Mood:  a-ok

S.

Philippians 3:10,11 (AMP) [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope], That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].

O.

aBecoming intimately connected with Jesus, acutally becoming like Him by 'absorbing' Him into our spirit and mind, we actually can have His very nature. We, Jesus and us, have this experience together, and so we are not two people anymore; we become one. When this happens, the two seperate people die, and one 'person' (a new nature/character) emerges. A new 'seed' is produced from this death of the two people. This 'seed' produced by death, is our 'purpose'; the exact idea that God had in mind for us when He created us. Our old nature, dies, having seperated our old soul from our old body. We now walk through each and every experience and life adventure as ONE NEW CREATURE, merged with Jesus. We have become the 'fruit' of our old nature dying and becoming newly alive in our God-created purpose. We are a new 'seed' to grow into the 'purpose' that God created us for.

A.

Merging with Jesus, I am a new creature. Staying intimately connected with Him, in my mind and spirit, is the key to staying DEAD to the old me. If I want to continue in the 'adventure on earth' as this 'new me', I have to stay dead to the old me. I learn this by going through all the 'earthly adventures' with Jesus by my side...no....acutally with Him IN me.

The key to staying on 'purpose' is in being INTIMATE WITH JESUS!...AND STAYING DEAD TO ME!

P.

Jesus, show me how to be truly intimate with You...DAILY! I want us to always be absorbed into each other, producing the 'seed' that can ONLY come from our merging. Soften my heart, Holy Spirit, and KILL ME!

a

Mood:  quizzical

S.

Philippians 2:5 (AMP) Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:]

O.

Paul is telling the Philippians to silent their own human hearts and minds and to think and feel like Jesus! They are to strive to do this, seeking the heart and mind of Christ, for His heart and mind only thinks and feels on the things that please His Father. His heart and mind is full of love and compassion for others.

A.

Human minds and hearts can not think or feel like Jesus. It takes Holy Spirit to put the mind and heart of Jesus into us, igniting these qualities into action. We can not do this by ourselves, but need the supernatural power of God, His very character and essence, to help us think like Jesus, feel like Jesus and act like Jesus. I KNOW this can be done, because when I ask Holy Spirit to help me to have the 'mind of Christ', I think differently. When I ask for the 'heart of Jesus', I receive a softer heart of compassion for others. It's all a matter of asking and the submitting to what Holy Spirit will put into our hearts and minds. A matter of ASK and SUBMIT!

P.

aHoly Spirit, I am asking for the mind and heart of Jesus. Help me to crave and seek all that Jesus' mind and heart have. Show me how to hunger more, spiritually, for Jesus' character, His name, and all He stood for. Then I pray that You would strengthen my heart to submit to You, more and more.

Mood:  accident prone

S.

Philippians 1:6 (AMP) And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.

O.

In being inwardly certain that our partnership with God is advancing the 'Good News', and that it is a 'fixed time and positon' set by Him with His purpose for us, we know that He will use us for this purpose. This 'time' (NOW) is God's starting point for us. God will finish completely what He intended for us, right up to the defined time when Jesus returns to receive His bride unto Himself.

A.

Our Pastor says this all the time: we are just getting started here on earth...THIS is the beginning of our journey to eternity. It's AFTER we are dead in body but totally alive in spirit, that we will be 'completed'. Our part is to do the works of spreading the TRUTH and 'partnering' with Jesus while we are here on earth. Being completed in knowing it 'all' will be done after we are with Jesus. All our questions will be answered as we sit at the feet of Jesus. He KNOWS ALL. THAT'S how we will be complete, finished and FULL! At the feet of Jesus!

P.

Father, thank You for my purpose NOW, on this earth. I pray that my heart would always partner with Yours, making me always willing to be part of Your plans, so that I can go as far as I can go, here on this Earth.

S.

Ephesians 6:16 (AMP) Lift up over all the [covering] shield of saving faith, upon which you can quench all the flaming missiles of the wicked [one].

O.

