“Surrender to God! Resist the devil, and he will run from you.” James 4:7 I have quoted this scripture to myself, maybe thousands (if not more) of times over the years. Many more times than that to people in counseling sessions. The rest of the paragraph beyond says: “Come near to God, He will come near to you. Clean up your lives, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you people who can’t make up your mind.” James 4:8

It has been my experience that when people are having trouble making up their minds, they are usually fighting against the will of God. In their hearts they know, even the more immature of heart, know what they are supposed to do. Their flesh fights against the Spirit, the battle ensues. Even Jesus experienced this very real struggle in Gethsemane. He was so troubled that He sweat blood. Where He agonized before the cross. Matthew 26:41reads: “Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Jesus had been teaching His disciples about the Kingdom of God and all that is yet to come before this hour, yet the weight of this hour before they were to come to get Him, and He would surrender His will to the Father’s will; was the most difficult of all up to this point. He made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us in the world. Though He fully knew what was expected of Him by the Father, still, His flesh was weak. He made Himself a living sacrifice for us.

Romans 12:1-2 reads: “Dear friends, God is good. So I beg you to offer your bodies to Him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That’s the most sensible way to serve God. Don’t be like the people of this world but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to Him.”

God wants you to do His will. He may birth it in your heart at a younger age but you may struggle in the flesh to obey Him. I find that without surrender, as the scripture says, you will not know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to Him.

Surrender to Him, now. He develops your path before you when you are in complete surrender to his will.

If you have never asked Jesus into to your heart, do not waste another minute, do it now! He made the ultimate sacrifice for you. He died for you, took on all your sins, ask Him to forgive you! He took on all your pain, sickness and oppression upon Himself. He rose from death, and lives eternally so that you may have the ability to do the same one day! Ask His Holy Spirit to fill you with power, and to lead and guide you through your life, and by His word.

Surrender to Him today!

“Lift up your heads, O Gates! And be lifted up O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. “Psalms 24:7

We need to daily declare all spiritual obstacles be removed that stand in the way of our wholehearted submission to God’s reign. Jesus is King of Kings. So we need to both Spiritually and in the physical sense welcome His reign. Lift up our heads signifies humility and readiness. When we stand in reverence of God , we allow Him to come into our lives and lead us. (Beth Moore)

A quote from John Piper,” Each time we cry out for God’s presence, we are echoing the call written in the Psalms. We should always be ready to open our hearts.

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday and we are going into the Holy week. Usually, we reflect the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. My attention was drawn to the donkey, who was ready in every way to give a ride to the King of Kings. According to scriptures, he had never been ridden. I used to have 6 horses and a horse or donkey that has never been ridden needs to be broken, a bridle put on after lots of carrots, then slow conditioning to the clothes, or weight of a saddle or a person, it takes time in the natural. But Jesus knew that the donkey was there waiting for Him. Waiting to be the Christ-bearer, the vessel God used to carry Jesus into Jerusalem. Waiting to fulfill the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9. Only the Holy Spirit, going before Jesus and His disciples could make this donkey ready for the King. It was all the will of God. Zechariah had prophesied 500 years earlier that a King would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey-“Be full of joy, O people of Zion! Call out in a loud voice, O people of Jerusalem! See, your King is coming to you. He is fair and good and has the power to save. He is not proud and sits on the son of a female donkey.” He needed the donkey to represent peace, service and humility. The donkey submitted to be led, no resistance. Just simple obedience! The donkey was willing to obey, this was supernatural for one who has never been ridden. The donkey carried Christ, as our mission is to lift up Jesus. Willing, obedience opens many doors. We need to be ready, like the donkey- to carry Jesus to the world, and to check ourselves that we remain obedient, with wholehearted submission to His will, keeping our hearts guarded and open for the King of Glory to come in.

Jesus Christ chose to submit to the Father’s will for humanity. He willingly laid His life down, died on the cross, then rose again in 3 days and He is a living, risen, savior, Christ our King!!!

Ask Him into your heart today, He took all your shame, pain, sickness and bondage upon Himself, so that you may be free and have eternal life just as He lives today. We celebrate His resurrection this Sunday but ask Him into your heart, ask the Holy Spirit to fill you and lead and guide you through His Holy Word, he will direct your path today, and every day for the rest of eternity!

Lift up your heads, and let the King of Glory come in!

When Noah built the arc as an act of obedience to God, the story is in Genesis 7. Verse 9 says “He obeyed God he took a male and a female of each kind into the boat with him. Seven days later a flood began to cover the earth. The water under the earth started gushing everywhere, the sky opened like windows, and rain poured down for 40 days and nights. All this began on the seventeenth day of the second month of the year. On that day Noah and his wife went into the boat with their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. They took along every kind of animal, tame and wild, including birds. Noah took a male and female of every creature with him, just as God told him to do. And when they were all in the boat, the Lord closed the door.” There was repeated instructions before the great flood happened, usually when God repeats himself it has importance. Even if people who were desperately screaming.” let us in”, it was too late, no one believed in what he was doing. God had shut the door, and no one else could get into the arc. Everyone else perished. You can read the whole story, but people thought Noah was crazy, they mocked him. The day and the hour that we are in concerns me and my spirit is very unsettled, “Are we ready?? Will we be ready when our King Jesus returns?” Matthew 25:10-12 says:” While the foolish ones were on their way to get some oil, the groom arrived. The five who were ready went into the wedding, the doors were closed. Later the others returned and shouted, ‘Sir, Sir open the door for us, but the groom replied, ‘I don’t even know you!’ If you read the whole story, you will see that the five who were wise were ready with their lamps filled with oil and extra oil to spare, while the other five “foolish” ones had just the oil in their lanterns while they waited for the groom to arrive and they ran out of oil.

