by Tracy | Inspirational, Practical, Tuesdays With Tracy
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Matthew 22:37, KJV
We are triune beings – spirit, body and soul. From the moment you were conceived, you were a spirit. Your body was uniquely formed in the womb of your mother with the purpose to house your spirit and soul. Your soul is made up of your will, emotions, intellect and imagination. As believers, God’s Spirit within us is to reign over the soul and body, however this will not happen without the help of the Holy Spirit because the soul wants to dominate. Our soul is moved by what it sees, feels, hears and touches. It longs to be entertained and if we are not careful – our feelings, intellect, and personality can rule our lives rather than God’s Spirit.
Roberts Liardion states in his book, Sharpen Your Discernment, “An unharnessed soul wants to be the center of attention of everything. If the atmosphere is not exactly what the soul wants, it becomes depressed. If the soul doesn’t get what it wants, it becomes unhappy. If someone wrongs the soul, it becomes bitter. If someone hurts the soul, it becomes engulfed in self-pity. If the soul is in a hurry, it pressures everyone. If the soul does not like someone, it becomes rude. If the soul is rejected, it becomes obsessive or withdrawn. If something scares the soul, the soul worries. If someone has what it wants, the soul becomes jealous. If the soul thinks it has to please everyone, it becomes phony and deceitful.”
Our mind, will and emotions are gifts from God, but these gifts are never to dominate over God’s spirit within us. When trials come our way, it is vital that only God’s Spirit direct our plans. This is why we need to make sure that our body and soul are submitted under the Word of God and not vice-versa. It is extremely important that we hear directly from God concerning every area of our lives for such a time as this.
There are places God longs to take us. People God desires to touch through us. And God is currently repositioning His people for Kingdom purposes. So, let me ask you: Who is ruling your life? Is God’s Spirit reigning or are you allowing your thoughts and emotions to run your life? I can tell you from personal experience that when my thoughts and emotions rule my life, I live in a state of constant anxiety, confusion, fear and depression. But when I let God direct me and rule my soul, then I can remain in perfect peace no matter what is going on around me.
Prayer:
“Lord I ask that Your Spirit within me arise once again. I declare that my thoughts and emotions must submit to the Word of God. No matter what is going on around me, I declare that if God is for me, who can be against me.I give you permission to correct me and re-align my life for Your purposes for such a time as this. Amen.”
by Tracy | Bad Day Blues, Inspirational, Tuesdays With Tracy
“Many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not con-fess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.” John 12:42-43
“The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in God protects you from that.” Proverbs 29:25, The Message
There was a time in my life when I longed for the approval of man. I wanted to be a person of great importance. I drank in the praise of man and became intoxicated with what people thought and said of me. Yet my approval addiction was never satisfied and thankfully so because it brought me to the place of brokenness and total surrender to God. I have come to the place where I no longer desire the praise of man, but only to hear my Father say, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
In our society we are encouraged to glorify the accomplishments of man. Many strive to achieve titles, positions of power, wealth and to be deemed by the world as a noteworthy person. And although we are promised much favor and success as children of God, a lot of individuals believe that the praise of man alone will bring them a sense of worth. They crave to hear man say of them, “Wow, look at her and what she has accomplished.” This is true even in the Christian culture. There is often a mixture of longing to glorify God while also enjoying the seduction of the praise of man.
Let us be reminded today that the praise of man is temporal and it will never bring true satisfaction, hence why you continually see Hollywood and sports stars turning to drugs, alcohol, affairs and such. The only true satisfaction in this life is to have a relationship with God. And friend, God has already deemed you worthy! Through the Cross of Jesus, you are the righteousness of God and He loves you – the real you!
Friend, you can rest your head tonight knowing that no matter what man may think or say about you, God loves you! It is my prayer that each night you will fall asleep pondering God’s amazing love for you. Oh how He loves you! Jesus gave His life for you, what more could He give? Oh how He loves you and me!
