After writing recently about the humility this season of victory requires, I felt it only right to remind you all that it is 100% our responsibility to also CELEBRATE!!!

I remember, when I was young, being taught that it was important to learn how to be a good loser…but I’ve also always noticed it’s equally important to learn how to win gracefully.

We can be good winners!  We can behave in such a way that ushers in more victories! 

We would be remiss to not express our gratitude in celebration. 

It’s funny that those who didn’t get what they wanted are demanding we simply move forward without any recognition of success.  I hope you realize how intensely selfish that is of them.  It truly is the epitome of selfishness and being a poor loser. 

Losing anything should always cause someone to reflect.  To think about how they may be wrong.  What they could have done differently.  It shouldn’t lead instantly to blame.  That lands on selfishness again.  Everyone needs to learn how to take responsibility…this is yet another part of making America great again. 

There’s a rot that has taken over many that causes them to demand participation awards and refuse to self-reflect and see where they have gone wrong.

Let’s also take time to consider ourselves. 

Are there any areas of our individual lives that we don’t want to take responsibility for, and instead, try to deflect and blame others?  Are there situations in your life that, when you’re honest, you know you are at least partially responsible for creating? 

We need to live in a state of awareness. 

The more aware we are of our sins, the more we can be changed. 

So, celebrate!!! Be excited!!! 

But also, remain sober minded and walk in a way that is willing to be humbled by God. 

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  His faithful love endures forever.  Has the Lord redeemed you?  Then speak out!  Tell others He has redeemed you from your enemies.  For He has gathered the exiles from many lands, from east and west, form north and south.  Some wandered in the wilderness, lost and homeless.  Hungry and thirsty, they nearly died.  “Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble, and He rescued them from their trouble, and He rescued them from their distress.  He led them straight to safety, to a city where they could live.  Let them praise the Lord for His great love and for the wonderful things He has done for them.  For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.  Psalm 107:1-9

Heaven is pregnant with blessings God intends for us. 

Will we bring them to live birth, or will we abort?

This is a thought I have almost daily.

I wonder, do you fully embrace a blessing or do you receive it in part and then slink back.  As if you are afraid of the “more than enough” that God promises.

I have watched many, including myself, receive large blessings just to squander the fullness of the opportunity because there was no real understanding of how to steward it.

Heaven is pregnant with many blessings…are we ready to receive?

What does it look like to be ready?

Readiness looks like staying in a position to receive.  It looks like remaining open handed with what God gives you and allowing Him to continue to be in charge. 

So often when we receive a gift from Him, we instantly begin to take over.  That’s not the intent.  He wants to partner with us for our lifetime.  In everything we do. 

It reminds me of this portion of Scripture…

The people refused to enter the pleasant land, for they wouldn’t believe His promise to care for them.  Instead, they grumbled in their tents and refused to obey the Lord.  Psalm 106:24-25

I have literally watched someone receive a huge blessing and then immediately begin to speak fear over it because they had no capacity to continue to seek God in it…to trust God…to stay in partnership with Him.  So, they opted to remain empty.  Virtually aborting the blessing.

I’ve seen others receive huge gifts then grumble and complain.  It’s hard to watch because in some cases they were receiving things I’d been praying to receive myself…yet there they were treating the gift hostilely.

I encourage you to search your heart today and ask God to forgive you for anytime you’ve behaved with ingratitude toward His blessings.  Then ask Him to increase your capacity to receive.

I promise you won’t regret it. 

When we are handed a success or victory, we must remain humble. 

But He gives us more grace.  That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.  James 4:6

Sure, we should celebrate our wins, but not at the expense of our character.  Celebrate…but as tempting as it is…it’s best not to denigrate. 

I began writing this devotional before the election.  I had no idea what a timely topic this would become. 

Here’s the thing.  I refuse to act ashamed that God’s plan for this country won out.  I refuse to act ashamed that I stood on the side of wisdom and discernment.  I too have been appalled at the extreme amounts of deception that were committed by the losing side.  I have been appalled at the woke agenda.  I have been appalled at the cries…no shrieks…for infant sacrifices at the altar of “women’s rights” all while they pretend that men can be women, when it suits them. 

All of it is insane.

But here’s the thing…God made each of these people.  As angry as I get at them, I also can’t help but pray for their souls. 

They are the lost.  We are the found. 

Man, writing this is causing a lot of tension inside my soul. 

