It Really is a Gift

My Devotion

My Heart

It Really is a Gift

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:8-10

To get to who we really are we have to get past what we think we are not or the failures that have become our definition.  We have been conditioned subconsciously by those conditioning us and by our own submission to be conditioned.  We are who we are by culture and unspoken expectations.  Like Pavlov’s dog who became conditioned to be hungry at the sound of a bell.  Things happen to make us perform or to stop at the sound as small as a sigh or the raising of an eyebrow.  We stay in a state of confusion most of the time because we receive so many mixed signals from our family, friends, and co-workers.  Many of us have an ingrained need to be pleasing to everyone in our life.  If one person seems to be disappointed, hurt, and/or mad at us or about us it sends us into a fit of some sort to fix that person’s problem with us.  People-pleasers cannot stand to have anyone upset or have any ill feeling toward their actions, appearance, or speech.

I heard a podcast of Max Lucado a few minutes ago.  He was talking about how we are known by others.  He was making specific notice to how we are guilty of associating a person with his or her past mistakes, failures, or addictions without even really thinking about.  He was pointing out how the world sees us for what we have done or not done even in common everyday conversations… “I saw Suzie at the grocery store, you know Suzie, she just can’t keep a job” …Remember Tom, he had that affair and devastated his wife and family.  Joe the alcoholic... Sometimes I feel like even though it isn’t spoken out loud (at least to me anyway) that people still associate me with my past mistakes and failures.  No matter how hard I try to put it all behind me it just never goes away. 

People who thrive on pleasing others all the time have lost their own self-worth in what other people think of them.  Their first thought in every situation is, “What would people say?”  “What would people think?”  It starts early and takes a very long time to break the cycle.  It spills over into the spiritual life as well.  People-pleasers don’t find freedom in God’s love and mercy, no matter how many times they see it in the Bible they don’t receive those words of grace and mercy are applied to them.  They really believe that what they do and how much they serve is their path to God to gaining His favor, His grace, His mercy, and even more His love. 

Do you know that there is absolutely nothing you can do to earn God’s grace, His mercy, or His love?  It is absolutely and profoundly a GIFT.  It has been the hardest thing for me to receive.  I am of the population of people who struggle with pleasing people.  It worries me what other’s think, I will fret over a mistake or wrong word spoken to someone by accident forever even after all apologies and forgiveness is given, I will still cringe at the thought of doing anything wrong.  I also don’t like it when I don’t get along with someone, when I try in every way to befriend someone and they don’t receive it.  I have transferred all my experiences in people relations to my relationship with God believing that I have to do something to earn His love and favor.

Jesus is the only one who sees me, not my past, not my failures, not my mistakes, not my sins.  He sees me and loves me.  Even I can’t look at myself the way He does.  God poured out His grace and mercy and love through His Son Jesus and there is not one thing you and I can do to earn it…though we try and try and try because we mistakenly believe that because we have to prove our worth to people, we have to prove something to God.

What all any one of us has to do is receive His gift and understand that we are His workmanship, everything good about us whether we know what that good is or not was His gift to us.  The only work required of you and me is to accept the knowledge that God created us and then get rid of the lies that conditioned us to be the neurotic, compulsive disorder we allowed to be conditioned in us through our life.  With that said we are looking at the impossible, right?

Wrong!  Absolutely nothing is impossible with God!  The more we know Him, the more we know His power.  Out of His glorious riches He can strengthen us with power through His Spirit in our inner being.  God works from the inside out.  When we allow Him His power goes to work to reveal all the hidden lies and secrets that we didn’t even know existed, but had a stronghold that guided our every move and that wrong need of having to do something to be pleasing.  This is so that Christ may dwell, He may reside, He may take up room, and stay in us, that He may consume us.  This enables us to be rooted and established in Christ that we no longer have to be pleasing, but we are pleasing through Christ because His actions, thoughts, and words become ours and we move and have our being in Him. 

The weight gets lifted we no longer live in our own strength, but as we learn and accept the never ending love of God is specifically for everyone who will; we become who God planned for us to be.  The old passes away and behold we become new more and more.

Receive the gift, open it up, put it on and take it in to the deepest part of your heart and soul and discover living in Christ!

In HIS Time

Teresa

My Devotion, My Heart by Teresa Preston | ISBN # 978-1-61566-460-3

http://mydevotionmyheart.blogspot.com

Finally...Whatever

July 11, 2014

My Devotion

My Heart

Finally…Whatever.

Teresa Jenkins

Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:1-7 

Confession:  For years I have complained, whined, and begrudged a lot of things and circumstances in my life.  95% of all this has occurred internally.  Yes I do make some of my complaints verbally to some of my trusted friends and husband…but for the most part they are just those thoughts in the head battling it out for attention with those other raging battles of self-concept and guilt that have always been there.

