Today's Inspiration:

People need loving the most when they deserve it the least.

~John Harrison

1 John 4:7-8

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves is born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love, does not know God, because God is love.

It sounds so easy, just love each other, as Jesus loved us.  But, wow, loving others, it is so incredibly difficult, or maybe it's just hard for me.  I truly want to like everyone and strive hard to love and show love to everyone I meet, but I find it so incredibly hard at times, and when it gets hard, I feel failure.

1 John 13:34-35

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As we go out and about in this world and meet various people, some people are so incredibly easy to love.  They just have such loving, kind and agreeable personalities that you want and can't help but to love them for all they are.  They are also the same people that you can't wait to be around again. And they make us feel good as Christians, cause we pour our love out onto them and into them and around them with no problem. 

Hebrews 13:1

Let brotherly love continue. 

When you come across the opposite people, the disagreeable, conceited, arrogant, cruel, mean and hateful people, it is definitely a whole different ball game.  It's so incredibly hard to love people, who come across as very unlovable.  But THIS is the challenge Jesus calls us to with the most passion.  

  Psalm 34:18

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

It's not that he doesn't want us to love ALL people, but he challenges us with the difficult ones for certain.  If we were blessed to only love the easy and agreeable, there would be no challenge for us.  But Jesus calls us to be like him, he had a passion for all people, but He had an extreme passion for the broken, disagreeable sinners and so must we.  


So how in the world do we love those kinds of people? We try to empathize with them, try not to assume or judge them and pray, for the ability to love and to lift them up. 

Galatians 5:22

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness

Chances are that many of the hard to loves of this world, didn't ever know love.  They probably don't know Jesus and have never been shown anything different from what they are.  People truly are products of their environment.  If they grow up in homes without love, how will they learn not just to love or what love is, if someone doesn't make an effort to show them and love them?  
This is what Jesus asks us to do, to step in and show them love, to teach them to love and how to accept love.  

1 John 1:7

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

From experience, I know this is so incredibly challenging.  I married a man that never knew love.  His love was given on a limited basis, his parents rarely ever told them they loved him, hugging wasn't the type of physical contact he received and praise was never given (in their defense, they raised him as they were raised).  To love him is hard, for him to accept love, is even harder.  It's a vicious triangle, but over the years, he has broken down some and while loving him today is still hard, it's getting easier, especially when I keep in the fore front of my mind, the conditions to which he grew up and the fact that love was not given openly and freely as it was to me.  I persist and I continue to love him, even when he is trying his best to make me hate him, for I am not just his wife, but I am a Christian and Jesus has called me to love.  And with my husband, he gave me my biggest challenge in loving.

1 Peter 4:8 

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Loving people is a lot of work and takes a lot of effort for me.  It just doesn't come natural.  I constantly find myself having to reel back negative thoughts and emotions about the person who cut me off in traffic or the couple at church who despise my child for reasons I do not know, or the crabby customer service agent who is rude and uninformative.  I want so badly to give them a dish of their own, but I don't.  Instead I pray for them and force the love towards them, and it's a forced effort often.   I can't control how people act or who loves me or my children, but I can control how I react and how I love and how I teach my children to love.  I can do my part to fulfill Jesus destiny of love for everyone I meet or come into contact with, regardless of how difficult or challenging, I mean if Jesus could lay down his life out of love for us, then I can love all those in my life that make it hard or difficult to love, the family, the acquaintances and the strangers.  

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Today's Prayer

Dear Father, 

Thank you for giving us the ability to love and for making the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love.  Help me to always have love in my heart for any person that comes into my life.  Help me to love everyone as you love us.

In Jesus Name~

Today's Inspiration

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

~Thomas Edison

I can remember the days as a baby Christian, when I believed wholeheartedly that when I got to a certain point in my walk or when my relationship with God was at a magical point, life would be so easy.  All the tough times would be gone and it would be smooth sailing.  I am not sure why I thought that, for the bible never said that, maybe it was my ignorance to all the bible said, or just what I wanted to believe, but I have definitely moved out of my infancy in my Christian walk and relationship with God and my life is not any easier, in fact in some ways it's more difficult.

