Destined To Be Holy ~ Oswald Chambers

This devotion was taken from My Utmost For His Highest By Oswald Chambers

I am continually brought back to this message. There's obviously some truth to it, if that's the case. My flesh continues to deny it's validity, but my spirit testifies to me over and over and over again that I need to pursue holiness above everything else. The conviction that results is sometimes painful, but soooooooooooooo necessary. Just a little thought from me....read on.

Oswald Chambers:

. . it is written, ’Be holy, for I am holy’ —1 Peter 1:16

We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness. Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them. Many of them may be right, noble, and good, and may later be fulfilled, but in the meantime God must cause their importance to us to decrease. The only thing that truly matters is whether a person will accept the God who will make him holy. At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God.

Do I believe I need to be holy? Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy? If through your preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I then resent your preaching. The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me. God has only one intended destiny for mankind— holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity— He came to save us because He created us to be holy. Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.

Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness means absolute purity of your walk before God, the words coming from your mouth, and every thought in your mind— placing every detail of your life under the scrutiny of God Himself. Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.

The Pathway to Rome~By Beth Moore

The following bible study is taken from "To Live Is Christ" By Beth Moore:

Romans 6:1-23

We are Slaves to Righteousness:

1. By reminding ourselves we are DEAD to sin (v. 11). ***Sin has no hold on you except that which you give it permission to have.
2. By deliberately resisting the reign of sin (v. 12).
3. By deliberately offering ourselves to God (v. 13; 12:1) ***Refuse Satan the right to have authority over you.
4. By knowing our rights as those united with Christ (v. 14; Gal. 5:1). ***It is our right in Christ to be FREE!
5. By not misapplying the doctrine of GRACE (v. 15). ***Salvation is a gift. Holiness is a pursuit.
6. By realizing no substitute exists for whole-hearted obedience in our quest to be free from slavery to sin (v. 17). ***This one spoke directly to me!!!
7. By facing the weakness of our natural selves (v. 19).
8. By acknowledging the ever-increasing nature of wickedness (v. 19).
9. By never forgetting the powerless feeling of being out of control (v. 20). (Moms, can I get a HOLLA or Hallelujer?)
10. By counting the cost of slavery to sin (v. 21).
11. By recognizing the benefit of slavery to God (v. 22; Micah 7:8, 18-19).

***Do the right thing, until your heart feels the right thing.

This was taken from a video session in the bible study I'm currently going through. I felt sick to my stomach while I was watching it because I knew God was dealing directly with me. I want to share this with you in the hopes that God will deal with you where you need dealing. If we are in Christ, we always need a little dealing with.

FIVE PRACTICAL STEPS TO A POWERFUL DAILY PRAYER LIFE

(Excerpt from book, “Returning To Holiness”, by Dr. Gregory R. Frizzell)

1. Make an absolute commitment to consistently spend significant time alone with God in uninterrupted prayer.
Give God significant time on a daily basis.
2-3 minute devotions are by no means the pattern of Jesus
You must reject the modern idea that you can develop a deep prayer life “on the run.”
30 minutes to an hour is a good suggestion for a vibrant daily prayer life
Remember, the only way we learn to pray is to “show up for practice”
If you spend significant time alone with Jesus, He will utterly change your life!
1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.”
Though we must be very committed to prayer, we should never approach it as a legalistic bondage

2. Approach your prayer time as a relationship with God rather than a ritual.
· True prayer is a relationship!
· It is a love relationship with YOUR GOD!
· Many are so busy serving God that we neglect time alone with Him.
· When you approach prayer as a relationship, you will also learn to hear God’s voice on a daily basis.
· True prayer begins with listening to God.
· As you learn to listen, you are then sure what you are asking is God’s will.
· Learning to hear God is the greatest secret of answered prayer! (1 John 5:14-15)

3. Make a commitment to a balanced prayer life by regularly practicing the four different types of prayer.
· A.C.T.S. (Affirmation or Praise, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication or Intercession for others)
· It is essential that our prayer life be far more than a list of “needs and wants.”
· We must experience daily cleansing or we cannot maintain the power of the Holy Spirit.
· It is impossible to regularly experience all the types of prayer in only a 2-3 minute devotion.

4. In your daily petitions, focus more on issues of personal character and holiness than on temporal needs.
· God’s great priority is to conform you to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29)
· Make the 9 fruit of the Holy Spirit your daily personal prayer petition (Galatians 5:22)
· As you daily ask God to fill you with each fruit, also ask Him to show you how you don’t reflect that characteristic.
· The beatitudes also provide excellent personal petitions (Matthew 5).
· If you claim such prayers for your own heart, God will revolutionize your life!

5. In your daily intercession, focus more on issues of evangelism and missions than on temporal concerns.
· It is tragic that so much intercession is mainly focused on health and other temporal issues.
· God’s great priorities are the evangelization of the world and sweeping revival in the church (Matthew 28:18).
· God does incredible things when we focus our intercession on lost people, missions and revival!
· You may be wondering, “How can I focus my intercession on God’s great priorities?” Listed below are 5 powerful strategies.
1. Develop a prayer list of lost people and intercede for them daily.
2. Develop a prayer list of the key leaders and ministry strategies of your church. Pray for them regularly.
3. Compile a prayer list of key spiritual and government leaders. Pray for them regularly.
4. Regularly pray for vital mission strategies of your association, state and denomination. (You can get daily or weekly updates from your state and national denomination.)
5. Daily intercede for revival and spiritual awakening in your city and nation.

