by Kelli Sanders | Oct 27, 2015 | Encouragement
YOU are uniquely designed for a God-given purpose & destiny. There is no doubt about it. There is no other person exactly like you in this universe. So why do we compare ourselves, belittle our gifts, talents and abilities, and come to the conclusion that what we have to offer would be insignificant or trivial at best?
I have been pondering many things in these last weeks as God continues to draw my family deeper into His plan and purpose for our lives, and for His kingdom. The Holy Spirit has helped me to see that I have allowed small thinking, insecurities, and even pride to keep me from fully developing the potential that He has placed within me. Perhaps you have had thoughts brought to your mind that go something like this:
“Why would you do that? There are thousands of (fill in the blank) out there already – how is yours, or how are you any different?”
“Why would you share (fill in the blank)? Your voice will just be lost in a sea of rhetoric – it really won’t make any difference one way or another.”
“How is this little thing you are doing going to make any impact on anything? Nobody’s going to listen to you anyway, and nobody really cares.”
“That’s a dumb idea. Do you really think that would produce anything beneficial in a million years? You’ll look like a fool.”
My friends, there is an enemy, Satan, that seeks to steal, kill and destroy your life. If he can’t get you to quit, he will seek to render you powerless by convincing you of the LIE that you are insignificant, that what you have to offer the body of Christ is of no value – or of very little value, and that your voice, your gifts, your talents, your dreams are better off remaining small, limited and underdeveloped; after all, it is the safer path to take. No risk, no looking like a fool.
HEY! Do you know that we don’t have the luxury of thinking like this!? Consider the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25. When the master came to the servant who buried and hid what he had entrusted to him (because of fear); he did not say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” On the contrary, the words “wicked and lazy servant” were pronounced from the master!
GOD has placed something inside of us that the world needs, that the body of Christ needs! He expects us to take what He has placed within us, yield to His great grace, and allow Him to work in us and through us to effect change in our sphere of influence! He expects a multiplication of what He has entrusted to us!
Are you a musician? A writer? Are you gifted in business or sports? Are you graced in communication or administration? Has God called you to preach or pastor? Are you a visionary or a pioneer? Do you work well with your hands – building, and fixing and maintaining? Or maybe acting, dancing, painting, or creating are your thing. DO NOT hide your gift. DO NOT belittle the grace that has been placed within you. DO NOT yield to fear over what others may think; how about what GOD thinks!?
Come on people! Let’s break free from the lies that bind us, and believe the truth that makes us free! There is so much inside of you! There is so much good, so much beauty, so much talent, so much ability – so much POTENTIAL!
BELIEVE that the good work that God has begun in you, HE will be faithful to complete. Let’s be a people that reject small thinking and safe, comfortable Christianity! Let’s be a people that hear from God and take risks – that fully trust in His enabling power to carry us through every assignment He gives us! I am just so zealous inside, in this season of my life, to encourage & exhort, to draw out and cause others to believe that they are valued and that they really do MATTER!
There is a great work to be done in these last days. God needs all hands on deck. Forget what others think. Forget about your reputation. Forget about being a people pleaser. Forget about comparison. BE YOU! Beautiful, uniquely designed, uniquely graced, uniquely gifted, amazing, fearfully and wonderfully made YOU! Be the best version of yourself you can be right now, and like pure gold, you will continue to be more and more refined with each season that you walk through.
I, for one, am tired of allowing the enemy to keep me from doing what God has called me to do. I choose to allow the grace of God to permeate and invade my life, to fill me and enable me to do and be all that God has destined for me. Let the chips fall where they may; and listen, it’s about other people! Get over yourself and get into God. This has never been about you. It has never been about me. It’s about people – especially those that don’t know Him.
So shine your light dear one. Be bold. Be brave. Take risks. At the end of your days it won’t be the things you stepped out in faith to do that cause regret, it will be the things you never even tried to do – the potential you never developed, the lives you were too afraid to impact. Choose to live a life worthy of your salvation.
I love you. I believe in you. I pray this has blessed you and planted a good seed in your heart that bears fruit in time to come.
by Kelli Sanders | Jun 9, 2014 | Bible Studies, Spiritual Growth
Did you know that the enemy of your soul has strategies and schemes?
