Tag: Faith

A Date With Destiny

The Power of Forgiveness: Finding Strength in Mercy

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“I tell you the truth. All sins that people do can be forgiven.” Mark 3:28

Forgiveness is an attribute which comes easily for you. You have been blessed by both giving and receiving forgiveness. You understand the forgiveness of God because you have received it abundantly.

While you may sometimes fail to make the right choice, your decision to accept God’s forgiveness for the wrong ones, is always the right choice.

You are grateful for the opportunities to offer forgiveness to others.

While it is human nature to be concerned about the risks of being merciful, you believe there is a much greater risk to the human soul when one opts to become merciless.

You are grateful for the mercy of God which provides healing and restoration. Not only does He show mercy to the offender, but He also offers forgiveness for the wrong and cancelation of the debt.

Like your Creator, you do not keep score. The mercy and forgiveness you learned from Him, enables you to wipe the slate clean and give everyone a fresh start.

Your appreciation for the forgiveness you have received is best displayed by your willingness to offer it to others.

You are a merciful person and for that reason, as Jesus reported in the Sermon on the Mount, you are blessed and will receive mercy.

It has been said that the word blessed, could be best defined by the phrase, empowered to succeed.

You are successful because you show mercy and because mercy is shown to you.

Whether or not you do everything perfectly, is not what determines your success.

It is your gift of mercy which creates a firm foundation for successful relationships.  It is also the defining force of your Christian walk.

For only those who give and receive mercy will ever truly know the heart of God. 

A Date With Destiny

3/27 Be a Rebel: Embrace Your Inner Trailblazer

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Daniel 3:27: “When they came out, the fire had not harmed them. Their hair and clothes were not burned and they didn’t even smell like smoke.“

There are times when you are called upon to take a stand, just like the three Hebrew boys in the book of Daniel. You may be urged by the Spirit to go against the masses and follow your conscience, rather than the demands of a narcissistic bully.

As Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the flames for following their divine direction, you too, will sometimes walk through fire as the result of your convictions.

In the same manner that Jesus appeared in the fiery furnace with those boys, He also appears to you when going through the fiery trials of your own faith.

Some will try to tell you what’s best, and condemn you for standing your ground. At times, you may be criticized for doing what you know is right, by those who are more comfortable taking the path of least resistance.

Lots of Hebrews bowed the knee to the golden statue because they were told to do so. Some of them were friends and family members of the three rebels who refused.

Those who bowed were not named. God did not reject them, or send fire from heaven to consume them. They simply bowed to the golden statue, and went on to live their lives of quiet desperation.

Those who bowed missed out on having a conversation with the Son of God in a fiery furnace. Those who bowed never had their names listed in Sacred Text. Those who bowed never became part of a story which would be told for thousands of years to come.

From this passage, you conclude there are two types of people: those who bow and those who stand.

Bowers are compliant. Standers are defiant. You have been called to be a stander.

Not everyone is called to be a rebel and a renegade. You are.

You go on high alert when you can right a wrong, stand up to a bully, or defend the defenseless.

You are a rebel at heart.  You are wild and adventurous. You do not take the path of least resistance. You find that path boring and dull.

You are a trailblazer. You create paths which never existed and inspire others to follow your lead.

Long after you are gone from this planet, your imprint will remain on those trails. Your courage will call to future generations, inviting them to join the rebel cause and reject the status quo. The echo of your voice from a faraway dimension will call to those select few, willing to risk it all for a chance to come up higher.

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Help My Unbelief

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Pastor Marc explores the powerful story from Mark 9:14-24, where a desperate father cries out to Jesus, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

It’s a reminder that belief and faith aren’t the same — belief acknowledges truth, but faith acts on it.

When doubt creeps in, we’re invited to turn that uncertainty into trust, one prayer and one step at a time. No matter what you face, God’s power still works miracles. Pray it today: “Lord, help my unbelief.”

Tetelestai Recovery

Idolatry of Emotions: Claiming Righteousness Through Grace

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When we discovered the power of Jesus’ declaration, “It is finished,” we claimed tetelestai over our misaligned compass comprised of human emotion.

