Daily Devotions

Posts tagged “sentiment

God’s Will, Our Dream

God’s will birthed in our spirit is given us as a dream (not necessarily the night time sort but a great desire) or vision. Our receptive spirit is the “womb” God uses to develop and grow that will. The “offspring of God” will despoil the enemy and render him impotent and that is why Pharaoh wanted to destroy all the male babies. It would be through one of the male offspring (the planning and product of God) that God would leave Egypt empty handed and utterly defeated. (Excerpt from Marty Gabler’s book “Sheep Have Short Legs” –Click on Book tab at top of page.)
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To Pierce an Atmosphere

(Kathy Gabler)—Jesus demonstrated how to pierce an atmosphere.  He did it when He acknowledged the woman with the issue of blood.  His acknowledgment, without condemnation, pierced the atmosphere of traditions that limit life and steal destiny.  He pierced the atmosphere that was filled with the fear of death when He spoke to Jairus of his daughter saying, “Do not be afraid any longer; merely entrust this to Christ, and she will be made well.  Jesus’ words pierced the atmosphere and served as a heads-up to the prince of the power of the air over Jarius’ region.  That atmosphere filled with unbelief was about to shatter.  The stronghold of experience and natural limitations was crumbling, bowing to a Higher order.  Jesus set the rules of engagement in Lk 8:51 “ When He came to the house, He did not allow anyone to enter with Him, except Peter and John and James, and the girl’s father and mother.” Then He pierced the powers-that-be again, “He said, “Stop weeping, for she has not died, but is asleep.”  The first blow shook every power of darkness lurking in the smothering, toxic air, and then He delivered the second blow in verse 54, “He, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, “Child, arise!”  


Issues and Hearing

As the people of God assemble today, may the Lord enable them to step beyond issues that would otherwise hinder their hearing the truths of His Word. May issues not be considered or guarded as the Word of God is spoken. May those issues not be a screen that the Word has to get through before the Word can be considered for repentance and/or growth. May personal issues, and issues with others who are present in the meeting, take a back seat to the life and delivering power of the Word of God.  Psa 81:13 — “Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways!   14  Speedily then I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their adversaries.” (Amp)


Find the Quiet

In the last two months, I have been in several conversations with upset and anxious people. Hearing their circumstances makes me understand their distress, but mid-conversation I hear again the instructions I heard that morning to “stay still” and “stay thankful”. I want to say to them, “I know it is a challenge when you are anxious and “what-ifs” are erupting in your thoughts and shooting holes in every hope that raises its head, but find the quiet stillness of confidence in God.  Then be thankful that opens the door to Him and He is already on the doorstep.”


Light Shine in Midst of Darkness

Prayer & Declare—I ask of You, Father, that Your light would so shine in the midst of the darkness of this culture that people would turn from the deeds of darkness and follow Your Son in light. Make their darkness abhorrible to them in the presence of Your redeeming light. I declare that the Light of the World, Jesus Christ, overcomes darkness today even as He overcame the deep darkness of the Gadarene demoniac and that we shall see many turn to Him while gladly abandoning their sad, empty darkness.  “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (Jn.8:12, NKJV)


Guard Attitude and Gratitude

(Kathy Gabler)—Our faith and trust in God is our stand of agreement that opens the earth and the circumstances and the day and the moment to Him. Basically, Father told me to guard my attitude and my gratitude, and I learned the surest way to do that is to make trust a priority every time a contrary wind stings my face. My confidence in Him cannot be passive nor frail. It must be a deliberate daily decision. Thankfulness too is a daily deliberate decision. For me that decision starts when I remind my soul that He is good and He is in the moment.


No Weapon Formed

No weapon formed against you shall prosper (Isa.54:17). This is the reason why:  No matter the size or type of weapon, it is soooo inconsequential in comparison to your God. Everything He is and everything He can do overwhelms it and engulfs you and the weapon. “For [in comparison with the Lord they are so weak that things as insignificant as] the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. But My rightness and justice [and faithfully fulfilled promise] shall be forever, and My salvation to all generations.” (Isa.51:8, Amp)


Stay Thankful

(Kathy Gabler)—Stay Still had been only the first instruction. The second was, Stay Thankful.  That seemed somewhat of a contradictory challenge because it involved facing the troubling again that I had turned from to get still.  Sometimes we can simply walk forward and leave past conditions behind, but this time I had to go back to find where I had exchanged or laid aside my, ‘Thank you, Lord’.  Genuine thankfulness required that I go back and find God’s goodness and mercy and presence and purpose there among the unanswered prayers and unchanged issues.  This time I could not wallow in my emotions but rather stand separate from them and find God in the mix.   I gathered the truths out of the rubble.  Even in the unchanging daily grind, He was there and aware because He is God.  He was looking out for me during the struggles and fears because His love for me is constant. He had good plans for the outcome of each concern because He is good.  He would never leave me to Trouble’s threats or whims because He is faithful.  I had to look again to see Him there, and to see Him there reminded me that He is aware and He is good and He is faithful.  That made me thankful.


