HEAVENSREEF

GOD wants us to do things we cannot do without HIM.  HE will use our gifts powerfully when we rely on HIM.

If you rely on your own abilities, or your will, you can find yourself limited……instead, allow the HOLY SPIRIT to empower you!

I can still hear him, the voice as clear as it happened yesterday…….the words were said to me in a hateful way.  I was a young skater taking a lesson and he was mad because I wasn’t doing what he wanted me to do perfectly.  I was doing my best, but that didn’t matter because he said: “you will never be………”  I won’t say the rest because we all have the words to complete that sentence. Someone somewhere “told you just that“!  The voice within us is hard to forget. And because of it, we believe there are limits on us and through us.

As a skater I developed a view of myself, wishing I could be like her…….the angel in blades, another skater that I looked up to.  This view continued until one day I saw myself skate on a local TV station.  I couldn’t believe “that girl” was me!  She was so good, so graceful!  One of my other coaches narrated the event and he said: “she is such a pretty skater, with beautiful style and technically very good.”  I couldn’t believe my ears either.  That wasn’t what I knew…….I had believed the words of the enemy, loud and clear with the word never playing over and over in my head.  I had compared, and lost.

I had put limits on myself and all my abilities, just because a coach who probably should not have been coaching in the first place, said a negative comment to me that I carried around until I saw myself through another lens, a positive lens and from there my confidence grew, I skated without shame knowing I was just as good as any of the other girls around me.

We can do the same to ourselves in Christian circles.  Maybe someone, somewhere was prideful and they compared themselves to you with “all I do at the Church” and from there you decided you would never measure up. 

We need to see ourselves as GOD sees us, through a lens of mercy and grace and realize that with JESUS by our side, there are no limits because HE is limitless!  HIS voice says you can do anything with HIS help!

COLOSSIANS 1: 13 “GOD HAS FREED US FROM THE POWER OF DARKNESS, AND HE BROUGHT US INTO THE KINGDOM OF HIS DEAR SON.”

We all are given gifts, gifts of the Spirit and we all can contribute…….that is why we are called the Body of Christ.  GOD can use you and your abilities in a powerful way……but first you must ask HIM to show you. HE works in amazing ways through you, when you think you cannot even do what is asked of you.

Our words to ourselves can be so self-limiting and sometimes paralyzing……but GOD’S word says this:

PSALM 138:7 “If I walk into the thick of danger, YOU will preserve my life from anger of my enemies.  YOU will extend YOUR hand;  YOUR right hand will save me.”

Notice the “YOU will?”  HIS Holy Scripture mentions it 3 times in one verse!  What GOD promises, HE accomplishes.  Don’t focus on what someone said to you, focus on what GOD says about you……

PSALM 139: 14 “……… FOR I AM FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.”

Aren’t we wonderfully made in HIS image?  JESUS sees us through HIS eyes of grace and we already are a work in progress being made perfect.  Look at yourself through HIS eyes only, not the world’s.  

Rely on the unlimited power of JESUS!  We can accomplish more than we ever dreamed, because HE is with us and in us!  So go…….move forward in HIS power.

Don’t let the condemnation of the enemy drown out GOD’S powerful voice.  HE says: there is nothing impossible that HE can’t do because when we feel limited, HE alone is limitless!  HIS hope that sustains us through all our days is evidence of HIS most powerful work.

Our souls need JESUS and HIS power just like our bodies need water!  Ask HIM…….ask HIM, for HIS power in every situation.  HE is there to restore and complete us, no matter what anyone says to us, to limit us.  Your situation is not hopeless, because HE is limitless!  Your story is not over because HE is limitless.  People may hurt you and they may be cruel to you, but HIS love for you is limitless.  Rely on HIS love, and HIS power because HE never leaves us.  HE stands with us, wherever we go……..so go today in HIS power, go in HIS grace and go in HIS love!

 ACTS 1:8 “BUT YOU WILL RECEIVE POWER WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS COME UPON YOU, AND YOU WILL BE MY WITNESSES IN JERUSALEM AND IN ALL JUDEA AND SAMARIA, AND TO THE END OF THE EARTH.”