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Stewardship

As Christians, we are God's stewards here on earth.  We are responsible for those things which He has entrusted us with.  When I think of being a good steward, my mind usually goes straight to financial things like spending money wisely, saving, etc.  But if you think about it, money is not the only thing that God has entrusted us with!  God opened my eyes that He has entrusted me with my husband and my kids as well.  I know that may sound obvious, but I never looked at stewardship in that light before!

No one else can be a wife to my husband...that's MY job.  No one else can be a mother to my kids...that's MY job.  God specifically gave these jobs to me, and it is my responsibility to see that I do them to the best of my ability.  I am God's trusted steward for my family...and so are you for yours!  

No two families are the same!  In my case, I have one biological daughter and then I also have stepchildren.  God showed me that they are ALL my kids because He chose to entrust all of them to me in some way or another.  Therefore, I am responsible for their hearts, minds and lives on some level.  That is an awesome responsibility!

I pray that God specifically shows you what He has entrusted you with, and I pray that we all will be GREAT stewards with what He has given us!

Don't Let the Devil Infiltrate Your Primary Battleground: Your mind!

Written by 31 Online Contributor Julie Koranteng

"When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, "Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here. But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, "You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us." Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They hired counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia." - Ezra 4:1-5

As I read this passage in Ezra, I find it so interesting that when these enemies of Judah did not get what they wanted from God's people, the first thing they set out to do was to attack their minds! Why would they do that? Because often times our greatest struggle can be the one that goes on in our minds. Doubt, fear and unbelief can be paralyzing, and can oftentimes have a far greater impact than even outward assaults. In this case, the enemy was quite aware that this strategy works. 

In the above story, you might think 'Well why would anyone listen to their enemies anyway?' but pay attention: They hired counselors! They hired other people to disguise themselves as counselors so that the source of the discouraging words would not be found out.

Our enemy, the devil, is quite aware of this tactic too. Of course, he is the father of lies. The devil will try to whisper in our ear things like "this situation is never going to get better - just give up" or "what makes you think you can accomplish such a task?" He might even put people in your path to speak defeating words to you. And it is such a sneaky tactic because if we are not aware that this is the voice of the enemy, we might just believe what this voice is telling us. In fact, we might even think it is the voice of God! And if we will believe these lies, we might just give up on the purposes God has set before us to accomplish! That is why it is important that as believers, we stay in the word and in prayer, so we will come to know God, and the character of God, intimately, for those of us that know God intimately can say: "That negative talk is not coming from my God!", and we can immediately dismiss those lies before they have any impact on our attempt to do God's will in our life.

Hear what the word has to say regarding how God desires his followers to be:

John 10:5 - And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. 

God wants us to know his voice for such a situation as this. So that we can ask ourselves: is this God trying to direct me or the devil trying to discourage me?

As we get to know God and listen for His voice, we can have peace in the midst of any situation, which comes from following His voice only:

"You will keep in perfect peace (agreement, calmness, contentment, ease) him whose mind is steadfast (immovable, stable, constant, resolute, unbending, determined), because he trusts in you." - Isaiah 26:3

Isn't it fascinating that a synonym for peace is agreement? God is saying here, that you will keep in agreement with Him if your mind is fixed on Him!

Keep Hope ALIVE

Have you ever felt like your hope was on life support?  I have!  I've heard the phrase "keep hope alive" before, but when I read it today, it jumped off the page at me.  Personally, I feel like I have "kept hope alive" in different circumstances in my life for so long that that my hope is now a senior citizen!  But I did it...only with God's help, I have managed to keep it alive, and now it is stronger than ever.  

Sometimes we let our hope wither away because we don't feed it with the Word.  When I say "hope" I'm not talking about wishing or some far-off dream.  I'm talking about the God kind of hope...the kind of hope that gets you through the night because you KNOW that God is faithful...the kind of hope that no matter how dim the light is at the end of the seemingly endless tunnel, it tells you that you will reach it one day.  I believe that God uses hope to keep us going when we otherwise would have given up.

While this kind of hope is from God, it is our job to keep it alive.  I know my hope has been on life support many times, but it has always recovered.  Why?  Because I nurse it back to health by meditating and speaking the Word of God.  Every word that comes out of our mouths either carries life or death in it.  When we choose to only speak life over our circumstances, we are keeping hope alive.  That is part of our job description as Christians.

I pray that you will build your hope up today by opening your mouth.  I used to only know the first part of Proverbs 13:12 which is "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" and that is true.  But there's a second part to that verse which is "but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life."  Keep your hope alive, and your God-given desire WILL come!

Learning to be Thankful

We're coming up on the holiday of Thanksgiving, where we usually get together with friends and family to fellowship and eat...and we might say one or two things that we're thankful for.  But instead of saving our one or two things for that day, we need to have an ATTITUDE of thanksgiving as well as an EXPRESSION of thanksgiving throughout every day of the year!  

God tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 that part of His will for every believer is to give thanks in everything.  I don't know about you, but I know that it is very easy for me to become complacent and ungrateful.  After all, we live in America and are growing up in the "microwave" generation where if we have to wait for something for more than 60 seconds we complain.  We need to shake that off and develop the characteristic of a thankful attitude.  I believe that some people may be born with a more positive outlook on life while others aren't, but no matter which category we fall under, a thankful attitude is something that requires work to obtain...but it is well worth it!

In addition to having a thankful attitude, we also need to express our gratefulness.  Someone probably won't ever know that you are thankful for something unless you express it, whether that is through words or a card or a hug or some other kind of gesture.  People long to feel appreciated...I know I love to hear "thank you" and I bet there is someone in each of our lives that needs to hear it today too.

Let's not just let this time of year come and go and leave all of our "thank yous" in November...let's work hard to develop an attitude of gratitude and let's show it!

God Desires YOU

I just wanted to share something that God shared with
me this morning. We all know that God loves us and
that His love is perfect. He loves us
unconditionally, which is unlike anything we will
experience from anyone else. But it doesn't stop
there! Not only does God love us perfectly, but He
also desires to be with us and for us to come to know
Him intimately.

If we think about it, there are probably people in all
of our lives who we love but who we don't always want
to be around, so in our limiting human minds, we tend
to see God that way too. But that's not how He
is...not only does He love us, He ALWAYS wants to be
around us! He longs for us. He longs for our
company, and He also longs for us to know Him deeply.

Be encouraged that God loves you, and He wants to be
with you all the time - in good times and not so good
times!

Psalms 18:33,36

I was just reading this morning and came across these
verses that I thought I'd share. They are Psalms
18:33,36 (AMP):

:33 He makes my feet like hinds' feet [able to stand
firmly or make progress on the dangerous heights of
testing and trouble]; He sets me securely upon my high
places.
:36 You have given plenty of room for my steps under
me, that my feet would not slip.

I love the Amplified version, especially with these
verses. It's great to know that even in our hard
times, which there will most likely always being
something hard going on in our lives, God is not only
ordering our steps but He is making our way plain with
a firm footing AND helping us to make progress at the
same time!

I just wanted to encourage everyone (myself included!)
that God is ordering our steps as we trust in
Him...and He's not just ordering our "big" steps.
He's ordering the "little" steps of our daily routines
too. Just know that as you're walking out whatever
steps you're taking today, you're walking in God's
plan for your life...and He only has GOOD things in
store for us.