Day 40 All To The Glory Of God

And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!”  John 16:33 (TPT)

When we look around us we see many things that are in turmoil. With our natural eyes, it may be difficult to see the peace that Jesus is talking about in the above scripture. However, we can close our eyes and look into our hearts where Jesus resides. He is not ringing His hands or pacing in fear, but instead, he is at rest. 

For the past forty days, we have learned and practiced living a supernatural life in spite of all that is going on around us. Instead of letting our emotions have control we have learned to say, “Father, cause my thoughts to become agreeable to Your will.” When we allow our thoughts to align with His, we move through our day with ease. What would it be like to have amazing days with God seven days a week, 28, 30 or 31 days a month and 365 days a year? Productive days? Stress-free days? Days with time, money and strength left over?

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely 

with joy and peace because you trust in Him. 

Then you will overflow with confident hope through 

the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13 (NLT)

When we are completely filled with joy and peace, we can’t help but give the glory to our wonderful God!

Day 38 Living A Joy-filled Life

Think about it for a minute…..

God is good and wants only good for us…..He is willing to cause our thoughts to become agreeable to His will…….and He is thrilled when we are established in peace and experiencing success.

What would our day look like? ——Peaceful, successful and joyful!

What would our week look like? —-Peaceful, successful and joyful!

What would our month look like?  Our year??  Our life???

Yes, peace, success, and joy—-every day of our lives. When I first had one of these kinds of days, I asked God if it would be alright with Him if I had two in a row. I am sure He got a chuckle out of that. God is good every day and because He is a generous and loving Father, He wants us to partake of His goodness as much as possible. The more we are willing to submit to His leadership by committing our plans to Him, the more involved He will become in our lives. I am learning that God wants way more for me than I want for myself. His definition of “good” is way more advanced than what I can even conceive of. 

Again, think about this for a minute:

That is what is meant by the Scriptures which say that 

no mere man has ever seen, heard, or even imagined what wonderful things 

God has ready for those who love the Lord.

1 Corinthians 2:9 (TLB)

And how about this???

Now to Him Who……is able to [carry out His purpose 

and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond 

our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—

Ephesians 3:20 (AMPC)

Now that’s living the joy-filled life!!

Day 37 Staying On Course

God is righteous. He thinks right, He acts right, He has the right attitude, the right heart concerning everything—-every layer of His being is pure and blameless. So it stands to reason that if we fellowship with Him, we can become more like Him. This is possible because we were made in His image. Our foundational scripture says that He will cause our thoughts to conform to His will. If we think right, we will make right choices that will keep us on course in His perfect will. 

During the course of our day, we oftentimes run into our own familiar patterns of thinking and behavior. You know the ones that say, “This is always the way I do it,” or “That’s just the way I am.” These “I” attitudes cause us to take the path of least resistance—the easiest one to default to because we have done it so many times. God says “Come to Me. Get away with Me….” (Matthew 11:28 MSG) because He knows the right way for us and He loves to give us new, innovative ideas that will bring us success.

Sometimes we find ourselves getting stuck in a “dead end “ place with no way out. If we turn to Him and ask for His help, like any well-meaning parent, He is right there to help us. We don’t have to spend one minute of our day being disgusted, disappointed or delayed. He would rather we spend our days joyfully praising Him and being thrilled with our relationship with Him.

Philippians 2:5 (NIV)   Have the same mindset as Christ.
Genesis 9:6 (NIV) We were made in God's image. 
Proverbes 16:3 (AMPC) He will cause our thoughts to become agreeable to His will.                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                           

Day 36 Righteousness, Peace, and Joy

For the kingdom of God is……

righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…..

Romans 14:17-18 (NIV)

The Kingdom of God is the environment where God resides. It’s where His perfect will—His government—-is in full operation at all times. When we roll our plans for the day upon the Lord and ask Him to cause our thoughts to become agreeable to His will, we are partnering with God and His kingdom comes upon us. It’s a day when everything turns out right, which brings us great peace and causes the day to end in joy and satisfaction.

Doesn’t that sound good?  At our invitation, the Kingdom of God comes and we begin to think like God thinks—and since God doesn’t make mistakes, if we follow His instructions, we won’t either. When things turn out right, we enjoy great peace and great joy.

Imagine a day with no confusion, no chaos, and no feeling overwhelmed—a day with no stress, no strife and no fatigue. None of these attributes reside in God’s Kingdom so it stands to reason that if we think like God, we won’t experience these things either.