We stopped worshipping at the feet of our feelings and ditched them at the foot of the cross. We learned that our feelings were an unpredictable deity. We saw that exalting our feelings to a place of devotion, was nothing short of idolatry.

We made a firm decision to discover God’s thoughts of us, rather than our own thoughts of ourselves.

We didn’t feel like believing in our rightness, but the Word stated we were the righteousness (right-ness) of God. We were much more comfortable feeling wrong and running from it. We were unsure how to settle into knowing, rather than feeling.

It didn’t feel right to believe right, but once we got a revelation of grace, and stopped relying on how bad we felt, we discovered a sense of stability we’d never known before.

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Tetelestai Recovery

How to Let Go of Resentment and Gain Personal Power

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To remain in a position of power, we had to drop the resentments. While we sometimes felt as if our resentments were keeping us safe and preventing us from being hurt again, we eventually faced the fact that they were stealing our power and placing us in a perpetual state of victimhood. Resentment was the result of self-pity. If we carried our resentment, we were forced to experience the painful events over and over. But, on the other hand, we feared that if we released our resentments, it would give those offenders a free pass.

Neither position seemed to be working, so we searched for a new solution. We needed to release our resentments, but at the same time, we needed to know that justice had been served. We needed to know that those who had mistreated us didn’t get away with it. We wanted to settle the score, but we also wanted to exist in the higher spiritual plane, that Jesus referred to as the Kingdom of God. We knew that revenge-seeking would drag us down and pull us into chaos.

Sacred Text showed us the way. Since the same words appeared in both old and new testaments, we knew it was significant.

It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them. Deuteronomy 32:35
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. Romans 12:17-19

Surprisingly, based on these passages, we learned that revenge was not necessarily a bad thing. It only became a bad thing when we humans took it into our own hands, rather than leaving it for God to manage.

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Tetelestai Recovery

How to Let Go of Resentment and Gain Personal Power

lastwordrecovery

To remain in a position of power, we had to drop the resentments. While we sometimes felt as if our resentments were keeping us safe and preventing us from being hurt again, we eventually faced the fact that they were stealing our power and placing us in a perpetual state of victimhood. Resentment was the result of self-pity. If we carried our resentment, we were forced to experience the painful events over and over. But, on the other hand, we feared that if we released our resentments, it would give those offenders a free pass.

Neither position seemed to be working, so we searched for a new solution. We needed to release our resentments, but at the same time, we needed to know that justice had been served. We needed to know that those who had mistreated us didn’t get away with it. We wanted to settle the score, but we also wanted to exist in the higher spiritual plane, that Jesus referred to as the Kingdom of God. We knew that revenge-seeking would drag us down and pull us into chaos.

Sacred Text showed us the way. Since the same words appeared in both old and new testaments, we knew it was significant.

It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them. Deuteronomy 32:35
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. Romans 12:17-19

Surprisingly, based on these passages, we learned that revenge was not necessarily a bad thing. It only became a bad thing when we humans took it into our own hands, rather than leaving it for God to manage.

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A Date With Destiny

Hidden in Darkness

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Daniel 2:22  
  He makes known the secrets that are deep and hidden. 
He knows what is hidden in darkness and light lives within him.

Many of the good things you do are done in secret. You are not boastful or arrogant about your charitable contributions or personal sacrifices.

You help others in ways they may never realize. You attend to the needs of your family and community without recognition or fanfare.

Sometimes you feel as if your efforts are unappreciated or even unwanted.  There are times you believe you may be wasting your time and energy because you can’t see the fruits of your labor.

Thankfully, you have the Word of God and His wonderful creation to remind you that a seed hidden in the darkness is a harvest waiting to happen.

Seeds planted in soil remain unseen during the germination phase. In the dark, a seed breaks open and new life is formed. There is a waiting time before the shoot appears. There is another waiting time before the harvest comes.

In the same way, your good works and loving efforts may be often hidden in the dark for a time, but this doesn’t mean they remain unfruitful.

