All posts tagged: Monday Motivation

You are Sanctified in Truth

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“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” ~JOHN 17:17 What does it mean to be sanctified? The word is a part of our identity and position as new creations in Christ and blood-bought children of God, but few today understand what it means to be sanctified nor what it really takes to be sanctified. According to the Oxford dictionary, to sanctify or be sanctified is to be ‘set apart as or declare holy; consecrate, or to be free from sin and purified‘. The Word of God further proves this by affirming that we are in Christ and He is in us (I JOHN 4:10-13), that our old has past and we are now righteous in Him by faith (II COR. 5:17, II COR. 5:21, ROM. 3:20-26.) Christ Himself, before He went to the cross to cut this covenant of Grace and Truth with the Father on our behalf, prayed on our behalf that the Father would sanctify us by His truth and stated that His Word is Truth. Here is the beauty, we …

The Expectation of Suddenly!

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I have got to say that the Word of God is true! Our Beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ, does not lie and never has. When He makes a promise to you, no matter how long it takes BELIEVE! Believe Him! Right now I am in the ‘spring’ of my life! I am seeing the fruit from seeds planted YEARS ago growing and budding and I am beyond humbled and filled with an overflow of joy and thanksgiving! It is in these moments that ‘suddenly’ has joined me at the table. Suddenly the trees where naked and the ground wore its usually winter-green dress and suddenly, the scent of cherry blossoms perfumed the spring air and the ground beneath our feet became as decorated as an intricately woven Persian rug! Suddenly. The definition of the word is simply, “quickly and unexpectedly.” ** Our Savior has a beautiful way of ‘suddenly’ showing up in the midst of darkness and storms, walking upon the waters (MT. 14:22-33), suddenly walking among flames of fire that should have consumed you but …

Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones: The Beauty from Broken Roads

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“But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” ~JOHN 12:23-26 Our lives and the path we take when directed by Christ are always for a purpose. What we at times see as broken moments marred by death and loss, are oftentimes climax moments that Christ calls seed and harvest. When our Savior came to His time to be brutally beaten and then die on the cross for the world, He knew that out of His agony and death would come a harvest of a great …

Prosperity in the Word

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“He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.” ~ PROVERBS 16:20 Some translations of Proverbs 16:20 tell us that the one who heeds the word of God doesn’t just find good, but that he finds prosperity and whatever he does is blessed. Whichever translation you choose to commit to heart, the truth still remains, and that is that through Christ, and trusting in Him, are our lives blessed and prosperous. John 1:1 assures us that the Word is Christ and that Christ is God (REV. 19:13). When we love Him and we seek more of Him, and as we seek Him so does our desire to do what it is that He has instructed (JOHN 14:15, 23). When we seek Him in love, to obey His commands which is to love (JOHN 13:34) then we have made the decision not to lean on our own understanding or logic. We choose His direction and promptings not only in our walk with Him as a separate entity …

You Are Clean & You Are Loved: The Beautiful Position of His Bride

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“You are all fair, my love, And there is no spot in you.” ~SONG OF SOLOMON 4:7 You are beautiful. You are worthy. You are perfect. I love you. You are welcome. All of these phrases seem so simple, compiling of only three words in the English language, but each of them has the power to change the trajectory of a person’s moment, day, and even life. The thing about those phrases, the power within them, not only come for the words themselves but from the speaker of the words. Sure, we all enjoy a compliment or two, but when the words transcended surface appreciation and speak to the core of one’s being, that is when lives are changed … that is when Grace finds a home and thrives. When we read the Song of Solomon, we find a man beautifully and unapologetically in love with his bride. Even in the moments that she attempts to list her flaws, there he is speaking of her perfection and beauty and telling her passionately how he longs …

Recline in His Goodness

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“Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.” ~JOHN 13:23 Recline in My Goodness. Tell My people this.” These were the words the Lord Jesus spoke to me during a moment of worship. The moment He spoke the words, the remembrance of the season came to mind. He graciously reminded me that we are speedily heading into the Passover and Resurrection season and that just like with the first Passover, when many plagues were striking the land, that He was covering His people. Specifically, during the night of the first Passover, when the spirit of death came for the firstborn of the land, the Lord gave a few simple instructions in EXODUS 12: Take the blood of a lamb and cover your lintel so that the angel of death will pass over your home and not touch you Be dressed and ready to go Eat Basically, they were called to wait on the Lord and rest while ready to move when the time came for them to do so …

Staying in Shalom by Briana Lassiter

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As you read this, may the shalom of God cover you, keep you and enlighten you as you move from glory to glory, from grace to grace. ~Briana Lassiter I remember the first time the Lord told me that Shalom was not a location I would arrive at or something to achieve, it was a state of being. As it usually happens when the Lord tells me something new like this, I didn’t get it. When Jesus teaches me something, I like to know, “How does this practically affect my life, Lord?” Over the next few months, He began to show me that Shalom begins with a series of choices. It is almost an equation, x + y =? When x happens to y (you) what is the result? I believe every situation we encounter is a mathematical equation. If you don’t understand the process of solving the equation, it doesn’t matter what you come up with, you’re not going to get the right answer. However, if you know the process to solve the equation, …

He is Known in Praise: Lifting Up the Name of Jesus

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“In Judah God is known; His name is great in Israel. 2 In Salem also is His tabernacle, And His dwelling place in Zion. 3 There He broke the arrows of the bow, The shield and sword of battle. Selah” ~PSALM 76:1-3 When I read Psalm 76:1-3 recently, the Lord immediately led me to look up what He was saying via the translations of each of the places mentioned in verses. What I discovered by doing the word study was that our God is revealed and known in praise! We already know that He makes our praise His dwelling place (PS. 22:3), and thusly in His presence is fullness of joy and pleasures evermore (PS. 16:11). All of this is obviously beautiful, but it only comes as a direct response of closeness and closeness comes by communication, communication is a fruit of praise. KNOWING HIM IN PRAISE Here is the breakdown of the verses using the meanings of each location’s name and outlining the significance of each. v.1a In Judah God is known: God has …

Declaring All the Reasons You Can

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It is easy and practically the given norm of humanity to find all the reasons why we ‘can’t’ and shouldn’t do a thing that has been burning in our hearts to do. We can come up with the typical lists of why’s that range from financial restrictions, age, gender, and the all too famous stumbling block, time. We see and feel the burn for more, given to us by Christ Himself, swirling within us, and yet, like Moses we begin to tell the God of Creation who has called us to ‘speak’ that our mouths don’t work, as if when He called us and put that fiery seed to go forth in us, He didn’t know the so-called odds against us. In fact, it is because of those very odds that the Lord has called us to go forth and to do things that are seemingly impossible, things that take us out of our comfort zones, things that the word and statistics say we are disqualified to even pursue. “But God chose the foolish things …

A Reason to Rejoice

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“Rejoice always.” ~I Thessalonians 5:16 I‘m sure that whether you are a Christian or not, you have heard that the shortest verse in the bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” While this is true on one hand, there is a verse that rivals it for the two-word title and that is a passage found in I Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice always”. While the two verses seem to have a world between then in meaning, I want to encourage you of how they both give us a reason to rejoice and empower us to do so in the Lord God Christ Jesus. In John 11, we find Christ Jesus at the tomb of His beloved friend, Lazarus who has passed away, and Jesus, fully understanding the grief of those around Him wept along with them. He being, fully God, and fully Man took on the role of complete friend and shared in the sufferings of those around Him even though He knew what He was capable of doing as the God of all creation. Even with His …