Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made. (Philippians 3:15-16)

Is there a decision you need to make or a problem you need to solve? Have you been wrestling with making the right choice? When something is unclear you can always go to God. Ask Him to make it plain for you.

As His child, your Heavenly Father delights in you coming to Him in prayer. He wants to be the source of our wisdom; He wants to guide and direct us. If you will seek Him - His guidance and directions - He will answer you and He will make it plain. Just ask!

Blessings,

Joyce

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20)

Have you ever met someone, then later one of their siblings, and wondered if they grew up in the same home? That happens to my youngest brother and me all the time. He and I have a lot in common - similar interests, values and world outlook - and we share the same faith.

Our brother, on the other hand, marches to a very different drummer. Over the years, we’ve had our difficulties and our relationship hasn’t always been an easy one. At times, neither of us liked the other very much. And to be honest, sometimes loving each other has been a struggle.

But love him, I must. I am a Christian and God makes it clear that I am called to love him - whether I feel like it or not and no matter what he does or doesn’t do. And if I can’t love him, then just how much do I love God? (1 John 4:20)

Is this always easy? Of course not, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can do this. How?

Be Thankful.

It’s easy to thank God for the people in our lives who are easy to love. However, we are called to love everyone, including our enemies. (Luke 6:27) Thank God in all circumstances. He uses difficult people to change us and to draw us closer to Him. Be thankful for the opportunity to know God better.

Be Prayerful.

Patiently and persistently pray for the difficult people in your life, knowing that God hears your prayers. Place them and the situations they may have caused in God’s hands. By praying for the difficult people in your life, you acknowledge that you are not in control, but God is. Ultimately, it’s not about you; it’s all about Him. Your part is to be an intercessor. Matthew 5:44 says that you should pray for those who persecute you. Pray for the strength to be obedient. (Philippians 4:13)

Be Patient.

God teaches us lessons and He often uses difficult people and circumstances as learning tools. When we learn the lesson, He can heal the difficult person and move them out of our lives. When we change, our circumstances often change as well. Use this time as an opportunity to show Christlike love. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but your patience will pay off. The testing of your faith produces patience. (James 1:3)

Most difficult people don’t try to be difficult and usually don’t enjoy being difficult. Remember that old adage that says, “Hurting people, hurt people.” Many difficult people have unhealed hurts that causes them to lash out at others. The people around them then want to avoid them. As a child of God, you have the key to breaking this cycle - show them the love of Christ, pray for them and be patient.

The next time you find yourself dealing with a difficult person, take your focus off the person and the problems he or she is causing you and identify ways that you can be more Christlike when dealing with them. It’s not always easy, but, Jesus lives in you and you can do all things with His help.

Blessings,

Joyce

I will extol You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me. O LORD, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. (Psalm 30:1-3)

Several years ago, I went through a period of time that seemed like a long dusty desert with no water in sight. I poured my heart out in prayer and fasting and still there was no light at the end of the tunnel. And, then one night, I heard from the Lord and He told me that He very clearly let me know that He would deliver me.

Wow - praise the Lord! My praise time became more joyful. My prayer time became more peaceful. Every day I expected my deliverance to be complete; but, it didn’t happen that way. It was several more years before I saw God’s deliverance in my life; three years to be exact. But when it happened, I knew it was the Lord’s fulfillment of what He had promised me.

I was reminded that God’s time is not like ours. Psalm 90:4 says, “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” That means that three years in God’s eyes are practically no time at all. The important thing that should have always been my focus is that God always keeps His promises - whether that’s today, next month or next year. We live in a “microwave drive-thru Kind of world.” But God doesn’t.

If you have been praying and waiting for deliverance in some aspect of your life, keep right on praying and waiting until you can say like the psalmnist: “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.” (Psalm 30).

Blessings,

Joyce

While going through my daily planner, I ran across a little Lead Like Jesus devotional I had tucked inside one of the planner pockets two years ago. I’m sharing it with you today.

Scripture teaches that true success is the fulfillment of the life mission God planned for you. It is all about your relationship with Christ and what level of control you will let Him have in your life.

Prayer: Father, Your plan for my life is perfect. Plant my feet on the right path and correct me when I stray. Keep my heart tuned to Yours so that I, too, might be able to live like Jesus! In His Name, Amen!

