Encouragement for Balance

 

Encouragement for Balance

It was put on my heart this week to share a message of encouragement & clarification that will hopefully help us all to bring a balance to our walk with the Lord as well as to have greater peace and joy in our hearts. As you read and/or listen to the messages shared on this website the one thing I want to remind everyone of is that at no time should you walk away thinking you have to be perfect or should you be feeling less than worthy because you or others can see where you are falling short, we all fall short. The more important thing to focus on is will you get back up and keep fighting the good fight of faith?! (1 Timothy 6:11-12) Our Heavenly Father from the beginning has always sought for hearts that would love Him enough to trust Him more and more and to do their best to follow after Him, to walk with Him. This is one of the reasons why he gave us Yeshua (Jesus), our salvation, to meet us where we are at in order to share in our fears, our pain & our sufferings and to have compassion for us as He leads us closer to His heart where we find healing, peace, love and joy. What a great love He has for us, the greatest love of all. (John 15:13) HalleluYah!

When I read about King David and his life some of the great mistakes that King David made causes me to cringe in horror but then God goes on to call King David a man after His own heart, not because David was so perfect in his walk (far from it) but because in the end he valued God and His Word more so than anything else in this world. (Acts 13:22) King David knew that without God life is truly not worth living and there could never be a fullness of true peace and joy without Him, as He is Giver of eternal life. If you are feeling unworthy due to past or current mistakes understand that our God has a return door to come back to Him and to be able to draw near to Him again and be forgiven and restored. We are ALWAYS worthy when we walk through that door and we no longer have to carry the guilt and discouragement of our failure! That door is a repentant heart that abides in Yeshua (Jesus), the only way to Father! Praise God for His love and mercy!

If anyone believes or understands that this ministry teaches that obedience to the law of God is the most important thing then they are greatly misunderstanding what this ministry teaches and believes. This ministry teaches and believes that our focus needs to be on the One whom the commandments point to. Our obedience is a secondary reaction after first coming to accept Yeshua/Jesus as our Lord and Savior, believing that He died for us and was buried and then resurrected on the third day conquering death and that we are to follow after Him as He leads us closer to Father through the narrow gate while helping us to endure and persevere. Our desire to be obedient is the by-product of putting our faith in our Salvation, our Yeshua (Jesus) and faithfully following after Him as He lovingly and patiently leads us to deny our flesh (Romans 12:1) and into greater obedience in the way of truth (Psalm 119:142) and to reflect His light (Proverbs 6:23). This ministry is not focused on His commandments but instead focused on Him, but as He said if we love Him then we are to keep His commandments! (John 14:15 & 1 John 5:3) It is through trusting and loving Him that He can write His law on our hearts as He takes out our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh! (Ezekiel 11:19-20 & 36:26-27)

I pray that we never use the Word of God or our understanding of what is right and wrong as a weapon against someone especially with a heart that wants to bring offense because someone hurt us or because we are not getting what we desire from them. This is not the character of the Messiah we serve. He gave us the example of laying down our rights in order to serve others even when they are not loving us the way we desire to be loved in return. This kind of love is the great change agent, to give selflessly without expecting to receive. If we do make this mistake may we humble ourselves and repent to bring about forgiveness and restoration. If you have been hurt by another this way may you remember the heart and character of the God we serve, our perfect Father is patient and loving not only to protect and lead you closer to His heart for healing but to also bring change in the person that caused you pain especially if they belong to Him as well. If you can remember His loving faithfulness it will help to guard your heart from becoming hardened, bitter and cold. May it never be!

My Hope is that whenever you read and listen to any of the messages on this site or as you are reading the Scriptures that you will be more focused on applying them to yourself and less focused on someone else and how they are not measuring up to the perfect example. None of us will ever be able to measure up and if we try to compare ourselves or anyone else around us to the perfect example we will all fall short of His glory. (Romans 3:23-25) Yeshua is the goal in our walk of faith but at the same time He is also our help, our comfort and our covering when we fall short and we all will! May we have the same kind of love for others that desires to cover them when they fall short and they will, knowing that our trust is in God and if a person is putting their focus on Him that God will continue to work in their lives to transform them to create them to be more like his Son as He will do for each one of us. May our Focus be on His great love & mercy as He will increase our love for Him and our faith which will lead us to walk in greater obedience to His instructions so that He can bring about greater blessings and protection in our lives as well as for those around us. (Proverbs 10:12 & 1 Peter 4:8)

Please never put untrue or undue pressure on yourself or others thinking that you need to be better or that they need to be better as if we are capable of doing it ourselves, we are not. It is only through focusing on Him and following after Him with a heart full of love and faith that will bring about any needed change! When we try to pressure someone to focus on Him we can actually become a stumbling block instead of helping them. Encouraging and pressuring are not the same, pressure comes with impatience, judgment and anger where encouragement bears the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Failure can be a good teacher if we will listen and learn from it and move on with a greater commitment to avoid making that same mistake or mistakes again. This can only happen with His help (when we are humble!) and have a love of His truth that desires to bring God glory and honor through our thoughts, words and our actions.

I want to confess that I fell short recently, especially in showing someone who I love greatly compassion, patience and love which weighed heavy on my heart especially when I compared myself to our perfect example but after repenting and recommitting He has reminded me that if I will love Him and His Word more than the things of this world that I am a man after His own heart and if you will do the same so are you, a man or woman after His own heart. May it be so!

I want to share a verse that I find very encouraging and I pray you do as well.

“fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right Hand” (Isaiah 41:10)

Who is His righteous right Hand? Our Yeshua, our salvation. Praise God!

I hope and pray that this message has brought a little more balance into your walk with our Heavenly Father & Messiah as well as encouraged you to keep getting back up to fight the good fight by rejecting the lies of the enemy who wants you to believe you are not worthy and to be full of fear, anger, resentment and unforgiveness, all those things which leads us away from God, to be divided and onto our destruction. May we keep our eyes on Yeshua and resist satan with the Word of God, the truth!

Until next time, the Lord bless you and guard you.

 

 

Scripture References:

“11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Timothy 6:11-12)

 

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

 

“And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’” (Acts 13:22)
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1)

 

“Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth.’ (Psalm 119:142)

 

“For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life’ (Proverbs 6:23)

 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15)

 

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3)
“19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20)

 

“26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

 

“23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Romans 3:23-25)

 

“Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12)

 

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8)

 

“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)