This is why the Bible exhorts us to know our enemy,
“…so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes.” ~ 2 Corinthians 2:11
According to this scripture, Satan can actually gain an advantage over us when we are ignorant of his devices. He has very strategic and well thought out plans that he has used with repeated success in the lives of God’s people, and in the lives of those who do not know God. In our previous Bible study, The Good Fight of Faith Part I, we learned about the nature of our enemy:
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” ~ John 10:10a
In Part II we are going to look at our enemy’s battle plans. In any military operation there is always reconnaissance. This is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain vital information about enemy forces or features of the environment. As we enforce Christ’s victory and go into all the world to preach the gospel, we are invading Satan’s territory. We are going beyond the area occupied by friendly forces, and we need to know some vital information if we are to be successful in fighting the good fight of faith.
God has given us information in His word about our enemy’s battle plans and battlefields. There are three primary battlefields that Satan will operate in to carry out his mission to steal, kill & destroy:
The Battlefield of the Mind
1 Peter 1:13 urges us to “gird up the loins of [our] minds.” Other translations say to, “…prepare [them] for action.” So how do we prepare our minds for action?
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Prepare your mind for action by knowing what to do with thoughts when they come. Not all thoughts that run across your pretty little mind are from God! When a thought comes, treat it like a foreigner that needs a passport to gain access! Find out where that thought came from! If it is contrary to God’s word, pull it down, cast it out, arrest it – stamp it with “ACCESS DENIED.” Just don’t open the door, let it in, entertain it, offer it some snacks and invite it to dwell there! Understand that your enemy is counting on you to do just that, but hey my friend, you are not ignorant of his devices, and I believe the next time wrong thoughts come, they are not getting past the door!
The Battlefield of the Flesh
Galatians 5:17 talks about the war that is constantly going on inside of every believer between the flesh, or carnal nature, of a man, and the spirit of a man. There never has been, and never will be a peace treaty. We must crucify our flesh daily in order to live in the beautiful freedom that comes with being led by the spirit. Your enemy knows this, and he has a mathematical formula that guarantees his success in the lives of those that have failed to gather intelligence in this area!
But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions). Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death.” James 1:14-15
INNER APPETITES (of the flesh) + OUTWARD ENTICEMENT = Birth of SIN = DEATH
The only way to stop the mathematical certainty of this death equation is to remove the “plus sign.” You may have flesh, and the devil may do all he can to entice it, but if you don’t take the bait the two can never conceive that sin baby! “That’s easier said than done,” you might say, and that’s true; however, God has given us weapons and His word. I could write a whole book on this, so I’ll just touch on two things.
First, whatever you feed will get stronger. If you want a strong spirit YOU MUST feed it the word of God. If you want to quiet your flesh YOU MUST starve it. Second, DO NOT rely on human will power & sheer determination. It is only by God’s spirit in you that you can resist strong temptation. It takes the grace of God that He gladly gives to the humble. Be teachable and acknowledge that you cannot do it on your own. Here’s my equation:
LESS Prime Time TV + MORE study & prayer = a STRONG SPIRIT = a better LIFE
It really can be that simple when we become doers of the word and not hearers only.
The Battlefield of this World
“Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.” 1 John 2:15-17
Part of our reconnaissance as Christians is to learn about the environment our enemy controls. The Bible tells us that Satan is the god of this world. He will use everything in our environment to distract us, lull us to sleep, or flat out persecute us. Be aware that the platforms of influence that govern this world (media, education, religion, arts & entertainment, family, politics, etc.) are the channels that will be used to sway believers to align themselves with what the world thinks/acts like/talks like rather than aligning themselves with what GOD thinks/acts like/talks like. The pull is strong my friends. That is why it is so important to guard your heart and mind, feed your spirit, SHUT OFF the channels that are feeding your flesh, watch and pray – THIS is how we begin to live by the faith that overcomes the world!
I’d love to pray for you: “Lord, I ask you to touch the heart of whoever is reading these words. Strengthen them for the battles that they are facing in their lives right now. Deposit in them your grace, your peace, and your wisdom. Help them Holy Spirit in their weakness – whatever it might be – and encourage them to keep fighting, keep believing, keep standing until they see the victory come to pass in their lives. Thank you for making them aware of how the enemy is getting in, and how he is gaining the advantage over them. I say they SHUT THE DOOR in his face today, and open the door to your spirit of power and love. I ask this in Jesus’ name.”
by Kelli Sanders | Apr 16, 2014 | Bible Studies, Faith and Family, Help for Moms, Spiritual Growth
Shame and condemnation are confidence killers, yet we allow them to rob us of the joy and peace that belong to us in Christ.
