For Christmas, Mark got me The Message bible. It was the only thing I wanted. It feels like I am reading the Bible for the first time as I read it in my everyday language that is opening a whole new world of what God is speaking through His Word. One book that I have always turned my head sideways on because of not fully understanding all that Paul was writing about was the book of Romans. It’s got some brilliant scripture but also has writings that I might as well be reading Chinese. Lol!! Well, The Message has totally changed that and I’m having one ‘wow’ moment after another.
Romans 5:6-11 – is a must read in The Message. You would think that I actually have an endorsement with them. Lol!! Okay, so get this: Your morning routine involves waking up, getting ready and picking out your clothes for the day before you head out to face your world. You would never think to only get ‘half’ ready….like, wash one half of your face, only put deodorant on one armpit, wear one sock, put on your shirt but leave your pants off, wear a shoe on the foot that doesn’t have the sock on, put lipstick on half your lips, brush only the bottom of your teeth, gel only one side of your hair. I’m sure you are getting the picture by now….…now flipside that and think about your life spiritually. When God brought His son to die a sacrificial death for our lives, WE WEREN’T READY YET. We didn't have all our ducks lined up in a perfect row. We had sin issues, selfish ambitions, anger, pain, and hardships that had scarred us. But to show how brilliant God is,He so knew that we’d never be ready so to wait on us would’ve been futile so He took a massive step of ACTION that would forever change us. Taken from verses 6-8 - “He didn’t and doesn’t wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway…….but God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of NO USE whatever to him.”
If you walk around feeling like you are unworthy, always a sinner, never getting it right, don’t have much to offer….guess what? God took you in anyways, when you weren’t even truly ready to be of any good use to Him and because of that sacrificial death that God offered us through the death of His Son, Jesus, we do not have to ACCEPT the feelings of unworthiness, what-good-am-I kind of thinking, feeling like you are a scum of the earth because it goes on to say in verses 9-11 – “there is NO LONGER a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!”
He took us exactly how we were, not ready…and from our worst state he turned it into our best. My brain can’t fathom how totally cool God is and how deep and wide His love for us really is. So, today, I challenge you – start walking out the ‘best’ that GOD did for you when He gave us His son to die for you. Stop reflecting so much on where you were and where you've been, or even what you did wrong just a minute ago, and start moving forward to where you ARE and where HE is taking you.
Only Moving Forward,
Tracee
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Tools, Cars and Reality T.V.
Sitting here in my bedroom which feels like it's all I have done the past 3 days while I battle out this sick bug that's overtaken my body. lol!! So, what have I been doing during this down time? I have been doing a lot of music research on all sorts of bands and individual singers. It leaves me so inspired as a singer-songwriter. I wish I had a grand piano in my room! Nothing inspires me more than doing what I was created for. Using the gifts that God has given me and allowing Him to be the words I pen on paper and the musical notes I play on the piano.
This has caused me to think about each and every one of us. We all have a tool, a gift that God has given us to use for His purposes and His glory in this life He has given us. The purpose of using this gift is to shine the light on Christ, not us. Okay...so I am sooo not the mechanic but think of a tool that is used for a car. (stop laughing, I promise this 'thought' will work and you'll get what I'm talking about! lol!) The tool is not what you are going to ooh and aah about, it's the car. The tool is just a part of the process that makes a car do what's it's meant too. Now remember, I have been sick so if I'm not all making sense, you'll understand why. haha!!
Totally inspired by the story of Keith Green and the short 28 years he lived on this earth.....he wrote this:
"God gives us each our own unique tools. But we may never use them if we become more interested in someone else's. Seek God, ask Him for His plan for ministry (true, God glorifying ministry) in your life."
So, what is your gift? What are you doing with it? Don't waste your precious time wanting to live out someone else's dreams....this is one reason why I find reality t.v. a complete waste of time because you are watching other people live out their lives when you have one to live out yourself. Life is more than just going to your 9-5 job. It's what you do inside that 9 to 5 job, how you live, what you say, how you love and reach out that makes the difference!! YOU are the tool that will show others to Christ. Yea, it's really that simple. Find your dream, find your gift....it's already inside of you...waiting to be discovered, waiting to impact this world for Christ.
Living out His dreams...
Tracee
This has caused me to think about each and every one of us. We all have a tool, a gift that God has given us to use for His purposes and His glory in this life He has given us. The purpose of using this gift is to shine the light on Christ, not us. Okay...so I am sooo not the mechanic but think of a tool that is used for a car. (stop laughing, I promise this 'thought' will work and you'll get what I'm talking about! lol!) The tool is not what you are going to ooh and aah about, it's the car. The tool is just a part of the process that makes a car do what's it's meant too. Now remember, I have been sick so if I'm not all making sense, you'll understand why. haha!!
Totally inspired by the story of Keith Green and the short 28 years he lived on this earth.....he wrote this:
"God gives us each our own unique tools. But we may never use them if we become more interested in someone else's. Seek God, ask Him for His plan for ministry (true, God glorifying ministry) in your life."
So, what is your gift? What are you doing with it? Don't waste your precious time wanting to live out someone else's dreams....this is one reason why I find reality t.v. a complete waste of time because you are watching other people live out their lives when you have one to live out yourself. Life is more than just going to your 9-5 job. It's what you do inside that 9 to 5 job, how you live, what you say, how you love and reach out that makes the difference!! YOU are the tool that will show others to Christ. Yea, it's really that simple. Find your dream, find your gift....it's already inside of you...waiting to be discovered, waiting to impact this world for Christ.