A few years ago I also reached a new level in my life as a mother.  My oldest child became a teenager.  Slowly this beautiful child that I once understood better than myself was becoming a stranger, until the point this past December, when I realized she was a stranger.  It wasn't just the normal changes that were taking place, it was far beyond those.  One day there was nothing about her that was the same.  Her walk, her talk, her dress, her attitude, her beliefs, her focus, her desires literally everything changed.  I realized that I had just entered a ferocious battle of spiritual warfare for my daughter.  Something every Christian can expect to enter into at some point in their life.

While my Christian walk had progressed nicely, there were still areas I was new to or green at and Spiritual Warfare is one of them.  For those that don't understand Spiritual Warfare (as I didn't), it's basically good vs. evil, God vs. Devil.  The devil uses those we love (people, possessions, desires) to keep us from moving forward in Christ and it's up to us to fight him using the weapons God provides in his word and prayer.

In my case, the devil finally found his hole in our hedge and my daughter was his number one target.  He has confused and manipulated my child into becoming someone she never was and believing and desiring things which goes against how she was raised and her own personal beliefs.  In short he has made my life and my relationship with my daughter a nightmare. He has used my daughter to inflict on me; pain, doubt, fear, despair, anger, resentment and hate and many more negative Satan controlled emotions.  While I am a Christian, I also am human and in moments of weakness, those feelings consume me, but only for a moment before I wake up and realize what is happening to me.

During the last 4 months of total despair with my teenager, I have learned one very important lesson; it's NEVER too EARLY to PRAY for your children.  I am not talking about the simple, keep my child safe prayers, I am talking about the deep prayers, prayers about friendships, decisions, direction, the good stuff.  It's hard to conceive if your a new mom holding a sweet and innocent infant that there would EVER be a time that your child would stray from you or worse, herself and God.  

My teenage daughter had always been a good girl, full of life and love.  She is now angry and full of hate and darkness.  She swears, she misses ALOT of school, she argues, she disobey's, she is mean and hateful.  It is terrifying.

I refuse to give up and let the Devil have her or anyone else in my family.  I fight every day, armed with the Word of God.  

Ephesians 6:10-17

 ¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

(When I pray this prayer for my teenager, or any of my children or family members, I put their name into it.  "Finally, (Name) be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  (Name) put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes........".)

The hardest part about fighting the fight with Satan for my daughter right now, is that she doesn't realize that she is even being used as his tool to destroy my relationship with God and hers.  Trying to get her to listen, that's next to impossible, so all I can do and all I have is God's word and Prayer.  But lucky for me, and anyone else in this situation, that's enough.  

Psalms 9:9

The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

God's word can comfort me and prayer can change it all.  No matter how hard it is (and at times it's HARD) or scared I am, I AM confidant the Lord is by my side and that the battle has been won. When the fear, frustration and terror of this situation consume me, or I am weary from the fight, I turn to the Lord and rest in His love, releasing to Him the problems I am facing and trusting Him to handle those problems.  In complete honesty, there are days I have to release my daughter and the situation more times than I can count, as something else happens throughout the day or I get the old urge to pull it back and handle it myself.  Each time though, it gets easier to do and I move one more teeny-tiny baby step forward.

Psalms 55:22

Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

As a Christian, you and I can expect to be involved in spiritual warfare for the rest of our lives at some point or another.  Satan, isn't going to give up easy and life is going to go through some dark valleys, but rest assured that GOD wins and so will we.

I will win this battle against Satan and I will get my daughter back and I am sure Satan will try to then attack another loved one, but I will win that war too.  I will win every war that Satan wages against me, for no matter what he does or tries or who he ensnares, I will arm myself with God's word, go down on my knees and fight the fight with the Holy armor of God I have been given.

Today's Prayer:

OH Abba , 

Thank you for blessing me with this beautiful teenager.  I am not unaware of what a true blessing she is and a miraculous gift from you.  We are going through such a tough time right now, personally and in our relationship with each other, but I trust that You are in perfect control of this dire situation and that both my daughter and I will rise from the ashes of this attack, stronger, more confidant and closer to You.  I trust that you will heal any hurts we have between us or within us individually from the spiritual war being waged against us and that we will end up complete and whole in You, victorious over the scheming ways of Satan.  Until this war is over, I release to you this precious child for protection and peace and I release my own need to control and handle all that is happening.  Give me instead, peace in your works, gratitude that you work miracles and strength to continue to fight and confidance that You are in control.

~In Jesus Name