Choose to take the position of possessing the 'door/opportunity' of belief (trusting and having confidence in Jesus), using this 'door/opportunity' as a fixed, instrumental postion.

In this chosen, fixed position of belief, you are given the capability, the strength and the power, as tools, to smother and eliminate the arousal of feelings and passions inserted into us by satan to cause us hurtful effects or influences in which pain, intense desire and toil will come. These 'hurtful effects' cause spiritual starvation.

A.

God has given me the 'Shield of Faith'. When satan tries to insert into me feelings and passions that are hurtful and painful, causing my spirit to question what is truth (spiritual starvation), this is my opportunity, my personal 'DOOR', to progress into more trust in Jesus, advancing my personal faith in Him! It is this personal door that leads to advancement in what I believe in. I can lay down and let satan hammer me with what his lies, and what 'feels' bad and oppresive or I can raise up and choose to believe in the Words of Jesus. I can let my 'fleshly man' take over with what 'man-without-God' desires for, or I can take this chance to BELIEVE what God said HE would do for me.

USING my faith in God causes MORE faith in God...proving to myself that God does what He says He will do! This is exercising my faith and stretching it to be bigger and progressive. The more trust I have in my God, the bigger my protection from satan's lies and deceits. I belive in God and in what He says I am with Him. And my shield of faith grows and grows!

P.

Thank You, Father, that You thought of how I can advance and stretch my faith in You! In every situation of my life, advance my faith in You, Father! Stretch my faith and keep me ever believing more of Your proof! Open wider Your door of opportunity for more faith!

Mood:  hungry

S.

Ephesians 5:15,16 (AMP)

Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil.

O.

Discern, accordingly, in what way you regulate your life, making due use of your opportunities of life. Be cautious and wary of those opportunities, and not in the manner of being unwise, unskilled or unlearned, but in the manner of forming the best plan for those perfectly placed opportune times and then using that plan for the best means of execution/action. Make wise and sacred ('set apart for this specific use') choices for these opportunities. Do what is good. then your 'well doing' and you 'zeal for doing good' will be the 'purchase money'by which you make those times of 'opportunities' your own. This is a fixed and set time...a 'due season'...set in this time especially for you because these are times of 'diseased and blinded' spirits and souls; a time of hardships and labours.

A.

I know I am to be watchful for any opportunity God sets before me. He has chosen every season of my life for a purpose. When the opportunity, the 'set portion of time', is layed out before me to do good, I am to DO good! Because of this season that our country is in, a season of being 'blinded to knowing God's love' and a 'blackness and diseased soul'...a diseased world...our good stands out. Light shines very bright in the darkness in this season. And good will always overcome evil! Opportunities to shine our Light today are endless. And we 'buy' more opportunities to shine the Light by using each opportunity, one at a time.

My plan? To SHINE with the heart of Jesus into the opportunities set before me by God; to love with Jesus' heart, to hold others with Jesus' arms, to encourage with Jesus' words, to shine with the hope of God!...and anytime, anywhere that God sets that opportunity before me, with a prepared and watchful heart.

P.

Father, prepare me for Your 'suddenlys'. Fill me with Your wisdom and planning so I can shine the Light of Jesus into others at each and every opportunity that You have set before me. Show me how to always be 'good'.

Mood:  special

S.

Ephesians 2:15, 16 (AMP) By abolishing in His [own crucified] flesh the enmity [caused by] the Law with its decrees and ordinances [which He annulled]; that He from the two might create in Himself one new man [one new quality of humanity out of the two], so making peace.

 And [He designed] to reconcile to God both [Jew and Gentile, united] in a single body by means of His cross, thereby killing the mutual enmity and bringing the feud to an end.

