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Daily Dose of Encouragement

God Can Use ANYTHING!: A Defeated Foe

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God can and will use ANYTHING to speak to our hearts.  Join me this week as I share one of His creepy crawley visual aids!

 

A Defeated Foe

And the God of peace will soon crush Satan; He will crush him underneath your feet!

Romans 16:20

shoes-5Watching Darin finesse a snake out from under our steps was quite a show.  He started with a broom handle and then added the hoe for leverage.  It was mesmerizing … I couldn’t stand to watch but I couldn’t look away either!  He didn’t even have to ask what I wanted him to do with it … kill it!

The hoe struck precisely behind its head and as soon as I heard the plink of metal meeting concrete, I felt certain that the battle was over.  But was it?  I couldn’t believe my eyes … That reptile continued to coil, constrict and even strike!  My fear and anxiety didn’t lessen one iota even though I witnessed its head being severed from its body except for one thin piece of skin.  For all practical purposes, this snake was dead, but my mind had yet to notify my emotions of its new status!

It occurred to me that it’s much like this in the spiritual realm.  Jesus defeated Satan at Calvary; He gave the deathblow to the head, but he’s still writhing around causing trouble until the day when he is literally cast into the lake of fire.  Right now, he’s like a roaring lion, seeking to devour and destroy those who love Jesus.  He roars fiercely but he’s toothless!  He can cause us problems in the here and now, but his there and then is as good as done!  My question is this: do we live like we have a DEFEATED foe?

When Darin asked for the axe so he could finish the job, I was still squirming and shrieking, but I had to intentionally say to myself, “He is dead.  He cannot hurt me.  My husband is holding both ends of this dead reptile and he can do nothing to me.”  That may not sound like much, but it was hard mental and emotional work to bring my fears and anxiety into submission to the truth.

Oh, dear Sister, we do still live behind enemy lines, but we must live in light of truth and we find that truth in the Word of God.  We will endure difficulties; we must choose to endure hardship; and we cannot shrink back when disappointment, fear or persecution comes.  We must fix our eyes on Jesus and remember that the day is coming when God will crush Satan underneath our feet, and the roaring lion will be no more.

From my heart to yours,

Tami

God Can Use ANYTHING!: Control

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God can and will use ANYTHING to speak to our hearts.  Join me this week as I share one of His creepy crawley visual aids!

 

Control

For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:13-14 (NASB)

white-flag-3Snake Numero Uno wasn’t too big a deal.  It was in plain sight, and I had been warned.  I was even asked if I wanted it killed or relocated.  I chose the latter.  Looking back, it seems like the ball was in my court, so to speak, and I was reasonably comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.

Snake Numero Dos WAS a big deal!  It caught me off guard, invaded my space and I felt helpless.  I was extremely uncomfortable in an uncomfortable situation!  Other than about twelve inches, the culprit was the same: a big black snake.  What was the difference?

Control.  Don’t we believe that life is better when we’re in the driver’s seat?  The enemy knows that, and he stealthily invades our space with the deception that we somehow have it all figured out. We like for things to be what we want, when we want and how we want.  We really think we know best!

I love Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Ephesians 2:1-10.  O how I pray that God will cement these truths in our hearts so when that “Serpent of Old” comes slithering under our steps – whether we’re blindsided or prepared – we’ll see him for who he is — Satan, the deceiver and murderer from the beginning.

It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.     –The Message

From my heart to yours,

Tami

God Can Use ANYTHING!: God’s Discipline

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God can and will use ANYTHING to speak to our hearts.  Join me this week as I share one of His creepy crawley visual aids!

 

God’s Discipline

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

FRIDAY5-897x1024As I watched my hero take control of the situation and finesse the snake out from under the steps, the immediate life lesson the Holy Spirit brought to my attention was the fact that just as I was so proud of my clean garage, we often get too proud of our clean lives.  Truth be told, they aren’t really as clean as we think they are, but we do look better than Joe Schmo down the street or Larry Loveless at the DMV!  After we’ve walked with the Lord for a while, it’s easy to forget that our lives are clean ONLY because of Jesus.  All of our righteousness is as filthy rags and there is no one who seeks to do good apart from God … no one!

About twenty-five years ago Darin and I went through an intense discipleship program, and we had to memorize a number of presentations and a ton of Scripture.  After six months of this, my heart got a bit puffed up.  My excitement over what I was learning turned to spiritual pride and as any good father would do, my Heavenly Father disciplined that right out of me.  Here’s how He did it:

I saw them as they were making their way down the street … black pants, starched white shirts, ties … you’ve seen them — Jehovah’s Witnesses.  “Come on, Baby, I can take you!  I’ve got the ‘Disciple’s Cross’ memorized ,and I’ll slap a few Scriptures on you … I’m ready for this!”  Let me just say that within thirty seconds, I had bolted into the house and was facedown on the carpet wailing in repentance.  I was so ashamed and promised the Lord that if He would send a teacher, I would study to show myself approved unto Him, no one else, HIM!  Within a few months, God had me in a Precept Bible study and He was teaching me His truth, His way.

It sure seems like once we have everything in order, the enemy comes slithering along and attempts to destroy God’s good work in our lives.  While we definitely need to be on the alert, we can also rejoice that we have a Heavenly Father who loves, protects and disciplines His children.

From my heart to yours,

Tami