*Please do not feel that a powerful prayer life is out of your reach. If you are willing, God will revolutionize your praying and thus your walk with Him.

*Don’t let anything keep you from walking in full cleansing and dynamic prayer. No matter how weak you have been, you can become a powerful, biblical intercessor. If God is for you, who can be against you? (Romans 8:31)

Whatever Things.....

Okay, so by request, I am posting a small bible study on my blog once or twice a week. God has been laying this on my heart for quite a while. At the beginning of this year, our ladies bible study went through "Conversation Peace" By Mary Kassian. What an excellent study! I wish I could say I've completely tamed my tongue, but that would be a stretch! It's a daily battle. One thing that has really affected my choices was something from this study. It's called the P-48 Test. To quote Mary "P-48 is based on Philippians 4:8. It tests the goodness of thoughts, beliefs, and words, so we can judge if they ought to be planted in our hearts. With P-48, we determine whether the seeds are:

• Pure Are my motives pure? Are my thoughts/words holy?


• Right Is this proper and appropriate?


• Excellent Is it of the highest quality? Is is the best or just adequate?


• Praisworthy Am I proud of the way I am speaking?


• Lovely Does it mirror the beauty and gentleness of Jesus?


• Admirable Is it worthy of being respected and admired?


• Noble Does it demonstrate my position as a child of the KING?


• True Does is agree with the Bible's evaluation of the situation?

After being shaken through this filter, the words that remain are seeds we want to

P.R.E.-P.L.A.N.T."

This is the litmus test for my life. I want to evaluate everything I do based on Philippians 4:8. Can you see why? What a great way to know the will of God in every situation! That's my challenge to you today. I love you, my sisters and brothers in Jesus. I pray this is a challenge to your spiritual walk and will encourage you to draw nearer to your Savior.

God's Good, Pleasing and Perfect Will.....

Alright, I'm done talking about the stupid coons after this post. I will keep you updated if anything changes.

Raccoons are smart little devils. Tuesday morning, the hubby went out to check the traps and found a chicken inside one of them. All the eggs were gone. Then, to his surprise, he turned a corner and found an "R.J." in one of the traps. Unfortunately, hubby was outwitted by the masked bandit. When Eric went to pick up the cage, the weight of the coon shifted and he escaped the cage! He took off.

So, to answer your questions? Got any yet? No, but we've trapped 3 of our own chickens!

On to more important issues. I have been studying the life and ministry of the apostle Paul in our ladies bible study. It's been a very good and quite challenging. Have you ever done an in-depth bible study? If you haven't, I strongly recommend it. God has been challenging me for quite some time with something I just don't want to let go of.

You see, I struggle with allowing certain things to creep in and compete with my relationship with Jesus. Blogging has become one of them. If you were to read back on some of my earlier posts, you would see this isn't the first time I've dealt with this. There are so many things that I allow in that, very easily, become my favorite things. TV has been that. Eating has been that. I guess I have, what you would call, an addictive personality. Does this mean I'm going to cease blogging. No. However, I may be backing away for a while. Until I can get my priorities in order. I love the sisterhood I have developed with so many of you. The question I must ask myself is "Do I love Jesus that much?" Do I get as excited about opening His word as I do when I check my email and have 10 new messages from comments on my blog? I received a very random email from my Internet Service Provider the other day soliciting me for some new product and the title of the email was, "It's all about you, Melissa". Who knew God would speak to me through AT&T's marketing department?

It's not all about me. It's all about Him. I don't want it to be all about me. Don't get me wrong. I love the recognition I have received from all of you. I relish the comments about how funny I am. Keep stroking my ego. Like I need it!!! That's just it. I must decrease, He must increase. It's nobody's fault but mine. I am just making the decision to pull the reigns back a little. If I lose readers, oh well. I wasn't put here to serve anyone but my Heavenly Father. I hope I don't hurt anyone's feelings by saying that. I care. I really do. But, if by visiting Another Day In Paradise, you get a chuckle and nothing more, I have really done my Savior a tremendous disservice. Beth Moore recorded the video session for our bible study about 10 years ago. She doesn't know this yet, but session 9 that we viewed last night, was a message recorded especially for me. God knew before He laid the foundations of the earth that it was exactly what I needed to hear at that very moment. I sat and watched with a nauseated feeling in my stomach. I knew when I got home last night, I would have some very critical decisions to make. I must choose Jesus. My readers who are believers, I know, will understand. I don't even know if my words are making sense right at this moment. I'm just giving you a piece of my heart. If you don't return, I will understand. I just hope that my testimony will not be that I am a witty blogger with crazy, awnry kids. I want to be a "living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.....not [conforming] any longer to the patterns of this world, but being transformed by the renewing of [my] mind..." (Romans 12:1-2).