O. & A.

Jesus, by positioning Himself for the purpose of dividing the earthly/human nature from God's Divine influence, rendered the earthly/human nature entirely useless. He rendered useless the discord  toward the persecribed rules of God to us and the human/earthly nature that opposes God's perscribed rules to us. Jesus completely transformed, as our Manufacturer, these two 'ways of thinking' (God's perscription for us vs. human being ideas that say:'I don't need God') into ONE NEW KIND OF HUMAN BEING, setting this NEW KIND OF HUMAN in a usable and purposeful set position. He did this for the harmony and tranquility of our souls; to reconsile us, the NEW KIND OF HUMAN, to our Creator,and by killing our earthly/human nature full of hatred and opposition to God that is proned to sin. Jesus took man's earthly nature to the death with Him from the cross, and when He rose again, He brought with Him our NEW HUMAN NATURE, a NEW nature that can be intimate, once again, with God.

P.

aThank You, Jesus, for making US Your NEW KIND OF HUMAN BEING! Thank You that You have reconciled us to our Creator, our Father! I am a new 'creature' because of Your death on the cross!

Mood:  lyrical

S.

Ephesians 1:17,18 (AMP) [For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him,

  By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones),

O.

Paul prayed for the Ephesians (the "permitted" and "desirable" ones), that God would furnish them (us) with the mental dispositon that fills and governs us with full and broad intelligence. He prayed that these would be made clear, naked and uncovered to our minds/spirits. He prayed that this disposition and clarity would be known to us fully and accurately, with the understanding of God. He prayed that the 'eyes of our mind', our faculty of knowing in our thoughts and our imaginations (the ability to form images and sensations when they are not perceived by any other senses, i.e. sight, hearing, touch, etc.) would be rendered evident to us. This is so that we would discover the pleasurable anticipation of God's invitation to us, along with the fulfillment and abundance of the 'possessions' of His 'Chosen Ones', those 'set apart for His use'.

A.

God DOES use our imagination so as to communicate to us what our natural senses can not. Our imagination is the 'eye of our mind' and this is where my hope in God's calling is made real to me. I have been chosen by God and I need to know what He is calling me to do. This has to be made clear to me, supernaturally. Yes, my human senses can confirm what God tells me to do, but it is the 'eye of my mind' that is my 'heavenly sense'. It is the godly imagination that God uses to speak to me. He uses our minds to download HIS thoughts and make clear to us what our purpose is; in a lifetime and in daily life. He uses His Word to get those thoughts into our brains, and then gives us His supernatural understanding through the 'eye of our minds'. Confirmation for these 'thoughts' are then proved through our natural senses, the outside of us. We have to be open to all that God is telling us.

The tools? The Word of God, God's Spirit, Our minds and imaginations, and an openess and 'useability' to our Supernatural God!

P.

Father, use all of me for Your purpose and calling. Use the godly imagination inside my brain, the same imagination that YOU have, Father, to help me understand Your purposes. Keep my heart and spirit ever open to all that You want me to know. Fill me, Father, with Your revelation and understanding, keeping me ever closer to YOU!

Mood:  incredulous

S.

Romans 16:19,20 (AMP) ... I would have you well versed and wise as to what is good and innocent and guileless as to what is evil. And the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet....               

O.

What Paul has in mind for us during troubles is that we would know what is useful and beneficial to us through skilled and cultivated learning; that the cultivated learning we have isn't mingled with useless or harmful knowledge.

He wishes that God would shatter the 'worn track' that Satan, the Accuser, uses on us, over and over.

Paul wishes that we would walk over that 'worn track of accusations' quickly, while stay in that 'quick walking' possition.

A.

Satan is known as 'the Accuser'. He likes to put thoughts in our mind that aren't true. He knows what our 'thought weaknesses' are and uses those thoughts over and over...a WORN TRACK.

Paul tells us that we can know the truth about satan. We can, through living our lives, learn from events in our lives, the events that satan uses to lie to us. We can become wiser than him, knowing his tactics. We can also believe satans lies, causeing us to get stuck in the 'WORN TRACK' of deceit.

BUT Paul also says that we SET the possition of walking quickly OVER that WORN TRACK of deceit. We, through using the wisdom and knowledge of walking through our lives (looking back on how satan has deceived us before, and learning from that) we can know satan's tactics and QUICKLY WALK OVER HIS LIES!