Prayer:
“Lord, thank you for loving me. I acknowledge that there is nothing this world can offer me that will bring me true peace or satisfaction but You! I will choose this day forward to meditate on what You say about me. No matter what man may say, I am the righteousness of God, I am the head and not the tail and the blessings of the Lord will chase me and overtake me (Deuteronomy 28). Amen.”
by Tracy | Inspirational, Tuesdays With Tracy
“Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Luke 10:27, NKJ
As women we tend to wear a lot of “hats” everyday without even realizing it! We just know that we are exhausted each night – can I get an Amen? Within a twenty-four hour period women often fill the roles of: wife, mother, business woman, chef, chauffeur, counselor, daughter, aunt, bible study leader, school teacher, fashion consultant, friend and this is not comprehensive list by any means! It is no wonder studies have shown that women in America feel overwhelmed and dissatisfied. Needless to say, it is imperative that you take care of yourself!
Notice in the verse above that in addition to loving your neighbor (i.e. preparing meals for a family grieving, volunteering at your local church and listening to a friend in need), we are also commanded to love ourselves!
So let me ask you: Are you good to yourself? Do you take time for you or does everything and everyone else take precedence? I am going to guess that most of us reading this blog (including myself) often fall short in this area. But the truth is, if we don’t take care of ourselves – we will eventually reach the point where we can no longer function! When we find ourselves exhausted and overwhelmed, depression can creep in if we are not careful. So, if you are reading this today please know that I love you and I plead with you to take care of yourself:)
I give you permission to take care of you! Let’s start right now – I want you to think of something that you can do for yourself today… go ahead and think about it and then DO IT!
Prayer:
Lord, forgive me for taking care of everyone else, but me. I choose this day to take better care of me. You have entrusted me with a special purpose while here on earth and by taking care of myself – I WILL fulfill my destiny in Christ! Thank you God for this gentle reminder and I will love my neighbor as I love myself this day.” Amen.
by Tracy | Bad Day Blues, Inspirational, Tuesdays With Tracy
“For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers. Nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39, AMP
There is nothing you can do that will separate you from the love of God. His love for you is not contingent on what you have or will do, but it is solely dependent on the work of the cross. You don’t have to “do” anything to deserve God’s love, it has already been freely given when Jesus gave His life for you on the cross. When we give our lives to Jesus, He takes away our sin, sickness, and poverty and replaces it with His forgiveness, wholeness and prosperity for our mind, body and spirit.
No matter what you are currently going through – God loves you. You may be going through unbearable circumstances or you might have recently made the biggest mistake of your life, but God is and will forever be in love with you friend. God made you in your mother’s womb and He understands you better than yourself. It is when you are in a time of crisis or transition that you need to fall at the feet of Jesus and receive His love, mercy and never-ending grace. People will fail you, but God will never leave you nor forsake you.
There are many barriers that keep us from receiving God’s love. The enemy longs to torment God’s children with condemnation, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). He wants to weigh down the righteous with despair, but God has given us a garment of praise instead of a spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61). The devil desires to oppress us with fear, but God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). All authority over the enemy has been given to us. Jesus made a public spectacle of him through His death and resurrection and it is time that you and I take our authority in Christ and declare Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Friend, you are the righteousness of God and He is deeply in love with you. As our scripture tells us above, there is nothing – no height, no depth, nothing, that can separate you from His love. I pray you rest in this truth friend and receive all that He has for you this day and forevermore.
Prayer:
“Lord, thank you for loving me – all of me. I give you everything I am and everything I am not. You know what I am going through right now and I run to You today. I am in desperate need of Your mercy, grace wisdom and love. I take authority over every plan of the enemy in my life and ask that only Your plans succeed. I declare that goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Amen.”
by Tracy | Bad Day Blues, Inspirational, Practical, Tuesdays With Tracy
“Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.” Psalm 24:8-10
At one time or another we will come face to face with difficulties and trials. Even Jesus had to endure crowds that wanted to stone Him to death, people that spoke evil of Him and friends that betrayed Him, yet in every situation, He was rescued and Jesus did not leave this earth until it was His appointed time at the Cross. And friend, I want to encourage you today that no matter what you are going through, the same God who saved Jesus at every point and turn is the God who will also save you!
I will never forget when my liver began to fail during my senior year at Asbury College. I was twenty years old and fighting for my life. I literally fainted in the doctor’s office when she stated that my name needed to be placed on a liver donor list. I had already been through so much in my childhood and the thought of dying at a young age seemed surreal and yet all too familiar. For so long I had longed to take my life, but it was God who radically saved me and with every breath that was now within me, I longed to tell others of what God had done in my life! Thankfully, I was placed on Asbury’s intercessory prayer list and mighty prayer warriors went before God on my behalf. The truth is that others believed for my healing when I did not have faith for it myself. I was experiencing physical difficulties to the point that I could not even walk to the bathroom a few feet away without becoming totally exhausted.