They have treated all of us so unfairly for so long…it’s so difficult to find any space for mercy in my own heart.  But God called us to be a witness to the least of these.  To seek and save the lost. 

I am endeavoring…without full success, but I’m trying…to not mock the meltdowns we are currently watching. 

I desire to walk in holiness and truth. 

The truth is the word of God never changes and that includes His words on humility and pride. 

Some people in this world have given themselves over to evil, but I believe that until the moment of their death there is an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ and experience the beauty and the gift of salvation.  Just like the criminal who hung next to Jesus on the cross and repented in his last moments.  That’s what I hope for all. 

I pray they turn the Jesus.  They wouldn’t be having meltdowns if they knew Jesus.  That is the sad, but true fact. 

Have you ever been around people, maybe even family, who don’t outwardly show their love?  People who just say, “Well, they know I love them.  I don’t have to say or do anything.”

I disagree.

We should openly display our love for those around us, just like we should openly display our love for Jesus.

If we can’t be open and honest about our love for family, how can we be open and honest about our love for Jesus?

Jesus deserves the full expression of our love.  Our families do also. 

Loving Jesus first creates an artesian well within us.  A constant flow and filling.  Loving Him brings an increase and the ability to love others more freely…we should show our love.

Show it in word and deed.  Show it in how we spend our time.  Show it in how we prepare for the future.  Invite Jesus, and then our family, into our plans for the future.  Learn what partnership really looks like…partnership blooms in an openly loving relationship.

I know there were generations of people who lived with parents who didn’t say, “I love you.”  But that has bred nothing but callousness and insecurity and misunderstanding. 

We need to hear and to say, “I love you.”

It’s all throughout Scripture…God saying He loves us. 

How will you respond?

An open rebuke is better than hidden love.  Proverbs 27:5

What is the purpose of love if it remains hidden?

Today I encourage you to exercise your love.  Tell the Lord how much you love Him and live your life today in a way that confirms that declaration.  Tell your family that you love them and show it in the way you act toward them.  Be love today.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.  1 John 4:7-12

I have had numerous dreams lately.  Dreams that I remember.  If I ever remember a dream, I know that it’s significant because I don’t remember dreams too often.  The difference lately is that I’m interacting with my dreams a whole lot.

It reminds me of the following scripture…

Lord, You alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing.  You guard all that is mine.  The land You have given me is a pleasant land.  What a wonderful inheritance!  I will bless the Lord Who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me.  I know the Lord is always with me.  I will not be shaken, for He is right beside me.  Psalm 16:5-8

See that?!

Look again at verse 7…

I will bless the Lord Who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me. 

God instructs us through the night.  Guiding us.  Teaching us.  Leading us…

And I believe, training us…in the night.

Do you dream a lot?

Have you ever interacted with your dreams?

Today, I encourage you to ask God to speak to you in your dreams.  I pray this almost nightly.  Asking God to visit me in my dreams.  To instruct me in them.

As we place our hearts before God this morning, let’s ask Him for the gift of Him speaking to us in our dreams. 

With all of the distractions in our lives it has become harder to still and quiet our souls…our minds…and hear from God.  Our dreams give us a great opportunity to be taught.  The neutral state of our minds during sleep creates a great opportunity to hear from God.  

This is also a reason that I have prayed over my whole families dream life forever.  I pray God will protect them in their dreams and they would only have dreams that are from God. 

Our dream life is important. 

It’s time to stop taking it for granted.

Can you feel the fragrance of the promise of the Lord over your life? 

This is another fragrance we can carry.  The fragrance of promise.  The fragrance of hope.  The fragrance of Truth. 

The Word of the Lord stands firm.  His purposes through ALL generations. 

This is what is true. 

We can stand upon God’s promises. 

We need to remember this again.

Remember!

Draw from deep within your heart and breathe in the promises of God. 

You were made with a promise.  God’s promises tucked lovingly within your heart.  His promises written into the story He wrote about you before you were born.  Every one of us has promises. 

Remember the promises in Scripture.  You can lay hold of them.  Believe in them.  Lean on them.  Let them be a buoy to you when you are afraid that you’re drowning. 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will secure your path.

What are God’s oaths?  What has He promised to you, individually?  What has He promised to all believers?

God also bound Himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that He would never change His mind.  So, God has given both His promise and His oath.  These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie.  Therefore, we who have fled to Him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.  This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.  It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary.  Hebrews 6:17-19

What is the fragrance over your life?  I’m asking again this week…

Do you carry the fragrance of hope, or has disappointment soured you?