Blessings,

Joyce

The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10)

So often, we get into the habit of spending our prayer time focused on asking God to do this or that. We go before Him with our lists of needs, wants and desires and expect Him to deliver them all. Our Father welcomes our petitions, but He also wants to have a personal relationship with us. The kind where we don’t do all of the talking, but listen for what He has to say.

Are you spending time developing your personal relationship with God? How much time do you spend in real conversations with Him? When you’re having a conversation with someone, you allow them to say what’s on their mind and heart. God wants that, too.

Today, go before the Lord wih no agenda, no lists and no requests. Be still and listen for His quiet voice. If you listen, He will speak. Maybe not audibly. Maybe you’ll feel His presence. Maybe you’ll feel a sense of peace. Maybe He will direct you to a particular scripture. No matter how He does it, if you take the time to listen, you will clearly hear the Lord and His will for your life.

Blessings,

Joyce

to be made new in the attitude of your minds. . . (Ephesians 4:23)

There’s always excitement at the beginning of a new year. People make resolutions to lose weight, stop smoking and various other things. In most cases, by February the excitement has waned and the resolutions forgotten.

This year, I’d like to suggest that you approach the new year differently. Instead of focusing on physical things, start with something you can not see — your mind.

Whenever we want to make lasting changes in our lives, it begins with a decision to make a change. That decision must start in your mind before it takes hold in your heart.

There may be some things that you feel powerless to change. If so, start with your attitude. Can you find something to be thankful for that thorn in your flesh? Can you pray for that co-worker or boss who gets on your last nerve? Can you forgive your ex for walking out on you and your children? A new attitude can help you do all of these things and more.

Is it always easy? Of course not. But scripture says that we can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us. Instead of trying to hold on to New Year’s resolutions in your own strength, trust in Jesus to help you create a new attitude about changes you’d like to make.

Remember the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; eccepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen. (Reinhold Niebuhr)

Blessings,

Joyce

By Richard L. Mabry, The Upper Room

So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him. (Luke 5:1-11 NKJV)

Jesus’ suggestion to the men who who were to become His disciples was much more than a favor done to repay them for the use of their boat or a hint about catching fish after an otherwise unproductive day. The fishermen were tired, aching for rest. Can’t you just imagine them saying, “Go out again? And into deep water?” The miracle that day wasn’t only the glut of fish they caught; it was also the willingness of Peter and the others to heed Jesus’ command. Their readiness foreshadowed the devotion to Him that would characterize the rest of their lives.

When we Christians concern ourselves only with the contentment we find in our own salvation, we are like unproductive anglers fishing too near the bank. To truly follow Jesus may require us to launch out into “deeper water,” to get in over our heads. Whether by an act of kindness, a word of witness, or a whispered prayer, our lives and actions each day can model the active Crhristianity to which we, like those first disciples, have been called.

Dear Father, help us to recognize and obey Your leading in our lives. Help us to go deeper. Amen.

Blessings,

Joyce

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. (Hebrew 11:8)

Can you imagine what it would feel like to leave everything and everyone you know and strike out now knowing where you’re going? Can you imagine what family, friends and those who know you would say? That’s exactly what happened to Abraham.

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.

I’m sure Abraham and Sarah may have wondered what was going to happen to them, but in faith they obeyed God. That kind of trust is what faith is all about.

I’m in a couple of places in my life that I don’t know where the Lord is leading me or how things will turn out. My daily prayer is that I will have the kind of faith Abraham and Sarah had to just obey my Lord. Is this easy? Not always. Is it impossible? Absolutely not. The Lord never puts more on us than we can bear. Neither does He ask us to do things we can’t do.

Lord God, when my faith gets weak, I pray that You will help me to trust you. Help me to listen for Your still small voice and obey, no matter what You say. I want to always remember that you are my rock, my shield and my hope. It’s in You, Lord, that I place my hopes, my dreams and my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Blessings,

Joyce

Today Christians nationwide will unite together in prayer on 9/11 at county courthouses across all 50 states to pray for their community and for the spiritual condition of our nation. If you are not able to make it to a court house to pray, stop and pray where you are; pray for our nation to come back to the Lord.

2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

I do pray for the Lord to comfort all who mourn and weep for the lost and hurting. Draw us back to You Lord, heal our land, heal the broken and tormented Lord Jesus. I pray for Your Sweet Spirit to fall today. May we as a people cry out for our nation once again.

Isaiah 51:11 The ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads.  Gladness and joy will overtake them,  and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.