Lord, as I stand before you tonight, I ask that you teach me to look away from the things are so distracting,
Teach me to love no matter what. Teach me to focus on you instead of myself. Teach me Lord to stand still and let you work in me instead of flailing and objecting.
Lord, I long to be a yielded Servant with an eager response for whatever you have, no matter what.
Please do whatever is needed in me to bring about your own likeness.
My Lord and my God.
Soldier of The Cross, you do not need to know when, or how.
Neither do you need to know why.
You only need to know that He knows what He is doing and that He can be trusted to see you through.
It is simple - it only feels complicated.
You were not designed to bear it. Leave it with Him in prayer.
Aloud.
Surrender is not a concept.
It is an active and affirmative laying hold of who He is and reflects agreement with Him.
Surrender is not just a passive attitude. It means advancing in prayer to the Place of letting go of something in order to take up something better - The Cross.
Soldier, He is in the business of preparing you for eternity. that means some wrenching away from the things that are temporal and perishable.
Surrender is sweet. Apart from surrender there is only self-justification, judgment and treading water, at best.
Obedience is the evidence of a backbone developed in prayer
There is a daily decision that must be made.
Do you need attention, or are you available to lay down your life for others?
Are you dead to all else and alive unto Him, or must you be coddled?
Soldier of The Cross, make your decision. Will you serve yourself, or will you serve Him? It is simple, but weighty. Are you available to be transformed into His likeness - He who became sin for you?
Tell Him.
Alone and aloud.
There is a good old chorus that goes: "After all He's done for me, After All he's done for me;
How can I do less than give Him my best,
And live for Him completely;
After all He's done for me. . . "
Is it true?
What has He done for you?
He became sin for you.
He Rose again.
He is Making a Place for you.
He is Listening to you and Answering you (Jeremiah 33:3)
He is Watching over you.
He who is Love is loving you.
Soldier of The Cross, He is in the business of restoring the ground.
Look up and move on!
You have no idea what He will do or how He will do it.
The important thing is that you know He has said He would do what is best and that He would not delay. That means, if it takes a long time, He has not delayed.
Soldier of The Cross, you have prayed about the matter urgently and for a while. It seems like the Lord is looking the other way. Of course, that is not the case, it just feels like things are out of control.
What does He say in His Word?
Can you stand before Him and say that things are out of control? I think not.
So the Soldier, advance. According to the Word of God. You must not give in to the feeling of paralysis. Move. He always allows your foot to claim another piece of ground.
You don't belong to the problem, you belong to the Lord.
Tell Him so.
Aloud.
In the natural, endurance is limited.
In the supernatural, there is provision for each moment. Endurance is a term we use to describe the patient passing from moment to moment by faith, confident that His Promise are reliable and forever.
The Soldier of The Cross does not endure with grinding teeth and a litany of changes wanted. That is simply passive existence. Instead, he stands under the Banner that is Love, and by faith has a vision of something far greater than a resolved situation. He sees the Lord Jesus.
The submissive heart never just "gets through" the situation. There is always a way to love others. There is always a biblical attitude to be taken. There is always a prodding of the Holy Spirit to trust the Lord.
There is always someone to encourage.
You have a Sword. Use it to cut the path and move on.
Do it by prayer.
Aloud.
Nothing stays the same.
As much as the flesh would like to think so, it isn't true.
As the Bible says, all of creation is in the momentum of time:
"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. "
Romans 8:22
We are moving through and must live by the Word of God. He alone is unchangeable when all else is unable to stay the same.
One reason there are so many troubled marriages is that people expect relationships to stay the same. It doesn't happen. Can't happen.
You must build your life on the Lord. Your thought life must be established on Him. Your mouth must reflect Him.
Soldier of The Cross, live in reality. When He is your all in all, you can deal practically and calmly with swirling, changing Time.
Intent is only for time.
It involves a before and after.
For most it means an idea that is appealing or the doing of something that assuages guilt. It may even be a resolve, soon to dissolve.
For the Soldier of The Cross, the matter is presented in prayer before The One who is Almighty. In prayer and by the power of the Holy Spirit, it becomes a vision to be carried out. That is godly intent.
Anyone can be stimulated. Anyone can agree with a good idea. Anyone can make a resolution.
You are not anyone. Your business is carried out in prayer - the Place where His business and yours become the same.
Soldier, look up and move on.
Be sure your prayer is not limited to the possible.
It is too easy to imagine all the things God could do and how He could do them. The problem is, He never does the same thing the same way twice. And when he answers, it is never in the way we thought it would happen.
He is the same One who had the ark built in the desert before it had ever rained on the earth.
He is the same One who fed a multitude without enough to feed a handful.
He is the same One who turned the water into wine after the wine drinking had gone on for quite a while!
He is the same One who rose from the dead and whose power knows no limits.
The aforementioned aren't alarming to you because you are so familiar with the stories. If you had not heard about it, you would surely never pray that a handful of food would feed thousands.
It did then and it still can.
Go back and pray about the matter again.
Aloud.
