Category: SpiritFilledLiving

Gourmet Cooking

It takes time and effort to learn to cook God’s gourmet meals – but the results are so outstanding that we can be only glad that we spent our time and effort in learning to cook in this manner.

Meditation Thought: “Let your speech at all times be gracious and pleasant, seasoned with salt, so that you will know how to answer each one [who questions you].” (Colossians 4:6 AMP)

A good cook is accomplished because they have had experience. Just pouring ingredients together in any mixture or any proportion does not make a tasty dish, and in fact, can make on that is actually harmful or wasteful.

We can become good cooks with the ingredients God provides for us (His Word, His Spirit, our minds, our bodies, our spirit) – only if we follow His recipes and advice as to how to use and mix these ingredients. Even then, the more time and effort we spend in “cooking”, the better we will become at producing tasty, nutritious and attractive dishes for ourselves and for others. We must learn that perfect proportion and method to produce the best result for the particular dish we are preparing – for no salt can make a dish too bland to be interesting, and too much salt can make it unpalatable.

It takes time and effort to learn to cook God’s gourmet meals – but the results are so outstanding that when we are enjoying the dish, and others are enjoying it, we can be only glad that we spent our time and effort in learning to cook in this manner.

God is thinking about… You!

What are some of those thoughts the Lord is thinking about me?

Meditation Thought: “How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly!” (Psalm 139:17)

What are some of those thoughts the Lord is thinking about me constantly? Perhaps His promises give me a clue: (Insert your name into each ____)
“I love ___.
I will help ___.
I will teach ___.
I will make ___ joyful.
I will make ___ peaceful.
I will allow ___ freedom, but provide the opportunity for him/her to find the ways of love, peace and joy – therefore “making” him/her these ways if he/she is willing.
I will help ___ to find Truth, to see wide vistas instead of narrow canyons.
I will help ___ to feel needed, appreciated, accomplished, enthusiastic, grateful, willing, and loved.
I will give ___ hope and justify his/her faith in Me.”

Prayer of response:
Dear Lord,
Just as you think about me constantly, I want to think about You constantly – I ask Your guidance in helping me bridle my ego and my worldly desires that more and more this thinking makes itself apparent in my life.
Amen.

Finally: Real Health Food!

This food will keep you in good health, good spirits, and enthused about life.

Meditation Thought:  “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)

“The Word of God needs to become more and more delicious: develop a hunger for the taste of it – a craving that is satisficed by no other food. For this food is the perfect nourishment for your total being: body, mind, and spirit. It will keep you in good health, good spirits, and enthused about life.”

A Delighted Worker

As the workman takes hold of the Truth, the Truth sends out rays of peace, which are absorbed and then released as joy.

Meditation Thought: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Search for the word of truth, nurture the word of truth, share the word of truth, and live the word of truth. A workman approved is one who is committed with his whole heart and his whole being to the task at hand; he becomes skilled in his tools, and delights in his work and the results of it. He listens to instructions and carefully follows them.

As the workman takes hold of the Truth, the Truth sends out rays of peace, which are absorbed and then released as joy.

Do as I Do

My people must be as lightening rods – raising themselves up to draw My Spirit unto themselves.

Meditation Thought: “Commit your work to the Lord, then it will succeed.” (Proverbs 16:3)

“Although you may chafe at the variety and number of your duties [you have not seen that because a wife and mother does fulfill so many roles that she is able to spread My Love, My Mercy and My Compassion to many more people than most persons are able to do], when you do your solitary tasks, absorb My teaching – when you do your public tasks, teach My Way by your example:
– Sacrifice as I sacrificed
– Love as I love
– Adapt as I adapt
– Be joyful as I am joyful
– Be understanding and kind as I am compassionate
– Communicate with your spirit – not just your mind.

My people must be as lightening rods – raising themselves up to draw My Spirit unto themselves.”

Infused with Enthusiasm

The key is in the knowing that the harvest will come.

Meditation Thought: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)

We get weary when we are really not interested in what we are doing – we are doing it out of duty, of necessity or inertia. But when we excitedly choose to do a job – even if it is not especially pleasant in itself – because we can hardly wait for the results – then we get so enthused that we forget to become tired, or if we do eventually tire, we have the will power to continue because of our anticipation.

God wants us to catch such a clear picture of the elements of His Kingdom that we can hardly wait to appropriate them in our lives. Once we can picture that luscious harvest, we can hoe in the hot sun without being discouraged. In fact, when we do become weary, if we will share our feeling with God, He will give us clear, cool water to quench our thirst, and new strength to our muscles, and even hand us better tools for doing the job. The key is in the knowing that the harvest will come, and that we will be greatly blessed when it does. This enables us to ignore distractions, ignore tiredness, ignore set-backs – and to concentrate happily on the job at hand.

