God gives us many visions, plans and purpose. Habukkuk 2:2Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.

Write it down.

Write down your plans vs what God has told you if you feel like you need clarity. Write down the vision he gave you.

You are special in his sight, he wants all of you, he gives you the vision so that in due time and season you may execute it. My advice to you this morning is to write down the vision!! Take it before the Lord and pray over it.

Many of us have dreams of being in ministry, travelling the world preaching to others, giving to the homeless, excelling in our craft, allowing God to use our gifts in major ways seen by many.In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. Proverbs 16:9

Seek God

Use your gift! And write his vision!

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, pelase allow me to see the vision you have for my life. May I write it down and begin to plan, I know you have great things in store for all of us. Help us to see things like you do, help us to look to you to establish our plans! In Jesus name amen.

Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful” Psalm 147:1

Some days we wake up heavy and already frustrated and flustered with the day. In the midst of these moments like the scripture says; worship.

As I read my daily devotion from Stormie Omartian’s “The Praying Woman”. I realise that praise and worship is a key part of my day. I must start the day with worship, worship during the day and end with praise and worship because God is to be glorified.

“Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Amen! I repent of this because truly we all need to worship God more and we don’t worship him as we should! Today’s reminder however, is to!

Sing and worship God today, right now in this moment open your heart and spirit to receive his goodness and just sing praises to him. He is more than worthy of our praise.

After all, here you are yet again, with your eyes opened, breathing, living.

Let everything that has breath PRAISE THE LORD!

Offer to God Thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most high. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me. Psalm 50:14-15

But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield. Psalm 5: 11-12

I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise^. I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your unfailing love and your faithfulness, for you have so exalted your solemn decree that it surpasses your fame. When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me.

Psalm 138: 1-3

Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me, and to the blameless I will show my salvation.”

Psalm 50:23

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

John 4 23-24

Ponder on these scriptures and truly when you worship and praise God from your heart today, your perspective will change, your heart will soften and you will note the bigger picture. God is to be praised lay your burdens down as you take the time to just worship.

I have realised that God uses some situations to test our faithfulness to him.

Do we give up easily as soon as something doesn’t go our way? How about you were faithful all year and God didn’t bless you with the car you wanted, or you didn’t get the raise you were praying for OR you are now in more debt than before because of an unplanned situation.

I can imagine it would put a spoke in your wheel and your faith may waver, but can we look at Faith for a minute?

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

The assurance of things hoped for

Even though the evidence is not there. The thing is, our faith should never be based on what we can see because that is what faith is all about, can you even see faith? Absolutely not.

I was reading Isaiah 1 KJV this morning and these verses jumped out. Verse 21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! It was full of judgement, righteousness lodged in it but now murderers.

Verse 23 Thy princes are rebellious and companions of thieves: everyone loveth gifts and followeth after rewards. Now these verses are from Isaiah the prophet speaking the words God had given him to the Israelites on their behaviour. I took away something from it and applied it to our everyday life.

Those two verses convicted me because it is true, some of us start off walking righteously and then we become caught up with receiving the reward and all the gifts that God’s hand can provide for us.

We lose sight, we forget our faith.

We become so caught up in being faithful or participating in “spiritual things” so that we can receive something for what we have done. It doesn’t work that way, thankfully God is good regardless. However, we need to learn to worship God, learn from him and walk in humility because he is Good not so that we can receive things. Isn’t that using him for his hand?

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

Prayer: Dear heavenly Father, let’s regift our focus to serving you because you are good, because you died on the cross for our sinful nature that would have easily carried us to death and destruction if not for your sacrifice. Let us focus on telling others about you, living in the freedom and love you have freely given us and walk in obedience to you a loving father. Let us walk in purpose and love rather than walking this walk in hopes that you would see an effort we made and repay us. We repent of this ideology and ask that we walk faithfully before not for what your hand can do but for who you are. In Jesus’ name amen.

Remember this, even if no one else sees God sees. Be faithful to him because you love him.

So, let’s discuss the submission issue.

If you’re like me you ponder about how God wants you to submit. We tend to look at Ephesians 5:22-24

“Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³ For a husband has authority over his wife just as Christ has authority over the church; and Christ is himself the Savior of the church, his body. ²⁴ And so wives must submit themselves completely to their husbands just as the church submits itself to Christ.”

But look at the beginning of the scripture

Ephesians 5:21 Submit yourselves to one another because of your reverence for Christ. We tend only to focus on the latter but forget the former part of this scripture. As Christians submission is #1 in our walk with God. Not only must wives submit to their husbands but Christians as a body must have a submissive heart toward authorities, mentors and leaders placed to guide us, family members who God also placed to guide us and most importantly to God. How can we submit to others if we cannot submit to God? This is key in a heart of humility and wisdom!

1 Peter 5:5

All of you be submissive to one another, and be clothes with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Submission takes a heart that is humble, willing and obedient.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33

We can only know true submission when we submit to God first. As we submit to his will, his voice, his guidance, it will become easier to submit to others whom he wants you to submit to.

It takes humility but it is TRULY rewarding to live in humility before God.

Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give an account.

Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. Hebrews 13:17.

Always ask God for wisdom on who to submit to but most importantly ask him to let go of any pride that is stopping you from doing so. Pride does nothing good for relationships or for yourself.

LET GO OF YOUR PRIDE.

I declare as you submit to God and others you will see your Godly relationships begin to flourish.

Prayer: Dear Father, give us the humility to be submissive, to you first as well as to others you have placed in our lives. Give us wisdom and lead us to trustworthy individuals that are placed in our lives to submit to. If there is any pride in our hearts in this moment help us to work on it for Proverbs 11:2 “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Thank you for your grace, in Jesus name, amen.

Romans 6

New International Version

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

⁵ 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.⁶ 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 ⁷ because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

The word says here in verse 6 that our old self was crucified with Christ. This means he bore our sin and shame FOR US. So we are now new creations because we died to our former fleshly desires and are alive in Christ’s new life and desires for us.

Therefore, must not claim sin as our own. We must not wear it proudly and profess that this is who we are after Jesus christ died for us to receive victory and freedom from the bandages of sin.

The word says we should not continue in sin just because grace now abounds, that is taking God’s grace for granted which will not happen forever. When we sin we are to ask for forgiveness and repent. Note I said when, because yes we are new creations through Christ’s death but we are still flesh and we mess up. The point here is not to stay there, but to continually crucify the desires of the flesh so that sin does not rule in our bodies but that we can live in the delivering power Christ died for us to have.

It is a step by step journey but if your heart’s desires are on him, he is helping you already.

ROMANS 6 :8-18

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹ In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³ Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

Romans 7

New International Version

Released From the Law, Bound to Christ

7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? ² For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. ³ So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

⁴ So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. ⁵ For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. ⁶ But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Be free, let us consciously live with the understanding that we are no longer bound slaves to sin, let us remember the ultimate sacrifice of love that christ died so that we don’t have to carry those burdens.

Let’s face it, sin only makes us feel worse, miserable and very heavy.

Lay them down and walk in the newness of who you are as a child of God.