Friend, there maybe times when others will have faith for your miracle even when you don’t. When this happens, simply receive their faith and let them believe for you until you can believe it for yourself. And you can rest in the fact that the prayers of the Righteous will alter your destiny and destroy every plan of the enemy.
It was when my doctor performed a liver biopsy (with no anesthesia I might add) that my miracle manifested. The physician team was amazed and perplexed when they discovered that my liver would in fact heal itself within a year’s time and that I would not need a liver transplant after all – our God is mighty to heal! I found out later that my testimony greatly affected my attending physician and she later left her practice to pursue her dreams – our God is mighty to encourage!
I can give you story after story of testimonies from my life and the lives of others that would further demonstrate the fact that God is a God of miracles, signs and wonders. I have seen God restore marriages, rescue those in deadly accidents, heal those sick in body and mind, and provide finances in time of need (I’ve literally seen cars given to those in need with no strings attached and I’ve seen bills miraculously paid). God is the One who can save, heal, restore and bring peace to your mind during the trails of life. I encourage you to run to Him today friend because He is mighty to save! Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty!
Prayer:
“Lord, I profess that even when I cannot see You with my natural eye, I know that you are always moving on my behalf. You are the God who is mighty to save. I give you every difficulty I am experiencing at this time and I ask that you strengthen me and put people around me who will believe in my needed miracle till the end. I also ask that you put women of faith around me to believe for my breakthrough even when I cannot believe for it myself. I declare that all things are possible with You. You are my refuge and strength, my God in whom I trust. Amen.”
If you are currently going through a trial and would like prayer, please click on the “Need Prayer?” button below and myself and my prayer team would honored to cover you and your confidential prayer request.
by Tracy | Bad Day Blues, Inspirational, Tuesdays With Tracy
“Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” John 4:13-15
As I enter the New Year it is my desire to give God everything that I am, but more importantly, I want to give God everything I am not in 2010. Although I have been blessed to achieve some goals in my life, what I am aware of most is my utter dependence on God and everything that I am not. I will be the first to admit that I have not always made the right choices and my failures are many, but through God’s amazing grace He has taken everything I am not and somehow, someway, used it for His glory. Bottom line, I shouldn’t even be alive today but thanks to God I am here and I will serve Him all the days of my life. As it states in 2 Corinthians 12:10 (NLT), “That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then He is strong.”
The Samaritan woman in our scripture above understood what she was not. She had failed in five marriages, she was not considered worthy as a Samaritan to serve Jesus a simple drink of water from the well that day, not to mention, the numerous disappointments she had experienced in life which brought lack in her mind, body and spirit.
Yet Jesus was not concerned about her accomplishments (everything she was) or her failures (everything she was not) in life. He was there to give her EVERYTHING HE IS which superseded everything she was not.
You see, it was the Samaritan woman who was in need of a drink that day. She needed more than what natural water could supply, she needed a drink of everlasting life. What she found out that day was that one drink from God’s well would quench the deepest thirst within her soul. This living water brought healing to her body and peace to her mind.
It is God alone who fills our longing to be loved because He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to earth. It is God who fills our hunger to be accepted because He calls us the apple of His eye. It is God who fills our need to be valued because He sees us as precious in His sight. It is God who fills our yearning to be cherished because His thoughts of us each day are more than can be numbered. It is God who fills our desire to be taken care of because our Father in Heaven shall supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory. And like the Samaritan woman, we to need to drink from the well of God.
What are you in need of today? What do you need in 2010? Whatever it is, God is your solution. He is faithful to complete the work which he begun in you. All we have to do is give Him everything we are and everything we are not and receive a drink from His well today. When we give God our everything, the rest is up to Him.
Prayer:
“Lord, I give You 2010 and ask that You take everything that I am and everything that I am not and use my life for Your glory. I am in need of a drink from the everlasting well of life today. Please fill my mind with you peace, my body with your healing power and my spirit with faith for the New Year. I declare that in my weakness, You are made strong. Amen.”