Mission Possible

Picture a row of ladders lined up against a wall. At the top of the wall is God’s ultimate fulfilled plan. Now with that in mind:

  • Each of us has a mission and talents to be used to perform that mission to the completion of God’s ultimate Plan and His glory.
  • We are to help each other discover the individual mission and to enable each other to complete the mission.
  • There is an inter-relationship in the ability of each mission to be completed; all missions are connected by a link of some kind so that the progress of the mission of one affects the progress of all. Therefore, it behooves each person to not only work on the completion of his own mission, but to give any possible help to the completion of all missions.

Back to the ladder image – each person must climb his own mission-talent ladder to God’s final Plan – but arms can be reached out: to pull another up, or push another down, or both arms can be used on one’s own ladder. However, since the final Plan can be realized only when everyone is up the ladder, the person who climbs without helping the others to rise too, finds that reaching the top alone has no purpose. That person has to wait longer to have the ultimate satisfaction because they must wait for the others to arrive at the top. Their ultimate satisfaction could be reached more quickly if they help others move ahead more rapidly as they move up, and if they push another down, it will take that person that much longer to reach the top and contribute to the completion of the ultimate satisfaction of all.

Protected Shelter

The choice is yours to use the knowledge or let it lie idle.

Meditation Thought: “ Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 4:2)

“Change your thought of the word “prayer” from being a verb “to pray” – to being a noun: being in a state of prayer – a continuous state of prayer. The atmosphere of prayer varies according to the workings in your life, but you must assure that by your awareness and your attitude that you stay within the confines of the prayer world: the prayer world is large enough to encompass all the places in heaven and in earth where you should be. If you wander outside of its confines, you lose your sense of direction, your protection, and your purpose.

Think of a mist of prayer enclosing all of the areas of your life – as a gentle rain renews the parched earth, the mist of prayer keeps your life renewed, refreshed, conscious of the Power and Love that have entered your life through your belief in that Power and Love. The scriptures in your mind are much of the reality of the mist of prayer; worship of any form, a grateful heart, a joy in seeing the works of the Kingdom being executed on earth – all these are as atoms of the composition of the prayer mist. The more densely these atoms are concentrated in your life-atmosphere, the more concentration you have of the Kingdom on earth. Just as your home protects you when you are inside it from the storm without, so the atmosphere of prayer surrounding you protects you from evil from without. You must be enclosed in the house before it provides you any shelter – you must place yourself in the prayer atmosphere before it provides your shelter. Enter into your shelter of prayer, and keep it closed about you. You know how to do this by the instructions given to you through My Word and My Ways: the choice is yours to use the knowledge or let it lie idle.

Free-flowing Channels

Your human love keeps the corrosion of evil scrubbed clean from the channels so that divine love gushes through with such force that it startles the world.

Mediation Thought: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another…” (John 13:34)

“My spirit of love I give to you, for there is no other way to love. All else has ulterior motive – pure love is divine love, and as pure crystal water cleanses and refreshes all it touches, so divine love expressed in any form, through any form, cleanses and refreshes all whom it touches.

Only by having clean channels for divine love to flow through can it stay pure. Your channels must be kept clean by pure thoughts and actions, by loving, ministering thoughts and actions – all initiated by you, in preparation for the divine love which will flow freely through the wide-open, pure channels. Your human love keeps the corrosion of evil scrubbed clean from the channels so that divine love gushes through with such force that it startles the world, makes a big change in the world, brings the world to acknowledge the Kingdom, and to seek it. Human spirit – divine spirit: merged spirits sweeping across the world, renewing, revitalizing, shining all they touch, transforming dark corrosion to bright beauty, and worldly to holy.”

Word Farming

What joy it is when the harvest comes.

Meditation Thought: “As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” (Luke 8:15)

“Honest”, “good”, “patience” – 3 keys to the knowledge of the spiritual kingdom. The kingdom is true – real, though perceived by the mind and the heart rather than by one of the 5 senses.

If our heart is dishonest, we deal in illusions and will flounder, never being secure and sure and at peace. Our heart must be good to be the nutrient that grows good fruit. If it is hard, hoarding its life-giving blood, it does no nourishing to that which it should feed. If it is soft and flexible, and pumping out pure, clean blood – nutrients – it feeds new life – new ‘fruits’. But it takes time for growth. We do not plant the seed one day, nourish it for a day and harvest the fruit the following day. We must take the seed-word and feed it and care for it, giving of ourselves, sacrificing other interests and activities, before we can harvest that fruit. What joy it is when the harvest comes – wonderful fruit to enjoy ourselves, to share with others. All the toil and sacrifice is more than worthwhile. After we harvest our first crop of fruit (the God-works completed), it is so exciting and fulfilling that we eagerly cultivate more seeds. Oh, there will be problems in the tilling – but we must not give up because of them, or there will be no harvest. In overcoming the problems, we may even learn new, better methods of tilling – resulting in a faster harvest, or a more abundant harvest.

Dear Father, I ask this day to be a starting point to be a better farmer of Your Word – that I learn new, better methods to bring Your seed to abundant harvest. Amen.