Category: Abundant Living

Dispelling Darkness

When His glory is perceived, others are drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Meditation Thought: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

“Let” – not “Do” shine. Our part is to allow God to have His way with us, so that He makes our light shine. If we attempt the actual lighting by trying to accomplish it by good works, then people would focus on us, not God. By allowing God to take complete control of our lives, He lights such a bright lamp by the works He does in and through us, that His glory is seen in the light. When His glory is perceived, others are drawn to it like a moth to a flame, and God is then able to work in them, too, lighting their lamp.

The more people that allow God to light their lamps, the more light there is to dispel the darkness. We may never know how many other lamps are lit from our lamp by God, but we can be happy in knowing that our lamp is completely at His disposal.

Peace comes when we are doing the good works, knowing that God is pleased because we are doing His work, according to His instructions.

Only Ask

Proceed without doubt, without fear – but only after consultation with Me.

Meditation Thought: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…  I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.” (Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 12-13)

“Do not hesitate to use the authority which I have given to you; and do not dare usurp the authority which is Mine. How can you determine our respective authorities? In one way only: constant checking of My will and instructions by prayer – by listening to My Word and Spirit. I have deliberately withheld from you specific instructions and knowledge until you need them. Proceed without doubt, without fear – but only after consultation with Me. There are only a few principles which you need to know – but these few are expressed in as much variety as there are moments in your life.

Only I know the specific most effective application of the principles at any given time, for only I know the unseen forces working everywhere.

But I long to share this knowledge with you! Only ask Me so that your free will is honored.

Fresh – Pure – Lovely

Life is meant to be actively lived, not passively endured!

Meditation Thought: “Who will not fear you, Lord,
    and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
    and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Revelation 15:4)

“My judgment has been revealed, and My judgment is: forgiveness. I seek to love you. Will you seek to love me? Can you put aside the fears and misconceptions the world has thrust upon you when you were vulnerable – before you put on the armor of My Spirit? You can, you know.

You need not keep any irritants within you – let My Spirit wash them out. Through the yielding to the rushing flow of My Spirit you can be cleansed – constantly made fresh and pure and lovely. But you must be willing: you must recognize that at times the waters will be removing such entrenched irritants that there will be temporary pain. Do not stop the flow at these times or some of the irritant will remain.

Keep the flow strong by seeking to know what to think, how to pray, what actions to take. Why live a life ‘in limbo’? Look at the physical evidence which surrounds you: there is color, movement, substance. Life is meant to be actively lived, not passively endured!

Get up from your sick bed of rebellion and pity and sloth and distress: Follow Me. We have many places to go and things to do, each place an interesting vista, each action an exciting adventure, every day an eagerly anticipated event!

We can change the world: we can exchange the world for the Kingdom in each heart which will open to our knock. Come, let us put out our nets, that we may bring hearts within our reach. My judgment consists not of vengeance but of love, and we must teach the truth of this wherever Satan has deceived a heart with his lies about this.”

Tears Shall Reflect Rainbows

They who wait for the Lord – instead of rushing in to take matters in their own hands – shall have the wisdom and the strength of the Lord motivating and activating them.

Meditation Thought: “but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

They who wait for the Lord – instead of rushing in to take matters in their own hands – shall have the wisdom and the strength of the Lord motivating and activating them.

  • The contrast in the power of self and Lord can hardly be comprehended or measured.
  • The difference between the motivations of self and the Lord can hardly be compared.
  • The difference between the actions of self and Lord are almost totally unrelated, having little in common.

But when self is by faith embraced in the Father’s arms and the Father does the moving, carrying the child, then the whole picture changes.

The knowledgeable, mature, wise, loving, powerful, righteous Father, full of grace and glory, sweeps along time and circumstances doing His good will and good works. He allows the child to accompany Him, to help Him, to enjoy the varieties of experiences as they participate together in all that lies along the chosen path. But the point is that the path is the choice of the loving, wise Father and not the wilful child.

