~ Be THANKFUL & Keep Your Word ~

In Psalm 50:14-15 (CEV) God talks to us about want he truly wants out of us. He tells us that HE is the Most High God and the ONLY sacrifice he wants is for us to be thankful and to keep our word. I stop here at the verse because I wonder why this concept is very important to him. Hmmmm… perhaps can it be that we are to give up something? He goes on to say in verse 15 that we are to pray to him in times of trouble and he will rescue us and we will honor him. The true sacrifice that honors the Lord Ladies is a THANKFUL heart. He wants us to obey him and he will show us his power EVEN in times of trouble. We offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving…..

In the NIV translation of the Bible it says:

“sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me”

What is sacrifice anyhow? It is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the surrendering a possession as an offering to God or a divine supernatural figure. Well, God is my divine Supernatural Father figure so that definition I will take. J

I believe our feelings are a possession because I mean they do belong to us right? When we surrender the way we feel to God despite the situation and continue to thank Him in the midst of the storm we sacrifice thank offerings to Him.

Here is another example: In order for me to offer up a thank offering to God as a sacrifice I believe that would require me to give up something my flesh loves to do. My flesh LOVES to complain. When I wake up in the morning and I “feel” so tired mentally and physically I at times complain. I moan, pout and complain about how much I do not want to go to work and how I deserve to stay in bed longer with my hubby. But what am I really doing sisters? Who am I really giving praise too? It sure is not my Gracious Father…I am praising the enemy with my lips.

The one thing my flesh desires the most is to complain and remain there. I believe the enemy works through these desires. He wants me to stay there with an ungrateful heart because he knows I won’t give praise to my Father with my “defeated” feelings. He knows I will praise “his sly of a snake self” most likely by my moaning and complaining staying all in my fleshly desires. He is a sly snake I tell you. But sisters?!?!?!? We are smarting than him. God gave us authority.

God says “obey me daughter” fight pass your feelings and offer me a sacrifice of praise this morning. The enemy says “complain and pout you deserve to stay in the bed and not get up”. God wants us to keep our word which I believe is our faith in all situations and praise His Holy name no matter what. Be thankful through it all he says to us because I will save you. I am your God I go before you. You will honor me in the end.

We must train ourselves to be thankful no matter what and keep our word to our Father. God will provide a way out if we truly surrender our ways and truly depend on him. It truly is about HIM not us after all.

In Christ,

Monique Smith

Prayer Starter:

Jesus, thank you for your word and thank you so very much for showing us what REALLY matters to you. Our one true desire is to be more like you. Forgive us for complaining and moaning and not offering you praise with our lips. Help us Lord Jesus, to stand and fight against our flesh. We love you and honor your precious name. Amen

~ NO More Anxiety ~

Anxiety, doubt, loneliness and frustration, what do all these have in common? How about peace, joy, hope and courage, what do these have in common? I can tell you that one leaves you feeling drained and in despair and the other leaves you feeling energized, ready and vigilant. Why, why do these different emotions have the tendency to make us “feel” a certain way? Well, I believe it is because one is of Jesus and one is of the enemy. Let me explain…….

God made us with a variety of different emotions so that we can channel them for good and to glorify his kingdom but our focus is off when we are in an emotion that is not of him. God is of peace and would never want his child in despair so feeling anxious with doubt and of loneliness is not him sisters. We have a situation in front of us and it makes us feel uncomfortable so we panic. We choose chaos instead of peace. We think that God needs our help so we call everyone we know and start to speak defeat. Or we sit in a corner and entertain a anxious heart and think “I am an anxious person, I always been this way”. We don’t use our words to focus on the positive or have any faith we start giving life to every emotion under the sun. We give into anxiety instead of peace.

I think that what we miss it all when we think about emotion and feelings and we get too caught up in them (preaching to myself here). We think because we “feel” a certain way that we have to “act” in a certain manner than we just rely on our flesh to respond and it just is a mess. We fail to look to Jesus in the whole scenario. We fail to see why we are “this way” in the first place. We take no accountability. We start to think “oh, I am like my parents”. We start giving ourselves titles and speaking things into existence based off of one single feeling. We forget who we are in Christ just like that. Why, sisters?

We are human, that is why and we will fall short daily BUT we can call upon the name of Jesus and trust him in that exact moment. We are of flesh in a dark world where the enemy is very present. We are messy and sin is in our lives, we are not perfect and never will. But we do have dominion we can hone in on and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. As believers, we daily take up our cross and strive to be better remembering that God is at the center of everything we do. When we purposely shift our thoughts, emotions and responses to life’s trials we see the beauty (Jesus) in the pain and can choose peace, joy and hope, not ourselves in a situation. We can do this supernatural thing because sin is removed from us (doubt, fear, confusing etc) and God is now welcomed to be God.  

It is very possible that we can feel one way and listen to our spirit inside of us to do right despite our “emotion”. We will suffer and there is no way around that but we can choose different in our crazy emotions. What we need to understand is that through the hardship we face God is already working behind the scenes to bring forth something good in and through us but we cannot lose hope. We cannot lose our peace. We cannot lose our joy. We cannot get tired of thinking well and responding with faith or we block Jesus from working. We need to stand steadfast and trust God through it and talk back to our emotion and say “I will not stress, God is in control”, “I am not lonely, Jesus loves me”, “I will nor fear, that is not of the Lord", “I will not be anxious, God has me in the palm of his hand”. When you start to speak victory and faith situations change and we do as well. This takes practice.