The other day I heard someone quote “The only way to hold on to God’s blessings is with an open hand.”  Another quote I came across, “The only way to be truly free is to completely die to self and become a slave to Christ.”  Both sound very contradictory and very hard to actually do.  I have experienced some things in my life that make these statements very true.  When God has blessed me with whatever that is, if I took His blessing and wrapped my hand around it in a tight grip and held on to that blessing as fiercely as I could…two things happened, I killed the blessing and made it a curse and I locked the door to God blessing me more.

Grabbing on to something or someone and holding on with all our might is a natural human response.  We instinctively hold on to what we think we want or need.  Sometimes God blesses us with something just to see if that blessing is more important to us than He is…not for Him to see, but to show us where our priorities really are.  Some people say nothing good ever lasts anyway so why not hold on to blessings for as long as you can? 

I think we do not realize that even though good comes and goes, it does keep coming to us but if we are so determined to hold on to the good of yesterday we miss the good and even better that God has for us.  On the other hand if we are so caught up in the bad that comes to us, the trials, the circumstances, the betrayals, the stuff that breaks our hearts and spirits we will definitely miss the blessings of God, and here lies the unexpected blessings we may never see because we get so wrapped up in the disappointment and hurt of the trying times. 

Colossians 1:21 tells us, Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

Now salvation is eternal, but we can still alienate ourselves from God’s blessings by continuing in our selfish human behavior.  But wait, we are human, how else can we possibly behave otherwise?  Through our salvation experience we have been reconciled presented holy in His sight.  Philippians 2:12 tells us that we must continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, which means not that we are to be afraid we will lose our salvation, but that it’s going to take work and sometimes a lot of work.  Christianity is not a destination, it’s a process, a continual growing process that we must work at and on.  This is not a job for the faint-hearted, but it is also never ever done alone…Philippians 2:13 says this, For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.

God is right there with you working in you and for you and if you look around He has also made available some other people to come into your life to help you through the tests and trials and victories you experience.  God never said, He would reconcile us to Himself through His Son and then send us out alone.  No, He said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” He also has surrounded us with people.  Paul’s life is full of people he was constantly acknowledging and thanking for their partnering with him in the faith to carry out the news of Jesus.  God has also placed good and faithful people in your life to do the same, but because we may not be evangelists, preachers, or other similar type servants of God, we don’t really look at the people in our lives like that.

Here is what we must actively do every day, we must always work out whatever is in us that keeps us from God’s presence, from His blessings that are just waiting to be poured out on us, we have to open our hands and open our hearts ready to receive His goodness as well as let them go to make room for more.  So that through whatever life may throw at us through the good and the bad, we can claim the blessings both the obvious ones and the ones hidden in secret places and the darkness of our trials.  Do you know how to do this?  Don’t fret God has some suggestions; here are a few.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right and of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  Put to death, whatever belongs to your earthly nature…You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.  But now you must rid yourselves of all such things…and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.  Colossians 3:1-5, 7, 8, 10.

Finally, …whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Whatever your have learned or received or heard from me, (Paul), put it into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you.  Philippians 4:8-9.

Always study and practice what you have learned.  God has already saved you from all the horrors of this life and what you could have become as well of eternal separation from Him, but there is a reason that upon that salvation He didn’t instantly take you to heaven, His plan and your purpose is still being processed, so press on in Jesus name, doing what you do, in your job, in your play, in your family, in your daily lives let the plan of God come out in you and the flood-gates from Heaven will open with more than you could possibly imagine much less hold. 

In HIS Time

Teresa

My Devotion, My Heart by Teresa Preston | ISBN # 978-1-61566-460-3

http://mydevotionmyheart.blogspot.com

Treasures in the Dark

My Devotion

My Heart

Treasures in the Dark

Teresa Jenkins

I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.  Isaiah 45:3

Can you look back over your life without seeing the not so good or even the bad times that you went through?  Can you now see the good that came out of those times?  Did those times change you in any way?  Yes it is hard to see good in bad and yes we all have a tendency to lean toward the cynical or resentful attitude over the bad things we go through.  But those times are the darkness where treasures are hidden, the secret places no one else knows about.

It was many years after some heartbreaking events in my life when I first read this verse.  It’s one thing to have one failed marriage in your history, but to have one more with two more children involved.  Being single and raising four boys was not on my life-plans, but there I was and I cannot say that I found the treasure in the midst of it all.  No during those very dark and scary times, I was very depressed, cynical and resentful.  I couldn't believe all my hopes and dreams were gone.  I was a failure and I took most of the blame on myself, which meant the guilt and shame was multiplied and even heavier.  I would never be a respectable person again.  I had made very poor choices and I asked God’s forgiveness which He immediately gave, but it took me years to give myself permission to forgive me.

