Sunflower Faith

   
²³ Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. ²⁴ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. ²⁵ For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? ²⁶ For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:23-26, New King James Version)

Please feel free to share what scripture our Father may have shared or laid on your heart or share what this weeks “Praise and Worship” scripture means to you.

All I ask is that if you do participate, just “right click” and “save as” the linkback button on the side and link back here to Sunflower Faith and leave your name and link to your blog in the “Mr.Linky” below.

God bless you, Gentle Readers.

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 ⁷ For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7, New King James Version)

2 Timothy 1:7 seemed to just pop up everywhere yesterday. It was on Twitter, it was on Facebook, it popped up during casual reading.

Think that our Father in Heaven was sending a “text message”.

Timidity is something that I am pretty good at. I excel at. I could probrably get a Ph.d. and the trouble is that is not what He desires for us or wants us to excel at.

From the MHC it was shared:

The Holy Spirit is not the author of a timid or cowardly disposition, or of slavish fears. We are likely to bear afflictions well, when we have strength and power from God to enable us to bear them. As is usual with Paul, when he mentions Christ and his redemption, he enlarges upon them; so full was he of that which is all our salvation, and ought to be all our desire.

The call of the gospel is a holy call, making holy.

 Salvation is of free grace. This is said to be given us before the world began, that is, in the purpose of God from all eternity; in Christ Jesus, for all the gifts that come from God to sinful man, come in and through Christ Jesus alone.

 And as there is so clear a prospect of eternal happiness by faith in Him, who is the Resurrection and the Life, let us give more diligence in making his salvation sure to our souls. Those who cleave to the gospel, need not be ashamed, the cause will bear them out; but those who oppose it, shall be ashamed.

As I read this, it led to fruitful thought,”What if someone had been afraid to pray for or about me to come to know Christ?”

What if someone had been afraid to publish the bible or about Christ or share their faith, even if not directly but indirectly to me or anyone.

Shuddering at the thought, but to know Christ is to know strength and boldness and the truth is, that although, we ourselves do not save people, that is our Father in Heaven’s job, it IS our job to share His word with others through our words, our actions and our lives and hiding it bears no fruit for anyone.

A farmer does not grow his crops by hiding them under a tent, otherwise how else can they get the needed sun to help them grow; In the cover of darkness, they will perish and even the farmer, himself, will perish, from lack of profit and food.

Same goes with our maturity and growth and for hope that others will come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

This is not something that is to be hoarded and selectively given out. This is not something where we selectively decide who we will love or not love; our Father in Heaven does not selectively do that so who are we to do so.

Yes, it’s scary and nerve wracking and there is no guarentee of success, but that success is not for us to claim. If we do, it’s no longer about our Heavenly Father, but about us and well….the true and only glory is in Him and through Him, not us or in us.

When we go to Him and give ourselves to Him, we no longer belong or are ourselves, we belong to Him and our lives, words and actions should reflect that.

So as I hide under the blanket at this life changing thought that you, me, all of us was NOT given the spirit of timidity, ask yourself: Do you speak for Him with your life, your words and with your growth? If not…how do you (like I ask myself) throw off the fear of intimidation and being timid and speak for and about Him?

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¹² I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. ¹³ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
(Philippians 4:12-13, New King James Version)

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²⁴ Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

²⁵ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

²⁶ For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

²⁷ For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. (Matthew 16:24-27, New King James Version)

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  ¹ Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. ² And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
(Genesis 2:1-3, New King James Version)

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Ephesians 1:7, In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; KJV

The blood of Jesus! There’s nothing like the blood of Jesus when it comes to cleansing our soul from sin and guilt. As much as the blood and the forgiveness of sin have been preached, Christians still wrestle with receiving forgiveness. It’s hard for them to realize that their heavenly Father truly loves them that much. If you ask them if they have the Holy Spirit residing in their hearts, without batting an eye, their answer a resounding yes.

This is a clear indication that the blood has been applied, because the Holy Spirit can’t enter a vessel until the blood goes before Him.

The Holy Spirit wasn’t sent to enter man until after Jesus gave His life’s blood upon the cross. Forty days after His resurrection, he told the disciples that He was going to leave them, but they wouldn’t be left alone. He went on to tell them that the Father would send the promise of the Holy Spirit as a sign of His covenant with us.

The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are indeed a child of God. Another way to look at the struggle of so many is to address the faith, or the lack of faith… which gives us the ability to receive and walk in God’s forgiveness.

