There I stood, in waist deep water, hands lifted, heart stilled in the ebb and flow of the water. Beside me stood Jesus, arm around my waist, speaking so quietly I had to strain to hear over the music.

“What, Lord?” I asked. “The music is loud, and I can’t hear you!” He replied, “Focus on my voice. My still small voice.”

Suddenly, His voice was so clear even though I could hear the music the same, as though He was speaking directly in my ear. Relief came over me. I love to hear His voice, my best friend, my confidant, and love.

Then He lowered me into the water as if baptizing me again. When I came out of the water, He began pulling off what remained on me. I felt so free, so focused, so complete.

Psalm 51:10-13 “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a faithful spirit within me. Do not force me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore the joy of your salvation to me, and provide me with a spirit of willing obedience. Then, I will teach your ways to those who are rebellious, and sinners will return to you.”

I wanted to share this simply so that you can understand something. No matter who you are or what you do, when you live in the world, the world gets on you. You don’t even realize it. You’re not doing it intentionally. But everything you watch on t.v., everything you surround yourself with, people who throw their cares on you instead of the Lord, it all leaves a residue on you.

That’s why it’s so important to stand close to Jesus, allowing Him to wash you daily of the stuff that’s come on you. To constantly be ‘baptized’ by the Word (Eph. 5:26), and by the Spirit (Acts 11:16) so that you can present yourself holy to the Lord (Romans 12:1).

We were not made to be part of the world, but to be separate. If we look like the world, talk like the world, and act like the world, we are not doing what He asked us to do. It is time to examine ourselves and ask God to wash us and make us totally His.

Sandy G

Proverbs 4:20-22 Sandy’s Version “Sandy, give attention to my words: tune your ear to my sayings. Don’t let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the center most protected part of your heart; For they are life to you as you find them, and health to all your spirit, soul and body.”

Have you ever felt yourself tossed into the heat of a battle and wondered what the heck was going on? Over the past few weeks, I got ahold of a series by Creflo Dollar entitled, Are You In The Game, and I’ve been listening to this set of cd’s ever since. It’s all about winning the battle of your mind, how to fight your thoughts with the Word, and they’ve been the most eye-opening, mind-bending, practical truth I’ve listened to in a while. But I find myself in a battle that I’m now equipped to fight, but it’s weird. Ever have weird warfare? Yeah. When the enemy tries to convince you that you can’t communicate, no one really understands you, that people are just being nice.

You stumble over your words, and what you say doesn’t translate into English right. You begin to wonder if you’re actually having a stroke or losing your ability to speak. Initially, I decided to stop talking until I could figure out what was going on, but when I thought that thought, I instantly recognized it was the devil and in my spirit I heard, “He’s trying to steal your words!” (Mark 4:15)

So I said, “You will not have my words, devil! For they are hidden and protected in the center of my heart where you can’t get to them. I know the truth, and the truth sets me free!”

My friends, his goal is to shut you up. If that’s not happening in your life, perhaps you should examine what’s coming out of your mouth. If there’s no warfare, there’s no treasure to steal. I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to stand from a place of victory and contend for what Jesus purchased for me. I hold up my shield of faith and quench every fiery dart hurled at the Word in me. No weapon formed me will prosper!

I pray for each of you who have treasure in you to protect; guard your heart and mind. Don’t cry out for yourself. Cry out for others. God did not make you to be self-centered but to focus on Him and others.

Sandy G

Who says? I remember saying that often to my sister when she tried to boss me around. Like, who gave you authority to tell me what to do? Who died and made you boss?

Have you ever questioned? Especially when someone tells you something you don’t want to hear? I have! Man, it’s something I’ve struggled with most of my life. I know this comes as a huge surprise to most of you. LOL!

God has given us authority over all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19). We think of enemies as something we can see, but did you know that the biggest enemy we have is unseen? He accuses us, puts fear on us, addicts us, makes idols for us, convinces us we’re powerless to defeat him when all the while we’ve forgotten Luke 10:19.

II Corinth 10:4 says, “We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.”

It’s time we started back talking the devil! Who says, you big fat liar! (OMG, it is like talking to my sister! LOL) Who says I’m sick?-liar! By His stripes, I’m healed! Who says I’m broke?-liar! My God will supply all my needs! Who says I’m afraid-liar! He gave His angels charge over me to keep me in all my ways. 1000 may fall here, and 10,000 may fall there, but it won’t come near me!