Do you carry the fragrance of promise, or has hope deferred made you heart sick?

Do you carry the fragrance of Truth, or has the lie become the stench around you?

Today, I encourage you to consider your fragrance.  Go to God and let Him shower you and release a new fragrance over you.  Lean into His heart and gather the rosebuds of promise.  Today is a great day to begin again!!

Today we vote. 

This is definitely a devotional topic to pray over…even if you think it isn’t.

The church should be leading the pack when it comes to establishing Godliness in our government.  Separation of church and state was created to keep the state out of the church…not the other way around.  We don’t look to politicians as gods, we vote because this is the style of government we live under.  It’s a responsibility.  It’s also an honor to be able to vote. 

It’s our job to steward the country we’ve been gifted with.

Here’s what God highlighted for me in scripture regarding the liberal spirit that is attempting to overtake our God centric government structure.  One nation under God…remember?

People may cover their hatred with pleasant words, but they’re deceiving you.  They pretend to be kind, but don’t believe them.  Their hearts are full of many evils.  While their hatred may be concealed by trickery, their wrongdoing will be exposed in public.  If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it yourself.  If you roll a boulder down on others, it will crush you instead.  Proverbs 26:24-27

Don’t be deceived…any group that uses child sacrifice and mutilation as a central tenant, is not operating in a godly manner. 

Don’t be deceived…any group that values criminals over their own citizens is not a godly group.

Don’t be deceived…we are not electing a pastor…we are electing a president.  Someone who is capable to face the many leaders around the world with confidence and with our countries best interest in mind. 

Don’t be deceived…it’s not wrong to have a closed border.

Don’t be deceived…it’s not wrong to love our country…why wouldn’t we?

Don’t be deceived…it’s not godlier to bow out and hunker down for the end.

Don’t be deceived.

It’s time to awaken to Truth. 

It’s time to look at things apart from emotion and ask God to shine His light on the Truth.

We can and should rise up and allow America to be all that God intended for it to be.

He’s not finished with America!!  We’ve only begun to fight.

Today, I encourage you to lean into God.  Humble yourself and pray.  Ask God to protect our freedoms, and to restore those that have been stolen or manipulated away from us.  It’s time for a restoration to begin.  It is completely possible, through God, to see the changes that we have only dreamed about!  He is capable of doing far more than anything we could ever ask of imagine!!  He’s the God of the impossible.

I had a vision this morning.  I was seeing a person who struggles with fear of rejection and that spirit was radiating off of them like a scent.  That scent went out all around them and repelled others…in essence causing the very thing they feared the most.  Rejection.

I began talking to God about this and He showed me that’s what happens with every spirit we carry.  Fear.  Jealousy.  Victimhood.  Anxiety.  Betrayal.  The list could go on and on…

Then I saw in the same way that the demonic spirits people carry repel others away…and self-sabotage…the Godly spirits we carry draw others near and multiply.

We attract what is within us. 

That means it’s really important to carry the right scent. 

This vision was so clear and intense that I’m convinced that now is the time to press into this concept.  If we emit the scent of constant defeat, then how can we expect victory.  If we emit the scent of being looked over, then how can we expect to be chosen?

This just goes on and on. 

Today, I encourage you to ask God to reveal your scent to you.  Lay down your pride and receive the truth.  If you see a bad scent, then ask God to wash it off of you and replace it with His fragrance. 

I don’t know about you, but I am determined to carry the scent of heaven!

We can choose to be showered in the fragrance of heaven.  We can carry the aroma of heaven and allow that to draw others to the presence of God!  Isn’t that amazing?!

Like a shower, we can step into His presence.  We can invite Him to come.  He is always so near.  Nearer than our breath.  Nearer than the blood in our veins. 

Our Maker.  Our Father. 

God, let us all be covered in the scent of heaven!!  Come and fill us to overflowing and let our lives pour goodness onto everyone around us.  You are so faithful.  I adore You.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

But thanks be to God, Who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere.  For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the One we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.  and who is equal to such a task?  Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit.  On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity as those sent from God.  2 Corinthians 2:14-17

As an adult I would have no idea what a “skin” was, except that I have children, and they have talked about them…

In some video games you can be a character but have options to change into different looks.  The base character remains the same but everything about its appearance changes. 

These are called skins.

The other night I woke from my sleep and was burdened with some things in my life that I’ve long desired to change.  I began to deeply intercede from that place of between wake and sleep…apparently this is a common thing for me lately…and as I did, I asked God to change me.