Matthew 25:4 says: “But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” This imagery symbolizes readiness for an important event, like the wedding of Christ. The oil represents the Holy Spirit. It’s so important to be vigilant and actively seeking God, seek His presence, seek to be filled with His Spirit which draws all men unto Him. You are a carrier of His presence, His light for others to see Christ in you. Bring others to Him by His Spirit.

Isaiah 43:18-19 says: “Forget what happened long ago! Don’t think about the past. I am creating something new. There it is, do you see it?” I sense the significance of not getting distracted by your past or even the multiple things, people’s voices, world events that are happening all around you, press into Him, into His presence. Psalms 91:4 says:” He will spread His wings over you and keep you secure. His faithfulness is like a shield or city wall.” Proverbs 16:9 says ” We make our own plans but the Lord decides where you will go.” This is so true, when we leave everything surrendered into the hands of God.

Are you ready? Do you keep your lamps filled with oil? Stay in His presence, stay filled with His Spirit.

For anyone who has never asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord, or have not yet accepted the sacrifice that He has made for you: He gave His life for you, He wants you to surrender everything to Him, He was crucified taking all sin, pain and suffering on the cross, then He rose again so that you can have the same chance at eternal life that He has as He is seated on the right hand of the Father as the scripture says. No one is too far gone from His forgiveness, you only need to believe in Him, ask Him to come into your life and be your faithful Lord! Ask Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit. He really loves you.

Luke 21:28 (NLT) Says:” So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!”

Do not wait until it’s too late.

Psalm 36:5 in God’s word tells us: ” Your love is faithful, Lord, and even the clouds in the sky can depend on you. Lamentations 3:22-24 reads: “The Lord’s kindness never fails, If He had not been merciful, we would have been destroyed. The Lord can always be trusted to show mercy each morning. Deep in my heart I say, ‘The Lord is all I need, I can depend on Him!'” Psalms 30:5 reads: “For His anger lasts only a moment but His favor lasts a lifetime, weeping may stay for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

A great matriarch in faith, who discipled and brought many to the kingdom through her obedience once said, ” If you look at the world you’ll be distressed, if you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God, you will be at rest.” Corrie Ten Boom

Psalms 27:14 reads: “Trust the Lord! Be brave and strong and trust the Lord.”

A favorite scripture of mine is Psalm 89:1 which reads:” I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make Your faithfulness known to all generations.” God is loving faithful, kind to all of us. What’s exciting is that He loved us all so much that he chose to die on the cross, rise from the dead gloriously, so that those who have faith and trust in Him, will have all sin wiped away forevermore. I believe that He did die for each one of us and rose as a living savior. He laid down His life so that we may have a second chance to live eternally with Him, as we rise to be with Him one day. He sent us His comforter, The Holy Spirit, who draws you to the Lord, who directs your path and who endues us all with His power who ask, believe and trust in Him.

Trust Him today!

Invite Jesus to be your Lord and savior, He will make your slate clean of all sin. No matter what you have ever done, and He will make each day new for you, as you trust in Him!

This is the way that Jesus recommended that we pray: Matthew 6:9-14

Our Father in heaven, help us to honor Your name.

Come and set up Your kingdom, so that everyone on earth will obey You, as You are obeyed in heaven.

Give us our food for today.

Forgive us for doing wrong, (our sins)

as we forgive others.

Keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil.

If you forgive others for their wrong doings they do to you, Your Father in heaven will forgive you.

But if you don’t forgive others, Your Father will not forgive your sins.

This is a very important prerequisite for the gift of forgiveness of our sins isn’t it?

If we obey this command and we receive that amazing gift of forgiveness, God really forgives our sins. Scripture says when He forgives our sins, that they are removed as far as east is from the west. He has no remembrance of what we did. Isaiah 43:25 “But I wipe away your sins because of Who I am. And so I will forget the wrongs that you have done.”

Hebrews 13:12 “Jesus Himself suffered outside the city gate so that His blood make people holy.”

Hebrews 10:17″ Then I will forget about their sins and no longer remember their evil deeds.”

Psalms 103:12 ” How far has the Lord taken our sins from us? Farther than the distance from east to west.

Here are other scriptures to look up:

Jeremiah 31: 34, Acts 3;19,1 John 1:7-9, Micah 7:19, John 3:16, 1John 1:9, Romans 11:29, Jeremiah 31:31-34

There are others. Jesus promises to forgive our sins, which is a major burden He bore on the cross, scripture demonstrates clearly that He does; then why are so many people wallowing in pain because of those same sins? I have seen myself that it’s as if those sins never happened to God, once we repent and surrender all things that obstruct God’s will in our lives. He forgives us completely. Our slate is wiped clean. People in the world have a hard time forgetting what you did, you clearly have to forgive all of that. The people who condemn you, gossip about you, who may even devise evil plans against you, sometimes we have to learn to forgive daily different events that are consequences of our sins. These may make it difficult to forgive yourself, which is also a very important part of our surrender to God. Receive the gift of forgiveness freely, God does not even remember what you did once you totally repent of your sin and forgive anyone else who may have hurt you regarding that sin.

If you have never received Jesus as Lord and savior of your life, asked Him to cleanse you of all sin, and have faith that he died for those sins, rose again so that you have a new lease on life. If you believe what He did for you is true, then you will have eternal life, just like Jesus.

It will be the most important thing you have ever done.

Forgive yourself!