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Incremental Obedience … God Leads in Steps NOT Leaps

Incremental Obedience…God Leads in Steps NOT Leaps

The phrase “leap of faith” is commonly used in Christian circles. I’ve probably even used the term myself. But did you know that this phrase is actually unscriptural? God leads in steps NOT leaps. We’re not frogs. We’re humans. Humans walk, not jump. We need to learn how to practice incremental obedience via steps that God gives us.

God leads in steps NOT leaps. We’re not frogs. We’re humans—we walk. #incrementalobedience

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Previously, I read through the devotional plan “How to Neighbor” by Pastor Craig Groeschel from Life.Church on the YouVersion Bible app. It’s an excellent 10-day plan. I highly recommend it. In part of the plan, Pastor Craig is talking about Esther and her pivotal role in helping God’s people. He mentioned that Esther had to take steps of incremental obedience…

“As a teen, Esther pushed back darkness and risked everything for her neighbors because Mordecai, her adoptive father, reminded her why she was alive “for such a time as this.” Think about this. Esther, and every other person who’s ever done anything valuable for God, basically just took incremental steps of obedience.”

The frequently quoted scripture, “Perhaps you were made…for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14) can apply to our lives too. We will have “for such a time as this” moments throughout our lives. Those moments will require steps, not leaps, of incremental obedience leading up to them.

Esther’s steps of incremental obedience

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15 Reasons Why We Pray

I’ve been on the receiving end of so many answered prayers. I cannot even begin to count the prayers that God has answered, both big and small. From… Eric getting out of a military assignment that would have taken him away for over 12 months soon after we were married, to having a happy, healthy baby after a miscarriage, to financial provision right when we needed it, to something as simple as finding lost car keys… God has proven faithful time and time again. My only complaints would be that God’s answers to my prayers didn’t always come in MY timing 🙂, and sometimes His answer was not the answer I wanted or expected (at the time). Over the years and after a lot of practice praying, I’ve discovered the importance of prayer and the many reasons why we pray.

I am a firm believer in the power of prayer. So, I thought I’d share some of the reasons why we pray and the importance of prayer. Then, in other posts we’ll discuss some of the logistics of prayer…when to pray, where to pray, what and how to pray, and even some of the hindrances to prayer.

All relationships need communication. Our relationship with God is no different. #whywepray

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We need to make prayer a regular part of our daily lives. There are many reasons why we pray and why we should speak to God. In order for any relationship to thrive, there MUST be communication. Our relationship with God is no different. It is imperative that we communicate with God on a daily basis. I’ve come up with 15 reasons why we pray. Obviously, I’m sure there are so many more, but here are some excellent reasons to get us started 😉 …

15 Reasons Why We Pray: Continue reading →

How to Recognize God’s Voice

“Then he (Jesus) added, ‘Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more.’” Mark 4:24 (NLT)

I previously shared a post on What Does God’s Voice Sound Like? I’d like to share some more tips on how to learn and recognize God’s voice. God’s voice becomes more familiar as we grow in relationship with Him.

God’s voice becomes more familiar as we grow in relationship with Him.

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This is very similar to meeting a new friend. At first, we probably don’t recognize their voice very well, and they have to introduce themselves when they call on the phone. However, the longer we are friends and the more time we spend with them (and hear them talk), the easier it is to recognize their voice. Eventually, they won’t even have to say who they are or introduce themselves.

I didn’t recognize my husband on our first date

The more time spent with someone makes them more familiar and more recognizable. My husband, Eric, just loves to tell the story (aka make fun of me 🙂 ) about the time we went on our first “official” date. I went to meet him at a mall. He was waiting outside the front door for me, and I walked right past him because I didn’t recognize him. We hadn’t known each other very long in my defense, and he DID have a baseball hat on pulled down low over his eyes! Nevertheless, he will NEVER let me live it down.

I shudder to think of all the times I must have done the EXACT same thing to God—walk right past Him due to not recognizing Him when He was standing right in front of me.

It’s getting easier for me to recognize God’s voice the more I mature and the closer I get to God. In hindsight, I wish I would have learned to recognize God’s voice a lot sooner. I can look back on my life now and see poor choices and/or missed opportunities where I had a “red flag” but didn’t realize at the time that God was speaking to me. Some things that I’ve learned along the way are the “What”, the “When”, the “How” and the “Why” of God speaking. My goal is to share a few of these things with you in hopes that you too can learn to recognize God’s voice so that you might miss fewer opportunities or make fewer poor choices.