Know who you are! Know your authority! Use your weapons because they are mighty-Use the Word. He says.

Sandy G

What is the cost of peace? How much would we spend to get some? If your life is full of stress, worry, and turmoil, that is not the place God wants you to dwell.

John 14:27 GNT “Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid.”

I speak peace to your day, my friends. Peace that passes understanding, guarding your heart and mind. The peace that sweeps over you, bringing you everything you need for today, restoring everything missing or broken in your life.

Repairer of broken things, Redeemer of missed moments, wrong steps, and deep losses, come press over us today. Don’t pass us by! Don’t allow us to be too busy that we miss this opportunity to soak in Your presence where your peace is found.

Amazing Father, as we sit in Your presence this morning, we thank You that in Your presence is fullness of joy, peace that passes understanding and overwhelming love. We always come away with so much more than we entered with. The exchange for our burdens and cares, our pain, and sadness, and those deepest losses are met with Your grace and goodness. We walk away restored.

“No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There’s no other friend so kind as he. No one else can take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much he cares for me.”

Sandy G

Proverbs 4:20-22 NLV “My son, listen to my words. Turn your ear to my sayings. Do not let them leave your eyes. Keep them in the center of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.”

John 6:63 NLV “It is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh is of no help. The words I speak to you are spirit and life.”

Did you catch that? The Word brings healing and life. Jesus said that “the flesh is no help.” Gods Word is where life comes from. I’m not just talking ‘life’ as in being alive and not dead, I’m talking about life we live in the Spirit of God bringing overflow onto our flesh.

If we’d focus our attention on the most important thing, our spirit, it would bring life to our flesh man. I think that what we truly miss is the big deception that Satan has tried to get us to buy since the beginning of time, and that is, focus on the wrong things.

To question what Gods Word really says in order to gain access to our rightful position in Christ Jesus. How better to do that than to keep us from reading and studying the Word of God?

If we don’t know the rule book, how can we play the game? I don’t know of any football team that would go out on the field without a clearly defined plan that fell into the perimeters of a rule book. You must study your opponents, know the game, and play to win.

Well, we as Christians can’t expect to run the race without knowing the advantages we have against our opponent. I want to run with winners! Those who have my back, who play as a team, not in it for themselves. There are too many of us trying to trip up our team members because we want to win. NO! That’s not how it’s played out, and if you’d read the rule book, you’d know this. We are one body, running together, loving the world, and winning the lost.

Each of us plays an important role in the race. If we don’t pray for one another, encourage one another, speak the Word into one another, we’ll be hopping across the finish line with missing limbs. I want to cross it whole, presenting to Jesus a whole bride. How about you? Are you in it to win it?

II Peter 3:14 GNT “And so, my friends, as you wait for that Day, do your best to be pure and faultless in God’s sight and to be at peace with him.”

Sandy G

But you are God’s chosen treasure —priests who are kings, a spiritual “nation” set apart as God’s devoted ones. He called you out of darkness to experience his marvelous light, and now he claims you as his very own. He did this so that you would broadcast his glorious wonders throughout the world. 1 Peter 2:9 TPT

God sees you as a personal treasure, His very own. You can choose to believe what others have spoken over you your whole life or what God has spoken.

If your view of yourself has been tainted by freely expressed observations and opinions, then it’s time to dismiss those things and throw yourself into those hidden treasures of His Word.

Begin reading what God says about you and believe it because it’s true. When someone says you’re going to die, tell them I will live and not die and declare the Word of God. Proclaim that He sent His Word and healed me, delivering me from all evil.

Simply don’t allow the voice of the enemy to be louder than the voice of God. Use your voice to proclaim what God says about you. You are chosen treasure and He loves you.

Sandy G

John 14:12-14 GW This is a part of what Jesus said to us, his disciples: “I can guarantee this truth: Those who believe in me will do the things that I am doing. They will do even greater things because I am going to the Father. I will do anything you ask the Father in my name so that the Father will be given glory because of the Son. If you ask me to do something, I will do it.”

There are some keys here that we need to see:

1. This is a guarantee. Defined; to make oneself answerable for (something) on behalf of someone else who is primarily responsible.