May pain yield to the pressure of His love,
And the darkness of the night yield to the brightness of the dawn.
The tears shall reflect rainbows
As a new spirit is born within:
The heart of stone is removed
And the replaced with a heart of flesh.
The heart of flesh carries the waters of the Spirit
To give abundant live and peace forevermore.

Heart Transplant

You can have My power working only to the extent that you yield your power to it.

Meditation Thought: “ Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! ” (Ezekiel 18:31)

“A new heart” means “a new you” – a new you which is formed by a new spirit: the spirit sent by Jesus to dwell within you – my Holy Spirit.

Your belief in Jesus as Savior and Lord, coupled with your yielding to the Holy Spirit as controller of your life (spiritual and temporal) is the process by which you acquire a new heart and a new spirit.

Do not allow yourself to reject this transplanted heart and spirit: they are not foreign to your spirit, mind and body, but are super-strength ‘replacement’ parts: My power being the power that moves them instead of your power. But you can have My power working only to the extent that you yield your power to it. Our two powers cannot work at the same time, as two objects cannot take up the same space at the same time.

You can choose to allow My power to flow – you know the way of clearing your power from blocking it: Praise, Prayer, a humble attitude (not subservient – simply an acknowledgement of My authority over you as Father to child), and the expectation that your loving Father works all thing together to good for you.

Beginning, Middle, End

Is this your desire? Is this your desire for your family? for your friends? for strangers? For ‘enemies’?

Meditation Thought: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

” ‘In the beginning was the Word’ – and in the middle is the Word, and in the end shall be the Word. To you is given knowledge of the Word that you may have life and have it abundantly.

Recall the Word: the history of the Word; the history of the Word and the living Word; all words which are true are words of Mine intended to prompt My beloved children to seek to know Me, to love Me, and to do My will.

And My purpose in encouraging My children to know Me, to love Me, and to do My will is to bring them to abundant, fulfilling life.

Is this your desire? Is this your desire for your family? for your friends? for strangers? For ‘enemies’?

If this has become your desire, then shall you fulfill the promise of John 14 through Him who stated: ‘I am the Way, the Truth, the Life’: you shall also do the works that He does because your belief in Him causes Him to do His works through you. It appears as if you are doing the works because your body is visible, your words hearable, and your actions seeable, but the power that is doing the works is not yours: the power is of the Father, transmitted by the Son, and manifested in you.”

Pest Repellent

Those who have already started to grow serve as inspiration and encouragement for those who are considering growth.

Meditation Thought: “The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor…you are God’s field, God gives the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:8,6)

Plant the seed of faith by your witness to My love. Everyone has been given a measure of faith as the growth potential contained in the seed. But the seed must be planted in the nourishing soul of willingness to grow, and nurtured in the acts of obedience to My Word and Spirit, that the fruits may be made manifest.

Those who have already started to grow serve as inspiration and encouragement for those who are considering growth.

If you act at all times as my faithful child, then at all times you are both growing and encouraging others’ growth.

Think of the potential harvest as you endure storms, drought and weeds and pests. Seek to concentrate on the sun (Son), on the parching of your thirst by the Living Water, on the strength of the natural repellent against pests as given you by your Creator: the repellent of the Word standing against the spirit-pest of evil, including the evils of self-will and selfishness and self-pity.

Goodness, righteousness and mercy shall be the fruits in My fields, flavored by love, savored by all.

Hope? Really? Yes!

God uses all varieties of people, experiences, times and conditions as circumstances for one purpose:

Meditation Thought: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” (Romans 12:12)

We cannot possibly understand the workings of life, the workings of the universe. But we need not be at the mercy of every passing event, with no recourse, with no influence. For God has created us to work in us, through us, and around us to be a crucial part of His plan for the universe.

We must respond in harmony with His workings, however, if we are to be of great influence in them, and if we are to accomplish His work as He desires as our loving and proud Father.