Their focus is more on their sin than on the faith to receive forgiveness.

There’s only one reason I can think of that would make a person feel unlovable and that’s unworthiness.

To this I would remind you of John 3:16, that God SO loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

This passage tells those who might struggle with their fleshly identity how much God values us in our fallen state.

 Through the blood of Jesus, the Father doesn’t see where we’ve been but where He’s taking us.

We are complete in Christ Jesus.

 I never know what the reason is for a particular devotion… all I can do is obey.

If this helps you to receive forgiveness, know that it was intended for you. You’re special in the sight of your heavenly Father.

Don’t allow the opinions of anyone else to distort what God has already said about you.

You are accepted in the Beloved. You can’t get a higher affirmation than that. So I will call you blessed and highly favored!!

From World Harvest Church North

” Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. “-2Timothy 2:15

Sunday Praise and Worship is a weekly meme that I had started but due to well…life, was unable to keep up with.

As I find myself refocusing and repriortizing the things in my life, the biggest thing was finding the much needed time, to spend with our Father in Heaven and His word.

There were and have been many things that have come up, of a personal reflection, that reminded me so much that of all the things we shouldn’t neglect in our lives, living and studying His word is one of them along with taking care of our family.

I’ve taken the time to create the following bookmark, that I pray and hope, I can have prepared to offer to you, Gentle Readers, as well, so that you can find time to spend in His word.

Something that I have used and discovered through another website, has been the,”Life Journal” which is a very insightful method of reading God’s word and encouraging the habit of spending time, each day with His word.

I highly suggested looking into incorporating the “Life Journal” in your scriptural reading, to help encourage yourself, to read God’s word each day.

If you, like me, have felt a “Spiritual Famine” in your life, this is one of many ways to bring life back into studying’ God’s word.

It is with prayer and hope that this simple bookmark can help encourage you to start reading your bible, or if you have thought of reading the bible as a whole, to be one of many ways that are out there to encourage you to start today.

Bookmark

To participate in Sunday’s Praise and Worship just add the Sunday Praise and Worship logo on your post using the following:

<br /><a href=”http://sunflowerfaith.com” mce_href=”http://sunflowerfaith.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii186/sunflowerfaith/worshipslide242.jpg” mce_src=”http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii186/sunflowerfaith/worshipslide242.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Photobucket” /></a><br /><br>Come to Sunflower Faith to join in with Sunday Praise and Worship.

Please don’t forget to link back here to Sunflower Faith and add your post link to the “Mr. Linky” that will be up Sunday Morning so others can come by your site and share in your “Sunday Praise and Worship”.

Hope to see you Sunday!

“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

The most dangerous thing to be is a perfectionist.

Being a perfectionist it’s easy to fall in the trap of giving up too soon, because hey, what you’re doing is going to fail anyway or it’s because of “fill in the reason” you can’t get something to work or go your way or you’re wrong anyway.

Allowing this to overwhelm your thought process, endangers your spiritual growth because it’s easy to feel like, “Well you fail, it’s not worth trying” or “If this happens and that happens, THEN I will go to church or read my bible or…..”

The trouble is that it’s because we allow ourselves to be imperfect,to make mistakes, to be wrong, can we really grow and part that also includes being honest with ourselves about how we really are and that often times, what causes a distance between us and our Heavenly Father…is well…us.

People who fail-well..truth is..they are usually the ones who learn the most and what defines them from failing is that they use their failures to keep moving forward.

They figure out where they went wrong, learn from it and move forward. The same with our walk.

No one is stopping us from having a relationship with our Heavenly Father and our imperfections doesn’t stop our Heavenly Father from wanting to have a relationship with us…so don’t just give up and accept that there is no hope or time.

Get up.

Read your bible.

Find a bible-believing church and don’t just hide behind a remote and think that is enough. Our Heavenly Father WANTS you to succeed in building a relationship with Him. He’s given you the tools to win the prize…use it.

Everybody fails. It’s part of the process that leads us to maturity and success. Most successful entrepreneurs have been through a number of failures in life, but they usually don’t think of their failures as defeats. They think of them as lessons.

My failures have served to help many people who are also experiencing failure in their lives. God will always have a redeeming value in our failures if we let Him reveal His life through them.

If you hope to succeed, learn everything you can from your failures.-OS Hillman for TGIF devotionals