When the time is right, God brings your results into the light, much like the tiny plant which emerges from the dark soil. Your random acts of kindness and quiet loving gestures are no longer hidden in the darkness. The results become visible and each tiny sprout holds the promise of a bountiful harvest.

You may not always receive human recognition or praise for the contributions you make. Sometimes your good intentions may even be misunderstood. But God knows what is in your heart and He promises that someday you will enjoy a harvest which far exceeds your expectations.

READ MORE ABOUT FEBRUARY 22

Tetelestai Recovery

The Illusion of Relief: Understanding Emotional Dependence

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The presence of unwanted feelings such as insecurity, inadequacy, fear, anger, and other social phobias, coupled with our inability to manage or control them, unleashed within us a desperation for relief at any cost. We soon learned of a temporary reprieve that occurred when our brain chemistry became altered. We didn’t care that the relief would be short lived or cause irreparable damage. The long-awaited relief of rightness, contrasted against the life-long agony of wrongness, offered such an enchanting embrace, we surrendered without a fight.

Without mind and mood altering substances, we fell into total despair. Sadly, these moments of disparity began to seep into every moment, and the temporary relief withdrew as quickly as it came.

We became slaves to our feelings. We tested the quality of our product by the way it made us feel. We watched for warning signs of overdose by the way our bodies felt. We discovered ways to get out of responsibilities by saying, “I don’t feel well.” We made all sorts of excuses to ourselves and to others, based on our feelings. We accused our dealer of cutting because his product didn’t make us feel the way we wanted, or the way it used to. We sank into despair when the supply ran out. We drove through blizzards, walked through storms, and did whatever necessary to get the substance that would make us feel right. We went without sleep, food, and basic necessities. We lost relationships and emptied bank accounts in a mad pursuit of a feeling we wanted to feel.

We were caught in a cycle of frenzied flight. Running from feelings we couldn’t stand. Searching for a feeling we thought we knew. We didn’t like to feel wrong, and we didn’t know how to feel right.

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Tetelestai Recovery

Sometimes Anger is Appropriate

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We felt certain that we could justify anger when it came to certain evils in the world. When we checked the Sacred Text, we found proof that anger can sometimes be appropriate; perhaps even righteous.

Jesus went into the Temple. He threw out all the people who were buying and selling there. He turned over the tables that belonged to the men who were exchanging different kinds of money. And he upset the benches of those who were selling doves.
Jesus said to all the people there, “It is written in the Scriptures, ‘My Temple will be a house where people will pray.’ But you are changing God’s house into a ‘den of thieves.’  
Matthew 21:12-17

So, after reviewing some of Jesus’ moments of fury, we concluded that there may, in fact, be times when anger would be an entirely appropriate reaction.

His reaction was more than simply a display of righteous indignation. It was a display of self-restraint. The Son of God, with an army of angels at His disposal, simply flipped over a few tables and ran people out of the temple. He could have whistled for an asteroid to hit the coordinates where they stood. He could have summoned a flesh-eating bacterium to consume them or an earthquake that would bury them beneath tons of rubble. He could have destroyed them in a million different ways, but he chose rather to use words, with a controlled show of force for emphasis.

We came to understand that when Jesus was angry, His methods were measured and restrained.

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Faith and Works: Understanding the Connection

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Our works, that is our actions in everyday life, is a byproduct of our faith. We are moved by faith.

Many of us have tried to show we had faith through our actions – our good works, but felt unsuccessful and discouraged when we grew tired. This was because we were confusing the cause with the effect.

Think of salvation like a sailboat. God’s grace and promises are the wind — already blowing, already available. Our faith is like raising the sail. Once the sail is truly raised, the boat must move — not by paddling or effort, but because the wind carries it.

That movement of the boat is what we call works — the natural result, not the cause, of salvation. So, when someone says they have faith but there’s no movement — no change, no obedience, no fruit — it’s like saying their sail is raised but the boat isn’t moving. That’s impossible if the wind is real and the sail is truly up.

The book of James says, “Faith without works is dead.” He’s not saying our works save us, but rather, true faith always creates movement.