Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening? God doesn’t come and go. God lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath. And he knows everything, inside and out. He energizes those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts. For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don’t get tired, they walk and don’t lag behind.
Tag Archives: Know
Amazing Love – How can it be?
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Matthew 22:29 Jesus said, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.”
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Knowing When to Walk Away
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2 Corinthians 6:14-18 Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not a partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands? Who would think of setting up pagan idols in God’s holy Temple? But that is exactly what we are, each of us a temple in whom God lives. God himself put it this way: “I’ll live in them, move into them; I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people. So leave the corruption and compromise; leave it for good,” says God. “Don’t link up with those who will pollute you. I want you all for myself. I’ll be a Father to you; you’ll be sons and daughters to me.” The Word of the Master, God.
I have a confession to make “I am not very good at this.” I remember being told to see the good in everyone and help people where ever I can. I love recovery and am passionate about introducing those who are still caught up in the addictions and compulsions to a ‘New Way of Living.’ I cop and put up with a lot of unwarranted and unfriendly flack for that.
1 Peter 3:16 “Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath.” Not always easy. I read recently “You can’t stop people saying wrong things about you, but you can stop supplying them with ammunition.” As long as we are living the best we can with God’s guidance and help nothing can separate us from His love and His presence. We can have confidence in the future, know that He is faithful and be content in Him.
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Apply The Process
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1 John 2:9 Suppose someone claims to be in the light but hates his brother or sister. Then he is still in the darkness.
Not everyone you meet on the journey of recovery is on the right path. In the Bible hatred and love as moral qualities are not primary emotions. They are attitudes expressed by our actions. In recovery knowing who’s on the right path is expressed in how the live, not what they say.
1 John 2:26 I’m writing these things to warn you about those who are trying to lead you down the wrong path. Recovery requires repentance and repentance needs to be accompanied by action.
Recovery means more than just knowing the process. It means putting the process into daily living.
- How are you applying the processes you are learning in recovery to you daily life?
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Be Honest
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Luke 19:8 Zacchaeus stood up. He said, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of what I own to those who are poor. And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay it back. I will pay back four times the amount I took.”
God knows the things we have done wrong. He knows the people we need to make put on our list. Yet He leaves it up to us. He does that so we can learn the importance of honesty in the process of recovery.
When we write our list it can be tempting to leave people off because we didn’t hurt them very much, they hurt us just as bad or because we don’t think God really cares about that one.
Our list needs to include everyone we can remember hurting or who have hurt us. Remember the list isn’t going to be shared with anyone to be as honest as you can.
- Is there anyone you have left off your list intentionally?
Prayer: Lord help me be as honest as I can when making my list.
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Listen, Hear and Understand
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Your ears are open but you don’t hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you don’t see a thing. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious–the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.
Matthew 13:14 ~ Romans 12:3 ~ 1 Corinthians 12:2 ~ 1 Corinthians 13:12
Philippians 4:8-9
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I was Sculpted From Nothing Into Something.
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Psalms 139:15 You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life
Thank You, Jesus!
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A New Creation
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2 Corinthians 5:17 Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come!
Another of my favorite scriptures. This verse in my recovery saved my life.
I never believed when it came to step six changes in my character were possible. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am a creature of habit. Always have been, always will be. I don’t adapt well to change. And I always prefer to be in control.
This one verse from the Bible gave me a whole new hope in my life. Hope that if I trusted God and did what he told me to do I never needed to be the person I was in the past again,
I want to tell you in my recovery journey I experienced so much change. In me, in my circumstances and in my life that without God would have driven me back to relapse.
Today I am a different person because I believed what the Bible said about change.
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Go to The Temple and Take Your Stand
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Scripture Reading: Acts 5:17-25
“Go to the Temple and take your stand. Tell the people everything there is to say about this Life.” Acts 5:20
Step 12: Having gone through these steps and discovering the importance of an individual relationship with God through Jesus, I will try to live according to His principles and to lead others to a personal relationship with Him.