P.

Holy Spirit, I pray that You would remind me of satan's tactics in my life and that I would SEE what he uses to lie to me. Father, help me to quickly walk over that WORN TRACK of deceit using the wisdom You reveal to me through my life.

Mood:  happy

S.

Romans 15:2, 3 (AMP)  Let each one of us make it a practice to please (make happy) his neighbor for his good and for his true welfare, to edify him [to strengthen him and build him up spiritually].

For Christ did not please Himself [gave no thought to His own interests]; but, as it is written, The reproaches and abuses of those who reproached and abused you fell on Me.

REPROACHES: (dict.) criticism, shame, blame, to charge with a fault, to condemn

"FELL ON ME": to fall into ones embrace, to fall from higher position to lower position, to loose authority, to no longer have force/power, to remove from power by death (Strongs #G1968)

O.

In seeking to please everyone around us in order to build them up, spiritually, we don't seek to criticise or shame them. Those traits should be dead in us because when we accepted Jesus, submitted to him completely, He came to live in us and has killed those human traits. We don't give them out OR take them in!

A.

No shame or condemnation should be in my life...either to give it or take it. Jesus lives in me. He took my shame and blame. And I release all of the shame and blame "into His embrace"...because of His love for me. I am not to have these traits to give out or have these put onto me by someone else.

P.

Jesus, I thank You for Your arms, Your embrace. I give to You all my shame, blame and condemnation. Help me to live my life in the Truth of that! Help me to walk through this life as Your proof of freedom from blame, shame and condemnation....YOU KILLED IT! Thank You!

Mood:  quizzical

S.

Romans 14:19,20 (AMP) So let us then definitely aim for and eagerly pursue what makes for harmony and for mutual upbuilding (edification and development) of one another.

You must not, for the sake of food, undo and break down and destroy the work of God! Everything is indeed [ceremonially] clean and pure, but it is wrong for anyone to hurt the conscience of others or to make them fall by what he eats.

O.

As a result of knowing how and what to do or not to do before others, try to earnestly seek after the things that make harmony and tranquility in the souls of others (showing that we are assured in Christ's salvation, that we fear nothing from God, and demonstrating contentment with our earthly lot). Earnestly seek after the things that improve and teach morality and spiritual improvement...being construtive and showing wisdom, piety, happiness, and holiness as confirmation of God's freedom in you. 

 For teaching and promoting spiritual welfare doesn't halt a Believer's journey through life, depriving it of success. It doesn't deprive the success of God's business or accomplishments; the product of His work. Instead, EVERYTHING, in fact, is free from corruption, sin and guilt...EVERYTHING is innocent. But it is what OCCUPIES ONES ATTENTION OR THOUGHTS, destructively, that can be harmful and consume the soul. THIS is what causes humans to sin. THIS is what comes through in our actions in front of others.

A.

What consumes our thoughts is what causes us to act in the way we do. If our thoughts are destructive, ungodly and not of godly thoughts, then our actions show that. THESE are what can cause others to sin, tripping up their Christian walk. The actions of one Believer in front of another can cause a HUGE ROADBLOCK in the path, the "WAY", toward spiritual growth. Although Paul says that there is not one thing that is wrong in our actions (we are innocent in all things), it is what we let our mind be consumed on that is wrong. If our thoughts hold ANYTHING in priority over God, than THAT is what consumes our souls. Our actions reflect what our mind thinks. Others observe this in us and it causes them to question what they have believed, especially if they are a new Believer. We could cause a "ROADBLOCK" in their way, that blocks their spiritual growth and instead makes them question what is Truth. Instead, we should be a "ROAD SIGN" that points to the path and causes spiritual growth, wisdom, knowledge and a closer relationship with Jesus....all by the way that our actions reflect what is inside our minds.

P.

Father, set my soul with YOU as my priority. Help me to never put anything or anyone above You, Father. Keep me mindful of my actions before others. Don't let me be a ROADBLOCK to others, but to be a ROAD SIGN instead!