The good news is that we can have righteousness, peace and joy in our lives every single day. Rolling our plans upon the Lord and inviting Him to bring His thoughts into our minds is something we can do on purpose. The Bible says it is then that we will be established and successful—and what joy it is to share this way of living with those around us.

You have made known to me the path of life;

You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal

pleasures at Your right hand.

Psalms 16:11 NIV

Day 35 Our Seven Day Recap

Today I am sharing a brief summary of the last seven days. If this is your first time on my blog, I encourage you to go to archives and click on April. There you will find “Day 1” which is entitled “Developing A Successful Lifestyle.” This will help you to know where we started and where we are going.

On Day 29  I talked about what the Bible says about God’s love for us. He used this words: “extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.” I would say that Jesus Christ was very “extravagant” with His love when He took our place on the cross.

On Day 30  we learned to expect new ideas and new thoughts and a new way of doing things to come into our thinking so that we can be more effective and efficient.

On Day 31 we talked about God narrowing our focus by prioritizing our activities for the day. It’s this plan that we commit to God so He can fine-tune it for us and cause us to be more efficient—even in our relaxation and our play.

On Day 32 we noticed that after we had a plan in place, there were some things that could either be eliminated or rearranged so as to save time, money and physical effort. No backtracking and retracting is a time saver for sure!

On Day 33 we discovered that when things were done efficiently, there was more peace and thus more time to spend with God and with those we love. Instead of rushing from one thing to the next, we now have time to talk to God and also to the people God has put near you.

On Day 34 I encouraged you to pray specifically for God to cause your thoughts to come into alignment with His perfect will. Psalms 139: 16 says that all of our days (times) were written in God’s book before we were born, so I guess He knows what we should be doing (and not doing) each day!

If you haven’t put our Proverbs 16:3 AMPC promise into practice yet, I pray that you will. I don’t want you to miss the “good life” that Ephesians 2:10 AMPC promises us!

Day 34 Show Me Your Ways

I encourage you to begin each day by praying the Proverbs 16:3 AMPC promise.* It might go something like this:

Father, I commit my plans to You today.

Please cause my thoughts to become agreeable

to Your will, so I can steward well the time You

have given me. I thank You in advance for 

establishing me in peace and causing me to be 

successful today.

When you begin reading your devotions for the day, invite the Holy Spirit to join you. You might pray like ….

Come Lord Jesus—-by Your Holy Spirit—-and be my guest.

Teach me what I need to know today. Guide me according

 to Your will and use me to be a blessing to others. 

As you read, write down a scripture or a thought that you want to remember. Then at the end of the week, you can look back and see what God has shown you.

As you make this habit a lifestyle, you will be teaching yourself to receive God’s direction for a peaceful, successful life—and what a witness you will be to those who need to have the peace and the joy that you experience in your life.

Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths.

Guide me in Your truth and faithfulness and teach me, 

for You are the God of my salvation; 

for You [You only and altogether] do I wait [expectantly] 

Psalm 25:4-5 (AMPC)

 * The Proverbs 16:3 AMPC Promise:

Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.

Day 33 Making Room For God

There now—-after Day 31 and 32, you should have more time to spend with God. However, you might be wondering, “Where do I go from here?” Like I mentioned previously, begin by finding a convenient time where you can spend a few minutes with God. Secondly, grab your Bible (or your Bible app) and a notebook that you can use to jot down what you want to remember. Thirdly, find a place to have this meeting with God.

If you are not sure where to begin reading in your Bible, I would suggest purchasing a daily devotional or if you are using a Bible app, you can click on “Plans” and choose for a long list of subjects and themes. I prefer using a hard copy of the Bible so I can jot little notes in the margin, but if you are using an app, you can read the sample before choosing a plan—-and it’s all free!!

As you go into your meeting with God, invite Him to meet you there and to show you something that you need to know. He is the God of all wisdom and wisdom is certainly what we need in order to navigate our lives here on the earth. God loves to cause our thoughts to become agreeable to His will so that we can avoid the pitfalls, distractions, and delays and feel like we have succeeded.

You’ve completed your first meeting with God. Now tomorrow do it again. It helps to put a notification on your phone to remind you that it’s time for your meeting. We do that for our dentist and salon appointments, don’t we??

Come close to God, and God will come close to you.

James 4:8 (NLT)