Recognize God’s Voice in WHAT to listen for: Continue reading →

What Does God’s Voice Sound Like?

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What Does God’s Voice Sound Like?

It never ceases to amaze me how God talks to us. I’m positive that He’s talked to me my whole life, and I didn’t even know it was Him. The closer I grow to God and the stronger my relationship gets with Him, the easier it is for me to recognize God’s voice. Did you know He talks to you all the time too? You may have not even realized it was Him, simply mistaking God’s voice as just a random thought going through your head or just an odd coincidence of events.

Today, I thought I’d share a story I wrote a while back about hearing and recognizing God’s voice in something as simple as home décor.

The closer you get to God, the easier it is to recognize His voice.

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“My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27 (MSG)

Jesus’ arm

Jesus told me where his arm was. That was the message that I had sent to my husband, half-jokingly, half-serious. I have a wall decoration that is a carved wooden cross with a figurine of Jesus hanging on the cross. Eric had brought it back to me as a souvenir from Budapest when he was there on leave while in the military. There is a place in the living room where it usually hangs. I had temporarily removed it to put up some Christmas decorations in its place. It had been stored in one of the empty Christmas boxes.

After Christmas was over and the decorations were taken down (I’m not going to tell you how long after Christmas this was), I had taken the cross and set it on an end table waiting to hang it back up. One of the kids later passed by it and asked where Jesus’ arm was. It had been broken off. I assumed that the kids must have broken it while playing with their cousins and neglected to tell me.

“Random” thoughts

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I Obey Right Away—Slow Obey Is No Obey

When my kids were quite a bit younger in church they were taught the lesson “I obey right away”. A friend of mine who taught kindergarten later told me, “We add to that…Slow obey is no obey.” I’ve heard others say “Slow obedience is no obedience.” Personally, I prefer the catchy sing-song rhyme version. I loved both “obey” sayings together, so we’ve adopted them and used them quite a bit in our home. “I obey right away. Slow obey is no obey.” I usually only had to say the first two words of each phrase, and then the kids would finish the remainder, often with a pitiful sigh.

Sometimes it’s hard for kids to recognize these stalling tactics as disobedience. After all, they’re not giving an outright “no”. Therefore it appears less defiant on the surface.

Command: “Go clean your room.” Slow obey: “I will after I finish this video game.”

Command: “Finish your homework.” Slow obey: “I want to get a snack first.”

Command: “Eat your vegetables.” Slow obey: “I’m going to save them for last.”

Regardless though delayed obedience is still disobedience. Stalled obedience is still a form of rebellion. Postponing obedience is disregarding and challenging authority all the same. Thus, slow obey is no obey.

Slow obey…it’s not just kids who do it

It struck me one day that this isn’t just a lesson for kids obeying their parents. Delayed obedience (thus disobedience) is not limited just to kids. Not at all. In fact, adults are just as guilty, myself included. One of the biggest areas we are at fault is avoiding or stalling on instructions from God. We KNOW he’s asked us to do something, but we continue to put it off, sometimes indefinitely.

We, all of us, need to be reminded of this lesson when obeying God.

Why do we postpone obedience? Most of the time it’s because we just flat out don’t want to do whatever it is that has been asked of us. It’s potentially undesirable, or we want to avoid some kind of discomfort or inconvenience. Sometimes, we avoid obeying right away because we don’t understand the reason behind the request or directive. It may not make any sense to us, or it might even seem counterintuitive.

Slow obey to the prayer team

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God’s Voice vs the Devil’s Voice

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God’s Voice vs the Devil’s Voice blog image

God’s Voice vs the Devil’s Voice

“My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:27 (MSG)

I think for many people it can sometimes be intimidating to try to discern God’s voice or determining if we are hearing from God or not. At times it can be frustrating to distinguish “Is that God talking to me, is that my own thoughts, or maybe that could even be the devil trying to confuse me or get me off course?” However, there are some ways that we can differentiate between God’s voice vs the devil’s voice.

The first thing to recognize is that we are NOT crazy because we will hear both voices. I say “hear”, but most often they present as thoughts in our heads. Therefore, since we will hear different, and often competing, voices it’s extremely important that we learn to recognize the difference between God’s voice and the devil’s.