Aim for the Bullseye

The enemy knows that if he cannot kill your dream, it will do him damage. The Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives “bitter with hard labor” and the “Egyptians used them ruthlessly”. (Ex.1:14) Pharaoh also came up with a plan to abort the possibility of deliverance. His plan for the midwives was to slay all promise and even hope of deliverance. He wanted them to stay at it, be vigorous, don’t let up, slay them all. I am reminded at this point of Jesus’ words “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy (Jn.10:10).” The enemy quietly made a deal with the midwives to go about their destruction as quietly as possible – hopefully unnoticed (cf.Ex.1:16). The devil wants you to die in quiet desperation, preferably completely away from spiritual help and fellowship. He wants your dreams and visions to die unshared, unvoiced and most definitely…. unfulfilled. Just as a sheep is ever searching out life-sustaining grass, it seems that we are ever searching out God’s will. God’s plan is ever to reproduce Himself in us. That’s why He gives us dreams and visions. He puts a “bullseye” out there, aims us at it and desires we move in obedience toward the center of the target. (From Marty Gabler’s book “Why Sheep Have Short Legs”.)


Our Confidence is His Portal

(Kathy Gabler)—Our complete confidence in Him is like a portal for His entry and workings in our life, and that pleases Him. Recently, the Lord illustrated this vividly for me. I awoke from a nap hearing the Holy Spirit say, “Kathy, your confidence in me becomes my access to you and your situation.”  Immediately, I saw a cylinder around me.  It was bright white in its interior circular wall.  Although I could only see so far up into the distance above my head, I knew the cylinder stretched into the heavens.  The corridor seemed to be a straight shot from me to God and I had a knowing that it passed right through second heaven without interference.  Being in that cylinder was like being in a gigantic artery from my heart to His, and the artery had no plaque build-up, fear or doubt or unbelief that could block His supernatural flow. The vision convinced me that my complete confidence in God forms an unhindered path for Him into my life, and confidence filled my being.  Stillness seemed definitely doable.  


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Edification in Prayer and Word


Dates and Groaning

Dates, predictions and signs come and go in every generation and during and after the book writing and prophesying and after the hubbub, fear and debates subside, creation is still left groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God. For many, these things are not about Jesus, they are about events. We must get back to a Christocentric message and lifestyle (one in which Christ is central, not just a ticket out of here). ”[ The Centerpiece of All We Believe ] So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He’s the centerpiece of everything we believe, faithful in everything God gave him to do.” (Heb.3:1, Msg)


Faith is Stand of Agreement

(Kathy Gabler)—Faith is the key to His pleasure (Heb.11:6) because faith is how we receive the deposits of His love or the changes His will causes or the manifestations of His Original Intent in our lives.  It brings God pleasure for people to experience His good will toward men and His beauty for ashes and His making the impossible possible.  Our faith and trust in Him is our stand of agreement that opens the earth and the circumstances and the day and the moment to Him.  So, our complete confidence in Him is like a portal for His entry and workings in our life, and that pleases Him.    


Rest in Safety

As the people of God assemble may they encourage one another to hope in the Word of God and the God of His Word. May they be reminded of the unfailing Word of God and find rest in safety and fear none. “And you shall be secure and feel confident because there is hope; yes, you shall search about you, and you shall take your rest in safety.” (Job 11:18, Amp)


Year of Extraction

(Melissa Gabler)—First, I would like to warn you of the graphic nature of this article.  It may cause unpleasant pictures in your head while reading.  So, read at your own risk! What has the beginning of this year been about? We are in a Drawing Salve season. The reason drawing salve works is that it softens the skin around the splinter, or whatever else is in there, and this then enables the body to more easily eject the foreign object.  This is something that the body does naturally anyway, but by moisturizing the area and using anti-inflammatory agents you simply encourage this to work more quickly before the wound closes over it. At the same time it can encourage blood flow which will also help to create pus and as the pus is ejected from the body so too will the foreign object.  That stuff has to come out! This year of extraction also includes our being extracted from captivity with all the bells and whistles God installed!  


Our Value to God

(Kathy Gabler)—Hebrews 11:6 also says that “without faith it is impossible to please God.”  Our stillness may be challenged if we misunderstand that part of the scripture.  We must understand that pleasing our loving Father is different from pleasing others.  Pleasing God is not the same as pleasing the boss or pleasing a task-master or pleasing a judge or pleasing the powers that be in the human realm.  God is not affected by humanness, and He is not so shallow that pleasing Him is about emotions or preferences or moods that humans or Greek gods seem to be fraught with.  Neither is pleasing God a matter of our worth or value to Him as is the case in a master-slave relationship. (Sixth excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


The God-Cloaked Answer

(Melissa Gabler)—(Melissa) Have you ever had times when a revelatory nugget pops up, then within days you hear the same nugget from other sources? That’s been happening as of late and I’m learning to pay attention to those! Following is one such instance that has been not only ringing in my ear, but answering some of those seemingly unanswerable questions.  While in conversation this was quoted to me from a book, “God hides some things for specific times so that the enemy cannot destroy them.” That stuck with me, and a couple of days later I read a quote from someone else that was expressing the exact same thought! Well, that really hit me between the eyes, especially because these came from trusted sources.  It was an “Are you listening?” moment. 