 Remember like the word of God says in 1 Peter 5:8, "the enemy, the devil prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour". Sisters, he is ready to pounce on you. The enemy thinks he is smart when in actuality he really is not. We give him to much glory. The enemy forgets that we have authority over his tactics. But if we handle life with how we “feel” he will play and toy with our weak state and flesh. Soon we will work our self into a frenzy and loose our power over him. He will win in your thought life and you will respond not like the bold Christian you are. We cannot believe all the lies that he whispers in our ears and we can no longer give him glory with our emotions.

Sisters, we must be more than how we "feel". We can push pass emotions and choose to speak life, not death. We can respond with grace, not stubbornness. We can hope not be in despair with anxiety. We can sleep in total peace because God is with us and he will provide. We can love and serve instead of whining and complaining. Let’s grow. Let’s be more. Let’s not waver today. Let’s let peace, love, joy and courage be at the center of what we think, feel and do…..

In Christ,
Monique Smith

 Prayer Starter:

Thank you Father for this trial, I trust you. Thank you that you gave me a courageous spirit so that I can channel my emotions and thoughts in a healthy manner for your kingdom. Thank you for lovingly correcting me and giving me conviction in my heart. Thank you giving me freedom and helping me to walk in it. May I stand and be a light in this dark world by speaking victory even when I can't see it. Help me to push pass any emotions, thoughts or feelings that are not of you. I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. Amen  

~ A New Commitment ~

Often times we wonder why life is headed in a certain direction and we never stop to question ourselves why. We stumble and fall, which is normal, as we are not perfect but we do not learn from our mistakes. We keep doing the same and wanting different results. We say we are believers and say we love the Lord but want to fill our minds with filth. We want life to go smoothly every day and if it does not we throw a fit. Life with the Lord does not work in this fashion; I am here to burst your bubble. Whoever told you that life would be peachy each day lied. You cannot keep doing life the way you want to and expect favor.  We keep sinning and wonder why life is so bad for us. : /

I remember when I asked Christ into my heart at a young age I thought that I would be given special treatment, like I was exempt from pain. Life was so hard after I made the decision to live for the Lord, so I thought. I will tell you now that I look back in retrospect it was not hard, I made it hard. I wanted to praise Jesus Sunday and drink all throughout the week. I wanted to listen to R.Kelly talking about “sex me” and shout to the Lord that I love him Sunday. I wanted to do me and be spirit filled at the same time. When I did not see favor I was like “Jesus, what happened”.  I did not know how to put my flesh in order so I gave in to it EVERY second. God knew my heart and he knew I needed a revelation but he needed me to see that I needed him. Until that happened, I went around the same mountains over and over and over again.

Sisters, it is time to renew your commitment to the Lord. Whether you do not know Jesus at all or you do and are hiding, it is time for you and the Lord to be in right standing again. Time to take the shackles off your feet and truly dance!!!!!!

You want blessing, but your mouth is garbage. You want favor, but you won’t forgive who has hurt you. You want peace, but you want to be God. You want a Godly marriage, but are waiting on your husband to change and will not even respect him. You want purpose for your life, but refuse to even pick up the word of God to find out what God wants you to do. If you find it hard to read this, then it is because you are comfortable doing life your way. I know I could not read or listen to anything spiritual when I was so comfy in my cute little sin. I had an ugly attitude towards positive spirit filled people. Why? Because that was the stronghold Satan had on me.

Listen, you are a child of God and you were bought with a hefty price. Who you were before Christ is no longer, that person died and you are now a new creation. I come from a loving place to say, you cannot expect victory in your life and you still want to live how you want to. As a follower of Christ, you will be uncomfortable and you will daily have to die to yourself but living a righteous life is oh so worth it. I am not saying to have all these list of rules, that is religion. I ask saying to invest in your relationship with Christ and live a life pleasing to him. It is time!!!! It is time to go deeper with Jesus and commit to a life of excellence with him by your side, he is waiting for you. Jesus has so much he wants to teach you and show you but living how you want to will block it all. Same goes for what you think, say, read etc. It is time to kick your flesh to the curb and make a decision today to completely live for the Lord.  

My wrong thinking and negative words were holding me back from who I was to be, please do not let that happen to you. God will let us do our own thing because the life we have is choice driven. He is a gentleman and he will never push himself on us. But we have to seek him with all your hearts and pursue him because we no longer want to live life "our way". It is a choice. What will you choose?

Today I encourage you to ask yourself some hard questions even if those answers hurt and sting, write them out. Be truthful with yourself and take them to the Lord. Take a look at the answers and do something today to change it. If it is your lifestyle, repent now and get right with the Lord. If it is your thinking, renew your mind in his word and purposely seek what God says in his word. If it is your mouth, ask God to help you to hush and find all sermons and scripture you can on the tongue…If it is a person? give them to the Lord and work on you. You cannot control others and their actions. You are responsible for the development of your own soul so stop worrying about other people.  

It is my prayer that your soul is so convicted that you stop now and make your life right with Jesus. Give it all to him sis. He is the way, truth and the light. He will tag team with you and help you to live the life that he so willingly died for you to have.  

In Christ,

Monique Smith

 Prayer Starter:

Jesus, I no longer want to live my life the way I have been. I am tired, bruised and broken. I want you to please take control of me and change me. I am nothing without you and I want your presence in my life over anything else, Father. Please forgive me for all my sins and wash me clean. All strongholds that are not of you must flee now in the name of Jesus’. Today starts my new life with you. Amen