predicted outcome already set, as it says in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Now thanks be to God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and makes manifest the aroma of his knowledge by us in every place.” We can trust Him no matter what we are dealing with today, that in every situation He has an outcome of triumph for us. We can trust Him that whatever impossible situations we may face, nothing is impossible for Him, and He works all things together for our good because He loves us and has called us according to His purposes. Trust Him today to get you to your triumph, and allow the truth of what He Himself said to wash …

Thanks in Everything: The Art of Thanks Giving by Briana Lassiter

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Lately, the Lord has really been dealing with me on thanksgiving. Really it’s been about a straight year of Him actively teaching me about this topic and I kind of thought I had the hang of it until a couple weeks ago when He asked me to start thanking Him for the things that are not in my life. As a child of God there are things that God daily keeps from entering your life and harming you. In Psalms 91 He says that He gives His angels charge over you lest you strike your feet on a stone. He also says again in Psalms 121 that He is your keeper, He keeps your life and He keeps you from all evil. Sometimes it’s really easy to focus our prayers on the facts that we aren’t where we want to be yet or we still have healing to receive in certain areas that are causing us pain, and we forget to thank Him for the things that He has kept or removed from us. Whether …

Cultivating Steadfast Trust

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“You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.” ~ISAIAH 26:3 Steadfast. The word itself may evoke the feeling of self-effort, that you have to exert some strenuous force in order to accomplish some task or goal. And unfortunately, man has made the things of God, things meant to be freeing, into things that bind with the yoke of self-effort and righteousness. But the peace that I gain in this word, having steadfast trust, is birthed out of the truth that steadfast trust comes from a mind that is focused on the Lord. When we love someone, it is no great effort to gaze upon them, to sit in their presence. It is no great thing or effort to bask in their love and devotion and give that in return. The Lord Jesus invites us to abide in and with Him (JOHN 15). He tells us that He stands at the door of our hearts and wishes to dine with us (REVELATION 3:20). Just by reading these passages, we can’t help but see that the …

Jesus in the Leaves: Seeing Christ in the Season of Transition by Regina Hernandez

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Autumn and Spring are my two favorite seasons. I love them for so many reasons but mostly because they both represent transformation. My one complaint about Autumn is: it feels like the shortest of all the seasons, especially in the south where it seems to last only a week or two at best. One of my favorite facts about autumn is: the green in leaves of trees comes from the chlorophyll; so when a tree begins the process of dying for winter and produces less and less chlorophyll, the yellow and orange we see are the true colors of the tree’s leaves.  In the process of a tree dying, of losing life, we see it’s true colors. Those colors have always been there, they have just been hidden by the overabundance of life-giving chlorophyll. Even better yet, those true colors are a little different from year to year depending on how much the sun, heat, weather, and other factors have played a role in that tree’s life for the past three seasons. When I enter …

Making Friends with Failure by Briana Lassiter

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This year I’ve had the joy of attending several different conferences that were very interactive and learning was encouraged by the act of doing. The first time I went I quietly observed and didn’t participate much. In a new group of people learning new things, it was not my comfort zone to participate and risk making mistakes and I left with a lot of unanswered questions. The next conference, Jesus helped me to get out of my comfort zone and be very hands-on, and because of my participation, I left with a very different learning experience. It can be extremely uncomfortable making mistakes, but when you are in a safe place where mistakes are part of the learning process that everyone benefits from as you learn, it accelerates your growth in a way that quietly refusing to participate never will. If you are experiencing fear of failure and it’s keeping you from your own learning process, be assured that your mistakes will not keep you from your Father or His approval of you. Divorce yourself …

The Art of Thanksgiving Series

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“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.” ~PSALM 136:1 November has finally come upon us and with it comes the holiday season. We begin to prepare our hearts for the Season of Light, dedicating and celebrating with Hanukkah and remembering the birth of our Saviour during Christmas. But for those in the States, Thanksgiving is the crown jewel of November. But more than a day, more than dressing and turkey dinners, there is something to be said about thanksgiving–literally giving the King of Kings thanks for all that He is and all that He has done. Giving thanks should be more than just an event that takes place once a year or even a week. It should be something that its joyfully practiced in all seasons, every day, in the good and in the sorrowful. Journey along with us here at ICFTS as we explore the life-transforming glory and blessing of thanksgiving.

The Sacrifice of Praise: Faith Emotions pt 2

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“Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” ~HEBREWS 13:15 Have you ever wondered about the verse that says to give a sacrifice of praise? Have you ever wondered what exactly that meant or what that costs? I believe that most if not all of us have during the seasons of our faith-walks. I think the simplest and most profound answer to this is found in the exploration of our faith emotions, and how our valid emotions from circumstances, hurt feelings, broken hearts and disappointments, tend to dictate the trajectory of our praise or the lack thereof. THE DAM OF HURT FEELINGS Hurt feelings are a shared part of the human experience and oftentimes, no matter the cause or the culprit, they lead us to blame God for them. We not only shut off from men when we are experiencing emotional hurt and heartache but many of us tend to withdraw from our Beloved Father. Our lips close to anything but complaint and we …

The Power of Our Praise

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“Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated.” ~II CHRONICLES 20:22 We have to remember that when we take steps in faith, to do anything, even something as simple as going to bed each night at a decent hour, the enemy will act in the defensive and come against us. BUT praise the Lord (seriously, open your mouth and praise the Lord) that the battle is already won and is not ours but His! In this, we not only draw closer to our Daddy-God but we continue to advance in the manifestation of our victories. When we praise Him His presence fills our atmosphere (PSALM 22:3). When we praise Him, our minds are put to perfect peace because they have been set on Him (ISAIAH 26:3). When we praise Him answers come (II KINGS 3:14-17). When we praise Him the enemy is put to confusion and is defeated (II CHRONICLES 20:22). Let …

Confronting a Crisis of Faith by Briana Lassiter

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” ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’” ~JEREMIAH 33:3 We all experience a crisis of faith at different times in our life. During that crisis, we can do two things. We can stifle the questions out of learned religious behavior or the fear of being rejected by God, or even of fear of what we may find. Or we can ask those questions, and allow things in our faith to get ugly for a time until our questions are answered. If we ignore our crisis of faith or our doubt and unbelief, not only does it leave the door open for more doubt and unbelief to fester, it also closes off the possibility of our questions being answered if we refuse to ask. As He says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). If we just allow ourselves to ask God our questions, it opens the door for Him to speak the answers we need to hear …