“He who would love life
And see good days,
Let him refrain his tongue from evil,
And his lips from speaking deceit.
Let him turn away from evil and do good;
Let him seek peace and pursue it.” 1 Peter 3:10-11

If you could find the essence of the heart of God for His people it is epitomized in these two verses in 1 Peter.

We all want to enjoy life and experience good days. God also wants you to be able to claim this promise.

The precepts from God are to speak words with purity and refrain from evil and deceitful words. This is impossible to achieve unless you are yoked to God through His Spirit and have immersed yourself in prayer and the Word of God.

Your words come out of the condition of your heart. If your heart is pure, your words will be edifying and filled with the love and mercy of God.

God wants you to turn away from all forms of evil and do good. If you are one with God and seeking His will for your life, you will have no problem with keeping this commandment. Evil begins in the heart and God sees everything about you.

If you come to God with a genuine desire to repent from sin and to live a life pleasing to Him, you will find His righteousness at work inside you.

Finally, God wants you to pursue peace in all your relationships and make decisions that will bring peace into your life. This starts with your relationship with God. You have to be in harmony with God and willing to submit to His authority in every aspect of your life.

If you have a heart attitude of “not my will but your will be done” God will give you an abundant life and pour out His goodness upon you.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

This is the crux of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. You give up the right to your natural life to become a new creature living for God.

God places His life in the form of the Holy Spirit into your physical body and begins the work of crucifying your old self.

This act of regeneration was actually completed by Jesus on the cross but has to be worked out during your lifetime.

Your reliance is now on God and not on the things of the world. You must come to God by faith for all your needs. Faith is a belief in God for who He is and does not relate to your circumstances whether good or difficult.

The process of dying to self and living for God has nothing to do with earthly goals or purposes. It is to create a steadfast loyalty to God based on His Word and does not relate to your results.

God can choose to do whatever He purposes in your life because He now controls your destiny.

The love of God provided you with the gift of eternal life. This precious gift was paid for by the blood of Jesus and you now belong to Him.

When you make a decision for God it is not about getting something, it is about giving yourself wholly to Him!

“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?” Mark 16:26

Jesus taught about the priorities of life using many examples like this quote from the Book of Mark. Jesus explained what will become of the the man who spends his entire life to achieve success and wealth. He will end up with nothing and die with no hope for a resurrected life.

This man has nothing to offer to God when facing death because he has rejected God for the riches of the world.

The irony in this truth is that the man who works hard to have an abundant life will lose all and the man who gives up His life to follow God will be rewarded with an abundant life.

Jesus wants you to have a prosperous life but it comes down to your priorities and motives. You must place Jesus first in your life and be willing to deny yourself and follow Him. You give up the right to yourself and allow God to have authority over every aspect of your life.

This commitment is about an open heart to follow God and has nothing to do with religion or doing works to please God.

The priority is to seek God through prayer, His Word, and the leading of His Spirit. You become one with God through His Spirit living inside you.

You walk by faith and place your trust in the invisible world of God who calls things that don’t exist as if they did!

 

So David said to Saul, “Who am I, and what is my life or my father’s family in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?” 1 Samuel 18:18

King Saul was very jealous of David and knew the Spirit of God had been removed from him and given to David. Saul devised a plan to have David marry his daughter and then He would send David out to fight the Philistines and be killed.

King Saul proposed this marriage to David and he responded with the quote above. David was expressing his humility when he said who am I a poor and lightly esteemed man and undeserving to be the son-in-law to the king.

This is an excellent example of motives at work in two different people. Saul’s motive was devious and David’s motive was pure and humble.

God wants you to operate with pure motives in your words and actions. God chose David to become the next King because He looked into his heart and saw that David loved God and desired to please Him with all his actions.

God’s eyes are always looking inside you to judge your feelings, thoughts, and purity. The condition of your heart will dictate your thoughts and habits in life. This is why you need to be open to God to correct you and to create His values inside you.

You can never see the depth of your personality but God sees all of you. Nothing is hidden from Him. God will do for you what He did for David if you are open to Him!

“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,” 1 Samuel 15:22

The most important thing you can ever do for God is to obey His voice when He instructs or calls you to a specific action.

King Saul was called by God to attack and kill all the Amalekites including their livestock. Saul complied but allowed the Israelites to take the best livestock with them to make a sacrifice to the Lord.

This action ended the favor of God over King Saul and would lead to his misery, destruction, and death. Saul compromised the instructions from God based on the leaning of his own mind.

God wants your total obedience and has no interests in your sacrifices or offerings. When you reject God you are expressing stubbornness and idolatry. You are stating that your way is better than God’s way.

The purpose of Jesus Christ is to free you from your personality and the habits of living for self. This transformation gives you the ability to live for God and not for self. God merges your personality with His personality and you become yoked to Him.

This can only happen when you experience the love of God and understand the depth of His glory and power.

Listen for the voice of God today and comply without hesitation or compromise! He loves you!

“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:23-24

God is easy to find! He doesn’t hide or put up barriers. However, you must come to Him. He won’t come to you unless you invite Him to enter your life.

God will not strive with your spirit or intervene in your life. You have to ask Him to have a relationship with you.

The story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well is a perfect example of how to find God. This woman had a sordid past with five husbands and the man she was living with was not her husband.