The God-cloaked answer is not about God withholding an answer because we don’t get it.  This is not about Him being mean or cruel.  He is indeed right the opposite. “It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindness we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.” Lam. 3:22-23 (AMP).  This makes me cry.  Our God is so faithful to sustain us through these battles to our answers.  In fact, His goodness NEVER runs out! This scripture tells us they are NEW EVERY MORNING! There is new strength and grace to be set free right now.  Y’all, He NEVER gave up on plan A which is the John 10:10 abundant life.  We choose to live plan B simply because we don’t have a grasp on His love and true intent for us.


A New Place of Trust

(Kathy Gabler)—It took a few weeks for me to realize that in order to stay still I had to get to a new place of trust in God.  I had to willingly and actively keep trust in the cross-hairs of my awareness.  I began to picture trust as that middle point on a seesaw where you are neither up nor down.  In that place, circumstances cannot get you uptight in high anxiety with your whole body stressed and straining, nor can the situation cause you to hit the bottom in despair or discouragement or depression.  Trust is a place where you do not live by what you SEE or SAW but by confidence in God and His steady, unmovable faithfulness.  From that early morning conversation, I had learned that I would have to stay alert and rein in my thoughts in obedient follow-through daily, if not hourly.  (Fourth excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


Become Less Tense

(Kathy Gabler)—If I heeded the Scriptures, refraining from rehearsing my troubles would keep me from getting peace-depleted!  The second scripture that came to me was Psa. 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”  “Be still” there means “to loosen up or become less intense”, so that was the second positive step I needed to take.  The Message puts Psa. 46:10 this way,  “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.  Getting to stillness would involve focusing on Him instead of the unanswered prayers and nagging changelessness.  I was on the way to getting still, but staying still would prove to be another challenge. (Third excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


It May Look Like Ordinary Ground

Where you are standing may look like ordinary ground at first glance. Where you are presently, may seem like a wilderness without purpose but there is an all-wise, loving Father who in His wisdom and within His customized timetable of events says, “Take off your shoes so that you do not tread thoughtlessly on ground and time that I have set apart for a purpose.”  “Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” (Ex.3:5, NKJV)


First Hurdle Was Stillness

(Kathy Gabler)—After waking in a funk, stillness was my first hurdle.  Two scriptures came to mind.  The first was Jn 14:1, Let not your heart be troubled.  I had taught on that scripture a few times and knew it meant “don’t let your heart be agitated, tossed to and fro, restless, perplexed with doubt, stirred up, struck with fear and dread or anxious and distressed”.  Since I had woken up in that very condition, my challenge was to find a way out of the troubling.  After rereading my own notes, I knew one positive step was to hold my peace, or keep my mouth shut.  Peace leaves our heart on the wings of our words and all that is left is trouble’s rubble.  (Second excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)


Wind of Opposition

This is the day the Lord has made so…
I will rejoice and bless the Lord at all times, especially in the face of the driving wind of opposition. I will just bless Him louder!  “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” (Ps.34:1)
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How do I Deal With the Troubles?

(Kathy Gabler)—I awoke in a funk.  When my eyes opened, the weight of unresolved situations and unanswered prayers was already smothering my hope for the day.  I sat up and said, “Father, I’m not going to whine and list the stuff that is squeezing my heart.  Neither will I foolishly demand that You do something quick or I quit, but I do honestly want to ask:  How should I think? How do I deal with the troubles in my face this morning, long-standing issues that have not the slightest evidence of even being on Your radar?  I see no hint of things in motion or even the slightest chance of change.  What do I do?”  He answered immediately, “Stay still and stay thankful.”  His answer was both sudden and surprising, but the instructions were clear.  I embarked on a journey that morning, one of those unmapped trips that bring you to intersections you did not anticipate.  I was about to discover that some foundational concepts in my Christian world, like peace and trust and faith, connected in ways that I had never realized. (First excerpt from Kathy’s article “Trust Gives God Access” Vol.22Iss3)
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Ekklesia of God

As the people of God assemble today may they realize that they are the Ekklesia of God and that they have the authority of God on earth to execute the Word of God and the purposes of God in their generation. May they stand together in covenant relationship and not be moved by what they see in their environment but stand upon the solid Rock in spite of wind and storms. (Matt.16:18, KJV)—‘…upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’