Like a thief in the night, this tag team steals away our confidence on a daily basis with insidious little seeds of wrong thinking that, if nurtured, can produce the fruits of weakened faith, half-hearted joy, and fleeting moments of peace rather than the FULL MEASURE of what Christ died for us to have.
As believers, it is very important – I might even say critical – that we learn the difference between the voice of conviction and the voice of condemnation. When the Holy Spirit convicts a born again child of God of sin, it is from a position of love, and it leads to a place of repentance and restoration. When the devil (called the accuser of the brethren) attempts to condemn a born again child of God on the basis of sin, it is from a position of hate, and it leads to a place of hiding that is covered with shame.
When a believer listens to the voice of the Holy Spirit, the door to his or her heart is wide open, and God can lovingly come in to wash that heart and conscience clean, but when the accuser is given place to speak, the heart is closed, and the door shut tight with a sign hanging outside that says, “Do Not Enter – Unworthy.”
YOUR VALUE
Confidence is very much connected to value, and when you allow yourself to think thoughts about being unworthy, unimportant, and insignificant, your confidence will begin to deflate like a balloon losing air. Has that ever happened to you? It happens to me quite often. That inner critic begins to speak to me about how what I’m doing doesn’t really matter, how I’m not measuring up to some self-imposed standard, how I’m not enough in some area or another (not enough faith, not enough smarts, not enough compassion, not enough of a woman, not enough of a mother, not enough _____ just fill in the blank).
So how do you combat those thoughts? What determines value? Value is determined by the price that someone is willing to pay for something…or someone. Jesus paid the highest price imaginable FOR YOU! He doesn’t just believe you are worth it, but His actions demonstrated that belief! You are worthy. You are significant. You are important. You are very, very valuable to God.
YOUR IDENTITY
Confidence is very much connected to identity. Knowing who you are is as vital to the human spirit as air is to the lungs. Without a firm grip on your identity, you suffocate in a sea of question marks, an exposed stump occupying the space where your confidence was supposed to be flourishing. So how do you discover who you are?
If you have placed your faith in Christ, and are born of His spirit, the word of God can help you answer that question. According to Romans 5, our identity has everything to do with our location. We are IN CHRIST. According to 1 John 4:17, all that HE is I AM. In other words, I am not righteous, or holy, or accepted, or loved, on the basis of my behavior. I am righteous, holy, accepted, loved, strong, blessed, wise, an heir to God’s riches, and the very son or daughter of GOD – because I am IN CHRIST.
Doesn’t hearing that just begin to minister life to you already!? Isn’t your confidence growing with every affirmation of who you are in Christ? The best part is, even when you make mistakes, it does not affect who you are!!!! Your identity is not found in your behavior, or in some label that was placed on you, or in your perfect performance. Who you are is defined not by what you do or don’t do, but by what Christ has already done!
YOUR PURPOSE
Confidence is very much connected to a sense of purpose. Where you find a person who doesn’t have any sense of purpose for living their life, you will also find a person with very little confidence. The good news for every person is that God creates with purpose in mind:
“For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].”
~Ephesians 2:10~
God created you. You are His masterpiece, His work of art. He planned you. He prepared your path ahead of time. He prearranged and made ready a good life full of good works – just for you! You are no mistake. You are not a result of chance. You were not created without purpose! The next time that voice in your head says that you don’t matter, that you are not important, that nobody would notice whether you live or die, GO TO THE WORD! Begin to say what God says – there is a plan for you, honey! The more you look into Who Jesus is, the more you will begin to see who you are, and why you are here.
You Were not Made for Shame and Condemnation
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…” ~ Romans 8:1a
Learn to listen to the right voice, and to respond the right way. Repent when the Holy Spirit convicts you, and let the love of God lift you up, dust you off, and cheer you on. Resist when the accuser condemns you, and remain confident in who you are, what you’re worth, and why you are here. I can feel your faith, your joy and your peace rising already!
If this blessed you, pass on the love and share it with a friend!