Living out His dreams...
Tracee
Saturday, January 8, 2011
I AM
I love reflecting on who God is, how powerful He is, and what He longs to do in our lives and through us. He is simply beyond amazing!! So much so, we can’t even fathom the greatness of who He is. So, I was reading an email that my friend, Shelly, sent me and you guessed it….my brain got to going on God as our I AM. What does that mean? Imagine it this way:
I am:
• The truth
• The life
• The way
• Your healer
• Your covering
• Your fortress
• Your King
• Your Lover
• Your Peace
• Your Creator
• Your Salvation
• Your help in the time of trouble
• Giver of every good and perfect gift
And the list goes on….
When we hold onto life’s difficulties, anxieties, worries, stresses, sin, pain, grief, confusion, feeling unworthy, feeling lonely…..it doesn’t allow God to be the I AM of your particular circumstance. Instead, your I am IS your circumstance.
What happens when we release our circumstances and allow the I AM to take over:
1. We take captive every THOUGHT that is not lined up in agreement with God’s word.
2. We demolish strongholds that seek to destroy our lives.
Surrendering your daily circumstances to God allows you to hear HIM better.
Check this out what a deep friend of mine, Shelly Trivette, who is our Children’s Pastor at The Bridge, wrote:
‘Anxiety sounds like a riot to our spirits...we cannot hear Him when we are anxious. Anxiety causes other things like unwarranted guilt. Anxiety is the worst of thieves. This is a command: Be anxious for nothing. How do we do that? We surrender (we believe Him) and we are thankful. We believe so that we can see. I am talking like I know that it is easy. I know better than that. I have so many irons in my fire that I don't know whether I am coming or going....and I have so many people that depend on me. I have had some times where things press on me so hard that I couldn't figure out how to surrender to Him. So as a symbol, I would grab it off my chest and offer it up to heaven. I would do it again and again and again. There was a particular day when...I cried out to God, “Help me, I don't know how to do this.” He took my mind to that story where He was able to sleep through a storm on the boat, dead asleep in the middle of a storm. I said, “Lord, how were you able to sleep in the storm?".... He slept in surrender to the Father. He believed in the Father so much that He could lay His head down in the storm and sleep like a baby. He was connected so deeply to the Father that He understood the authority He had been given to say "Peace be still to the storm." We have the same authority if we walk in the same surrender to the Father. So that when our hearts storm like that...we can sleep like a baby...because He is our Peace we can be thankful. It is a decision we make. We can walk on our fear like He walked on the water.’
This is long but I couldn’t keep any of it out!! Ephesians 1:3-14 MSG reads -
"How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life."
So, 2011 is only 8 days old….start it off by releasing the Great I Am in your life in a way you’ve never done before….and I promise you, by the end of this year, your jaw will be dragging on the ground in complete amazement as to how phenomenal God is. He is YOUR I AM.
So, what do you need today? He’s waiting….
Tracee and my friend, Shelly
I am:
• The truth
• The life
• The way
• Your healer
• Your covering
• Your fortress
• Your King
• Your Lover
• Your Peace
• Your Creator
• Your Salvation
• Your help in the time of trouble
• Giver of every good and perfect gift
And the list goes on….
When we hold onto life’s difficulties, anxieties, worries, stresses, sin, pain, grief, confusion, feeling unworthy, feeling lonely…..it doesn’t allow God to be the I AM of your particular circumstance. Instead, your I am IS your circumstance.
What happens when we release our circumstances and allow the I AM to take over:
1. We take captive every THOUGHT that is not lined up in agreement with God’s word.
2. We demolish strongholds that seek to destroy our lives.
Surrendering your daily circumstances to God allows you to hear HIM better.
Check this out what a deep friend of mine, Shelly Trivette, who is our Children’s Pastor at The Bridge, wrote:
‘Anxiety sounds like a riot to our spirits...we cannot hear Him when we are anxious. Anxiety causes other things like unwarranted guilt. Anxiety is the worst of thieves. This is a command: Be anxious for nothing. How do we do that? We surrender (we believe Him) and we are thankful. We believe so that we can see. I am talking like I know that it is easy. I know better than that. I have so many irons in my fire that I don't know whether I am coming or going....and I have so many people that depend on me. I have had some times where things press on me so hard that I couldn't figure out how to surrender to Him. So as a symbol, I would grab it off my chest and offer it up to heaven. I would do it again and again and again. There was a particular day when...I cried out to God, “Help me, I don't know how to do this.” He took my mind to that story where He was able to sleep through a storm on the boat, dead asleep in the middle of a storm. I said, “Lord, how were you able to sleep in the storm?".... He slept in surrender to the Father. He believed in the Father so much that He could lay His head down in the storm and sleep like a baby. He was connected so deeply to the Father that He understood the authority He had been given to say "Peace be still to the storm." We have the same authority if we walk in the same surrender to the Father. So that when our hearts storm like that...we can sleep like a baby...because He is our Peace we can be thankful. It is a decision we make. We can walk on our fear like He walked on the water.’
This is long but I couldn’t keep any of it out!! Ephesians 1:3-14 MSG reads -
"How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life."
So, 2011 is only 8 days old….start it off by releasing the Great I Am in your life in a way you’ve never done before….and I promise you, by the end of this year, your jaw will be dragging on the ground in complete amazement as to how phenomenal God is. He is YOUR I AM.
So, what do you need today? He’s waiting….
Tracee and my friend, Shelly
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