And so ‘rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer’ is the key to living the resurrected life. We have been shown the way – graphically, as well as in the words of the centuries through God’s chosen people: prophets, kings, shepherds, a carpenter… God uses all varieties of people, experiences, times and conditions as circumstances for one purpose: to reconcile the world to Himself. How?
By hope in Him.
By faith in Him.
By communion with Him.

Praise be to Him!

Choose Every ‘This Moment’

Every moment you choose again. Choose Love. Choose Life. This moment, and every “this moment”.

Meditation Thought: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God… God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:15,16b)

Cast away from your life all that is not love and truth. The knowledge of the Word shall keep you on your proper course: the course where the Father does His works in love through you.

You have been given a choice:
– to choose God,
– ignore God, or
– oppose God.
Every moment you choose again.

Every moment you choose to take the cross in pain and rise in glory, or to plod on and on, discouraged and confused, or even bringing wrath and bitterness to your soul as you oppose Love.

Choose Love. Choose Life. This moment, and every “this moment”. You will have no regrets. The tears of night turn to joy in the morning.

Evidence surrounds you that effort produces results, persistence produces results, that those who choose positions that are based on Truth, and love, beauty and kindness, go down in history as venerated and not hated.

Would eternity not be even more intense in the expression of Truth and Love?

If you have difficulty in doing what you know you ought to do, remember that God is in you and you are in God; therefore you cannot fail when you move to do what you ought to do, and furthermore, your blessings will be great.

Life progresses from tiny to large, from seed to fruit, from labor to rest.

You must look if you are to see, and you must see if you are to understand. If you want to truly understand, move close: move so close that at least your spirit is able to move inside that which you observe: and, consistent with the purpose which you have chosen, namely, doing the Father’s will in love, let your spirit guide your mind, your words, your deeds, and the Spirit which dwells in you, just waiting for your call upon His power, will move heaven and earth to do your bidding.

Grow & Thrive

In giving is the growing; in seeking is the growing; in trusting is the growing.

Meditation Thought: “…let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.” (1 John 3:18-22)

Sprout, sprout! Only put out a tentative little growth by your own choice, and great movement of growth will take place. Such a little movement of faith is needed on your part, for all of the rest of the maturing process comes naturally.

To the extent you seek to express your faith in deed and truth, to that extent do you grow.

To the extent that you live out the commandments expressed by the Father and more fully and accurately interpreted for you by Jesus, to that extent do you thrive and grow.

As a plant will thrive if it seeks the direction of the sun and seeks the depth of the earth to find moisture, so shall you thrive if you seek truth in the commandments, and seek to fulfill the commandments with your deeds.

Plants do not grow by stagnant inner concentration, but by thrusting both upward and downward, and so it is with you.

Seek to find the Light of God and the depth of love in fellowship with others. Both are necessary for your proper growth: too much neglect of fellowship and you grow top heavy; too much neglect of God and you cannot find enough to nourish the fellowship.

If you are to grow to the maturity of blooming, you must absorb both the Light and the nutrients found in fellowship and ministry to each other.
In giving is the growing.
In seeking is the growing.
In trusting is the growing.
To neglect these is to shrivel and die missing the purpose for which the seed was made, was planted, was given a place where all that was needed for growth was there.

Do not despair when you must seek the Light with pain of difficult turning from your present direction; do not despair when you find hardness and resistance as you seek the depth of loving relationships and ministry.

To make greater effort is to strengthen you – to make you even more the best you can be.

It may not be a pleasant way, nor the way you would choose for proper growth – but it is the only way.

The Light is constant and you must turn to it.

The consistency of the human experience is varied – there is sandy soil and clay as hard as brick. The only way for you to get your roots set firmly where they should be to find the nutrients you need is to persist in pushing through each layer of resistance by your roots of love.

If little plants crack boulders, cannot your love crack the hard ground of resistance of envy, bitterness, jealousy, and apathy? Of course it can – for the strength from the Light pouring into your spiritual ‘tap’, making it strong, thrusts down to your roots of love and causes them to grow: slowly or rapidly, visibly or invisibly, they grow – and in doing so, aerate the soil that others may grow too.