Jesus asked this woman for water and she couldn’t understand why a Hebrew would have anything to do with her. And Jesus didn’t have a bucket to hold the water.

Jesus told this woman if she drank the living water she would never thirst again and it would become in her a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life.

The woman asked where she could find the living water and Jesus proceeded to tell her about her past to prove He was the source for the living water.

You find God by reaching out to Him through prayer and His Word. God is a Spirit and you must worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

God is everywhere and easy to find but you must have an open heart to receive Him. If you are a believer you don’t have to look for Him because He lives within you.

You find God by reaching out to Him by faith without any evidence or proof in your life. God lives in the invisible and can only be approached by faith in His promises. You must place your life in His hands and let go.

If you take the first step like the Samaritan woman, He will reveal Himself to you and your life will never be the same!

 

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

This is a powerful promise from God. The key word is “wait” which is so contrary to the world that we live in. You wait upon the Lord through prayer and asking Him to fill you with His strength. Waiting on God is asking Him to go before you and drawing upon His attributes and not trying to tackle life on your own.

God desires to give you everything you need to meet your challenges today. He wants you to excel and not become weak or weary. His strength is made perfect in your weakness and His strength is unlimited.

There is an underlying truth in this promise from God. You have to recognize the season God has placed you in at the present time. Everything happens in His perfect timing. You might be in a fast paced time of life or a time with little activity. The objective is to wait on God and not try to swim up the river.

God is perfect and His plan for you today is perfect. Check in with Him and make sure you are on the right track!

He loves you and wants to share Himself with you!

 

“Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.” 1 Samuel 8:7

This is an amazing and true story of how the people of Israel wanted a king to rule over them instead of a judge or leader appointed by God. Samuel, the prophet, was getting older and his two sons who served after him as judges in Israel were corrupt in their ways.

The Israelites wanted a strong king and believed He would protect them from their enemies and allow for a prosperous life. This was a very big mistake on their part and would lead to misery and slave like conditions.

They were rejecting God for a wordly replacement. The Israelites did not believe in the sovereignty of God or His attributes of greatness, power, glory, victory, and majesty.

Life begins and ends with God. He wants you to recognize and accept that He has power and dominion over all things and to live under His canopy of love, joy, peace, and protection.

When you substitute something for God in your life, you are really rejecting Him. He is the author of all things and wants you to come to Him for all your needs.

If you choose to replace God with some form of an idol (like your education or professional training, your job, your money and investments, your possessions, or powerful or influential people) you are making a big mistake. This action is an expression of your disbelief in the power and authority of God.

God will allow you to make these wrong choices to show you they will bring calamities and misery.

Ask God to be the centerpiece of your life and turn to Him as your source for all things. He will do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

“And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish.” 1 Samuel 1:10

This is a beautiful story of how God intervened in the life of a family. Elkanah had two wives named Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children and Hannah had no children. Peninnah ridiculed Hannah over having no children and tried to make her life miserable.

Elkanah was a devout man and loved Hannah. He favored Hannah over Peninnah even though she could not bless him with children. Hannah became very sad and depressed and stopped eating.

Finally she decided to travel to the temple and pour out her heart to God. She prayed for a child and made a vow to give the child to the Lord.

Hannah was uplifted after praying, her mood changed and she started eating again.

After a period of time Hannah had a baby and named him Samuel. This new child filled Hannah with joy and she gave thanks to God for this miracle of new life.

The significance of this story is Hannah took her problem to God and prayed for Him to intervene in her life. Nothing is impossible for God and He wants you to come to Him for your every need.

Hannah knew in her heart that God heard her prayer and she left the temple with an assurance that God would do great things for her.

Hannah had faith in God and released her problem to God. This gave her a new freedom and peace in her life.

God is a miracle worker but you have to seek Him out by faith and believe He wants to bless you abundantly.

“Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah 4:4

Jonah repented and traveled to Nineveh to speak about the disaster that was going to fall on this city for their wickedness. The King and people heard the words of Jonah and turned back to the Lord.

Jonah then went outside the city and sat under a shelter to see what would become of Nineveh.

The Lord showed mercy and relented from His plan to destroy the 120,000 people living in this city.

This action made Jonah angry and he asked God to take his life. God asked Jonah “Is it right for you to be angry?”

God then prepared a plant for shade and to comfort Jonah in his misery. Jonah was very grateful for the plant. In the morning God send a worm to damage the plant which withered and died.

As the sun came up, God created a strong wind which caused the sun to fall on Jonah’s head and he became faint. This caused Jonah to cry out that he would rather die than live with all the misery.

God responded to Jonah and said how can you be angry about the plant which brought pleasure and relief to you. God then told Jonah that he did not labor for the plant or have anything to do with its growth.

God then compared the plant to the great city of Nineveh and declared that He would show mercy to these people even though they cannot discern their right hand from their left and act like their livestock.

The point of this story is God determines your destiny. Like the plant, He can protect you or cause troubles to come into your life. God judges you and He is merciful and loving.

The people of Nineveh repented and turned to the Lord but God knew they were a simple people without much spiritual depth. They ate, drank, and slept much like their livestock.

You have to accept the work of God in your life whether it brings goodness or difficulties. It does no good to be angry with God. He will do as He sees fit and you have to learn to be patient and thankful at all times.

The story of Jonah demonstrates how important it is to be obedient to the voice of God and not to question His judgment.

He is God!