2. We will do the things Jesus was doing and even greater things. This includes; walking in unconditional love always; forgiving and letting things go; compassion that moves us to give of ourselves without complaint; no murmuring; forfeiting your own will and desires for the good of the Kingdom.

3. We can ask anything of the Father in Jesus’ Name that will give the Father glory. What? We can’t just have anything we want? We can’t ask for a million dollars and have it drop magically in our account? No, it can have no selfish ambition attached to it at all.

Jesus went about doing good and healing all. How many of us live our lives like that? How many of us can really say that our minds are so toward God that we never think of our own needs or wants because we know the Father will take care of us? Most, if not all of us, would have to admit to this.

Father, forgive me because I’m so not like Jesus. My eyes are still glued to my bills. I still have wrong intentions. My faith is still so small. The more I read about You, the smaller I feel.

So this morning, I ask to know You more. To hunger and thirst for Your presence. To overflow onto others the love and compassion that Jesus had for the lost You love.

May I not be critical of others and their motives. How do I know what their motives are,Lord? Open my eyes to try to find the good in all those around me, not just those who are nice to me. Only then will You be able to break through the walls they’ve formed from rejection and hurt. Only then will my own walls come down so that You can touch them through me. Jesus, give me Your eyes. I’m broken, please fix me.

Sandy G

Psalm 63:1-5 “O God, you are my God, and I long for you. My whole being desires you; like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land, my soul is thirsty for you. Let me see you in the sanctuary; let me see how mighty and glorious you are. Your constant love is better than life itself, and so I will praise you. I will give you thanks as long as I live; I will raise my hands to you in prayer. My soul will feast and be satisfied, and I will sing glad songs of praise to you.”

This morning, I wrote a similar song to the Lord as I journaled my thoughts to the King. I believe that this is why God had such a close relationship with David, calling him ‘the apple of His eye’. It’s the love songs, the pouring out of ones heart to someone that creates strong bonds of relationship.

Think of your closest friend who has seen you at your worst and best. The exchange of deepest dreams, the look of love, the understanding glance. If you’ve been friends for years, you just know when somethings wrong, when their heart is heavy, when they just need a friend. Well, thats who God longs to be to us, but unless we trust to share our deepest wounds and our greatest joys with him, we will never develop that ‘knowing’ trust I’m talking about. With each other, that kind of relationship can take a long time to develop, but with God, it takes a moment.

Start in the Psalms, read it out loud to the Lord just as David spoke them long ago, make it your own hearts cry. Weep before Him. Close your eyes and picture Him wrapping you in His arms of love. Now rest in that place and know that His love for you is constant, never changing, always present, even when you don’t feel he’s there.

“For He, God Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let you down relax My hold on you! Assuredly not!” Hebrews 13:5b Amp.

There is nothing to get you through your day like an encounter with God. Relax! He’s got this!

Sandy G

So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day. We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison, because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16‭-‬18 TPT

That’s what I want, my friends. I want to focus on the unseen realm because that is eternal. It holds more weight than what you can see.

How can that be? How can the unseen be heavier? How can you weigh the unseen things?

Simple. God uses a different type of scale. Just like He uses the foolish things to confound the wise, love that covers a multitude of sins and a fish lunch to feed a multitude.

How wonderful are His scales. Mine can disappoint me, but His never does. Even when my body wears out my spirit lives on forever with Him. He’s my reward. To lose my life is gaining much more.

So I’ll keep reaching for things I can’t see, knowing that in the reaching, I’ll be finding treasure far more valuable than anything on earth.

Sandy G

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3 NKJV

If you’re wondering where your peace went, consider what you’ve been thinking on. You can quote the first part till you’re blue in the face, but the bottom line is, you will never have the first without the second.

I’ve had to practice that countless times over the span of my life. It’s so easy to get your mind stuck in your problems that I’ve had to shake my head hard and ask myself, “What are you doing? Will you never learn?”

But trust in God is only learned by firmly fixing your mind on who God is and what He’s capable of doing. You have to constantly remember what He’s done in your past and know He hasn’t changed and isn’t likely to.

So if you desire peace, examine your terrain. Get back on track and cast it all on Him. If He needs your help, He’ll ask. You just focus on keeping your peace.

Sandy G