I think there are three helpful ways we can easily do this:

Know the character of God and his ways
Know the character of Satan and his ways
Discern how it makes you feel in the moment

When you understand the character, ways, and nature of God and of Satan, then we more easily distinguish the ways and manner in which they will speak and the kinds of things they would and wouldn’t say. In turn, this can then help us to determine how to move forward with that particular “voice” that we are hearing.

Know the character of God and his ways

We can learn about the character of God just as we can learn about the character of anyone else we know…by spending time with him or by learning about his nature by the things he has done. We can do these things by reading the Bible and talking to others who have a close relationship with God. When we read the Bible, we can read through the lens of “what does this tell me about God?” in order to help us learn more about his character.

I’ve written previously about some of the character traits of God from A to Z. Once we’ve learned a lot of these characteristics, we can compare them to the voice that we hear and see if it aligns. God is peaceful…does this voice give me peace or lead me in peace? God is a comforter…does this comfort me? He is also merciful…does this voice offer mercy? God cannot lie…am I hearing any untruths or contradictions to scripture?

Once we learn and become familiar with God’s ways, we can start to say things like, “That sounds like God. This falls right in line with how he would work.” OR… “This doesn’t sound like something God would say” or “I don’t think God would talk to me in this way. This probably isn’t his voice.” When we learn more from scripture we can come to better conclusions.

Learn about God’s character to differentiate his voice from Satan’s voice.

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The Holy Spirit Told Me to Eat a Pineapple

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The Holy Spirit Told Me to Eat a Pineapple

The Holy Spirit told me to eat a pineapple. Sounds crazy right? I thought so too, but let me back up and share the whole story with you. This really is more about going to the Holy Spirit for guidance and listening…even in the small things.

A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with one of my friends. I always enjoying getting together with good Christian friends. I always walk away feeling so encouraged and uplifted and sometimes even challenged a little, as was the case when I met with Kim. After all, isn’t that how God intended for Christian community to work?

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Proverbs 27:17 (NLT)

“So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NLT)

Anyhow, Kim was sharing some things with me about how God has been working in her life and about some projects that she’s working on. Something that stuck out to me was how she kept mentioning her reliance on the Holy Spirit, for EVERYTHING.

I had to ask myself, “Do I rely on the Holy Spirit as much as I should? Do I go to him or listen for guidance on even the small stuff?” If I’m answering honestly, it’s “No”, at least not as often as I should.

I DO listen to God and speak with him regularly. Also, I DO listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice. Fortunately, he’s a familiar friend that I do recognize. I think where I was missing the mark was in seeking guidance, on purpose, for even small things in my life. Things where I think, “I’ve got this” or things that seem too trivial to bother God with. Things like minor stomach discomfort or acid-reflux.

Stomach issues, the Daniel Fast, and then more stomach issues

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Recognizing Prompts of the Holy Spirit

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Recognizing Prompts of the Holy Spirit

A friend of mine and I were having a conversation last week about the spiritual realm and how there is spiritual warfare going on around us that we don’t even see.

“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12 (NLT)

“So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city. When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha. “Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!” Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!” The LORD opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.” 2 Kings 6:14-17 (NLT)

We can sense the spiritual realm and hear the Holy Spirit

My friend and I talked about how we are sometimes able to sense this warfare or sense the presence of evil. Sometimes it’s just a creepy feeling we can’t shake or maybe even a presence of something that’s not there or that we can’t see. Occasionally, we might have a thought or hear an inaudible “voice”. I think the closer we walk with God, the more we will be able to sense these kinds of things. We will also be able to recognize the Holy Spirit communicating with us. The Holy Spirit will frequently reveal things to us, warn us, or prompt us into prayer or action. God will often speak to us through the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Read more here on how to recognize God’s voice.

“But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative–that is, the Holy Spirit–he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.” John 14:26 (NLT)

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’” John 16:13-15 (NLT)

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Romans 8:14 (NLT)

The Holy Spirit will frequently reveal things to us, warn us, or prompt us into prayer or action.

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Sensing the Holy Spirit’s directions and warnings

Previously I wrote a post about hearing the Holy Spirit (God’s voice) when Jesus told me where his arm was. In that post I mentioned how I once heard comedian Michael Jr. say how God’s name is “Something”…You know, like “Something told me not to do that!” I’ve had several of the “something told me” moments over the years, but it wasn’t until I matured more spiritually that I began to understand that it was the Holy Spirit prompting, directing, or warning me about things.

A bad feeling in the middle of the night

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Incremental Obedience … God Leads in Steps NOT Leaps