When I first read this verse, I really had to search for the treasures that were given to me in those dark times.  I didn't see them at first, the riches in my life were hidden very well in the secret places.  It took time for me to look past the bad to see the good that  God had worked out.  But He constantly put before me those treasures and riches, until I finally recognized them, in fact I am still finding them all the time in all those years ago.

Now I am amazed at just how much I can see treasures in the difficult times that I go through in my present.  The loss of a loved one is a very difficult time, it has its own darkness that David refers to as the shadow in the 23^rd Psalm.  Many fear death, it is so secretive and a process that no one knows until experiencing it.  I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the process of death, but I know that I will love the destination.  I don’t understand it, but I know the treasure, I have already found it in the darkness of losing my mother in death recently.  I don’t think I can even explain it, but this time the treasure was immediately given to me in the moment of her death. 

Over my years of struggles with failure and broken marriages, God was teaching very important truths that only come from Him in a working on relationship with Him.  When I was young I dreaded with fear losing my mother in death.  I could not imagine my life without her in it.  But in God’s perfect timing, in His perfect grace and peace, He took my mother out of this world and into His and in that same instant He left a nugget of my mother with me, a treasure that no one can take away or steal.  It’s mine.

People ask me how I’m doing in the days and weeks since my mother died and some are very surprised to hear me say, “I am doing very well!  God has been so good!”  People will say “I’m sorry for your loss.” And my immediate internal response is I am not sorry, I have not lost my mother at all.  I have been given a treasure beyond comparison.  My mother’s body died, but she lives eternal and I feel her presence with me more now than I did when she was still in her physical body.

We may have to look harder in the darkness for the treasures God has for us sometimes, but In my own experiences and trials, I have learned that sometimes the treasure is in the search and sometimes the treasure appears when I open my heart and just let God pour the treasure in.  For all of us the treasure hunt begins like digging in mines, hard and treacherous, but as we learn to depend and trust God in all things, the treasures become more obvious and even crystal clear.

In HIS Time

Teresa

My Devotion, My Heart by Teresa Preston | ISBN # 978-1-61566-460-3

http://mydevotionmyheart.blogspot.com

There is Blessing in Death

My Devotion

My Heart

There is Blessing in Death

Teresa Jenkins

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write:  Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”  “Yes, says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”  Revelation 14:13

My mother is no longer a part of this life physically.  She will forever be in my heart and I pray that more of her appears in my actions, attitudes, and feelings.  During the process of funeral arrangements, my brother and sisters heard many times how they could see our mother in us.  My brother-in-law spoke, eloquently, lovingly, and with great conviction not only about my mother but her faith in Jesus and how she shared that faith with everyone.  He honored her by speaking honestly about the truth of death of those who die in the Lord.  Mother’s work is done, all she did in this life has followed her and she doesn’t have to work anymore.  But I pray that we will inherit the devotion in her heart to do all she did for her Lord and Savior.  That we in some way can carry on the legacy to love life no matter how hard it gets, and always do more than we have to and give more than we have to give.

I am not grieving the loss of my mother in death, I lost her several years ago to the disease that plagued her mind and body.  I have heard that the death of those who die with the saving knowledge of Jesus in their heart is the sweetest to witness.  I couldn’t believe it until the evening of last Wednesday when I was sitting next to my mother’s bedside as physical life left her frail body and her spirit went into eternity with Jesus.  That was a moment I will cherish always.

Death is not the end and that is the greatest blessing of all for we who believe.  My mother had much wisdom she gained not through any formal education, but from life, from faith, from the Word she believed with her whole being.  “I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday, and I love today.”  She could only have this kind of faith because of her trust and love for Jesus. 

Death is not loss but gain.  I am closer to my mother now and I rejoice in her victory over death.  Her death just made heaven even more inviting, more sweet for me.  Not that I plan on making that trip anytime soon, but I have more peace and understanding than I did before.  I am grateful in God’s wisdom He knew the exact moment she would join the great cloud of witnesses.  I am grateful that she is not suffering anymore.  My heart can hear her laughter and almost feel her spirit soar like it never has before. 

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.  Revelation 21:4

I cannot mourn her passing because she is free.  The chains that bound her are broken.  I can mourn the  loss of her physical presence in my life, but my heart refuses to be full of sorrow.  God’s grace has been more than sufficient for me and amazingly overwhelming as He has engulfed me in His peace that passes all understanding.  And in that peace I have been given unexplainable understanding.