I cried out, “God, please change this about me.  Take it away!” 

Suddenly, I saw a skin come off me.  Like a layer of myself was gone…or a covering over me was gone.  I immediately thought about the skins that my kids have talked about in their games.

I realized that some things we struggle with are more difficult to get rid of because they’ve become part of us.  Like a part of who we are.  Even though we wrestle with them, they won’t leave until we ask God to remove them from our identity.

Does this make sense?

Have you ever had something you struggled with so desperately?

Listen, I just want to be more like Jesus.  I don’t want to let certain behaviors and thought patterns, that others might think are fine to have, slide in my life.  I don’t want it.  I want Jesus.

Today, I want to provoke you to consider whether or not you have skins in your life.  Skins of false identity covering you and shading everything you do.

If you discover any then I encourage you to pray and ask God to remove them from you.

Then like a cicada does, shrug off that shell and move forward as the real you.  The original you that God intended.

Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.  We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.  But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read.  It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.  Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.  But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit.  2 Corinthians 3:12-18

I’ve read Lamentations many times.  I often felt it was a difficult book to read because it’s evident that Jeremiah felt a lot of big feelings…but when we reflect on his life as a prophet, it’s obvious he would.  He was human, after all. 

Today while reading a portion of Lamentations, I felt so seen.  Understood, even. 

It’s like I read the words with new eyes. 

It’s no secret that our family has been in an interesting season ever since 2019.  Covid didn’t begin our season, it only compounded it.  By the time Covid hit we had already lost our business of over 10 years because of the non-sensical fear of oil and gas that has increased in our country. 

We went through a long season of no work, work that just got us by, and a couple new careers…and finally early this year Chris was restored to the energy sector…except this time it’s focused on renewables…

This restoration of respect and honor in his field has been unbelievably beneficial for him and as a result our entire family.  His joy has been restored.  I watched as a huge weight began to lift off of his shoulders.  I watched as he was appreciated for his resume again and brought into a company with immediate plans to promote him.  It was amazing to see the sparkle in his eyes again.  Men need to be providers.  It’s built within their very soul. 

This turn around has led me to contemplate the entire season we’ve been walking through. 

I cannot count the times I sat in my prayer closet lamenting.  Crying.  Wrestling to hold onto hope.  Feeling defeated.  Feeling lost.  Feeling alone.  Feeling desperate. 

Every time I felt all of these things I never stopped in them.  I allowed myself to voice these things to God because I knew I would end up landing on praise and remembering His faithfulness. 

Lamenting can be an important part of our process. 

When a believer laments, we will always land on praise.

If we openly bring the full gambit of our emotions to Jesus, He will always allow our hearts to begin to testify to us. 

It has never failed that I would end up remembering the good things.  Remembering the answered prayers.  Remembering that God has always come through.  Remembering. 

If we hold back our lamenting, it’s so much harder to land on His grace. 

Today, I encourage you to read this portion of scripture and let it testify to you.  You are not alone.

I will include a portion of Lamentations chapter 3, but I encourage you to go read the entire chapter on your own.  It’s so good.

I am the one who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of the Lord’s anger.  He has led me into darkness, shutting out all light.  He has turned His hand against me again and again, all day long.  He has made my skin and flesh grow old.  He has broken my bones.  He has besieged and surrounded me with anguish and distress.  He has buried me in a dark place, like those long dead.  He has walled me in, and I cannot escape.  He has bound me in heavy chains.  And though I cry and shout, He has shut out my prayers.  He has blocked my way with a high stone wall; He has made my road crooked.  He has hidden like a bear or a lion, waiting to attack me.  He has dragged me off the path and torn me in pieces, leaving me helpless and devastated.  He has drawn His bow and made me the target for His arrows.  He shot His arrows deep into my heart.  My own people laugh at me.  All day long they sing their mocking songs.  He has filled me with bitterness and given me a bitter cup of sorrow to drink.  He has made me chew on gravel.  He has rolled me in the dust.  Peace has been stripped away, and I have forgotten what prosperity is.  I cry out, “My splendor is gone!  Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”  The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words.  I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.  Yet, I still dare to hope when I remember this:  The faithful love of the Lord never ends!  His mercies never cease.  Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.  I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!”  The Lord is good to those who depend on Him, to those who search for Him.  So, it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.  And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of His discipline.  Lamentations 3:1-27