Today I want to think about the message the angel spoke of. A new life that is available to us all. A new life of change.
Change comes to us through faith and the way we obtain faith is through the Word of God. The Bible is full of stories of people who through faith achieved great things. Another reason they achieved great things is that they were open to allowing God to change them. I believe one of the major stumbling blocks in us achieving great things is ‘PEOPLE TODAY ARE TOO PROUD TO ALLOW GOD TO CHANGE THEM. We get too comfortable in what we know and understand and are afraid to try new things. We need to humble ourselves before God.
No-one in this world, to my knowledge, ver achieved God’s will without humility. Jesus in John 13 washed the feet of His disciples, then ordered them to wash each other’s feet so they would learn a lesson in humility. He also wanted them to learn the importance of following his examples In order to change and become the people God wants us to become He expects us to also learn to follow the examples of Jesus. We have to learn to worship and praise Him, to serve Him with all our hearts in confidence and adoration.
God can and will use every one of us. If we let Him. We have to be prepared to change our attitudes and our actions. Wh have to take responsibility for our behavior. we have to face up to life, accept it and decide how God would have us live it differently? God keeps His promises to us. He promises nothing will ever be put in front of us we are unable to overcome with His help. Unless we are willing to open our hearts and lives to Him we have little or no chance of overcoming the problems of this world. He commands us to confidently follow Him. Love, Trust, and obedience to Him secure us a place in His Kingdom. If we are truly His children nothing on this earth will ever hurt us so bad we cannot recover from it.
I believe today I am a fairly confident, competent individual, not because I have any special talent but because I am a child of God and my chief aim in life is to glorify Him and do His work. I know that no matter where I am or what I am doing He is there with me. He guides me and protects me in every situation. I haven’t always felt that way. A few years ago I believed my only purpose in life was to get drunk, take drugs and cause trouble. I went out of my way to destroy relationships I had with other people because I felt I was not worthy of other people’s attention. I didn’t like the person I allowed myself to become through the life I led and I thought the rest of the world didn’t like me either.
Through the Salvation Army and The Bridge Program, I met Jesus and experienced the message of new life first hand. In John 2:28 the Bible tells us to continue in the ways of God, so on the day He appears to us we can face Him with confidence without shame. everything we need He supplies, if He is not then maybe we are seeking the wrong things. in his book ‘Prisoner of hope’ Barry Goode says “Prayer it seems is one of the most difficult pursuits for Christians. Yet it is most necessary and rewarding.” “You can find stones and rocks anywhere.” he says “but if you want something really precious like diamonds, gold or silver it takes time, effort, patience to unearth it.”
Everything God makes, He makes for a purpose. I am sure we are all aware of the verse in the Bible that says “Faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains.” God brings in His Kingdom by the mustard seed method. When we feel weak, ineffective, and inadequate as long as we have faith, even a minimum of faith God can use it.
When we feel weakest is usually when we are most open to the message of Jesus and the need for change in our lives. “Go stand in the temple courts and tell the people the full message of new life.” That’s the message the angel delivered to the apostles so long ago.
Today I would lie to say I believe only God knows the full message of new life. Only He knows how much can be achieved through faith in Him. And, the only way for us to find out His plan for us is to step out in faith, To let Him change us and lead us to new life so He can be glorified and we can be reconciled to him through the blood of Jesus.
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Jesus Knows Everything
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Proverbs 15:11 Death and the Grave lie open in front of the Lord. So human hearts certainly lie open to him!God knows all about me. He understands my strengths and my weaknesses. He knows if I lie, cheat, steal or do anything He disapproves of.
One of the best clichés I have ever heard in recovery is “The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it is open.”
Open-mindedness in recovery is not an option. It is a necessity. We are all going to have to accept things we don’t want to accept. We are all going to do things we don’t want to do.
The ‘Good News’ in that is Jesus knows all about me so I can be completely honest with Him.
– How honest are you really?
Prayer: Jesus help me to be open and honest with You about my list, my feelings and my difficulties in accepting some of the things I need to do in recovery
