A few days ago I was blissfully walking out to my new garden bed when I was accosted with that ominous rattle that stopped me in my tracks.  I couldn’t see it, but watched my drip line explode with its movement as it went into hiding.

Well this brought fears from my past to the surface!  As a result, I’ve been meditating on verses to help me conqueror this long standing stronghold of fear.  Instead of the word “sin” I have inserted “fear.”  Romans 6:2, saying “…How shall I who died to fear live any longer in it?”  Colossians 3:3, saying “For I died to fear, and my life is now hidden with Christ in God.”  You can insert what binds you to your past.

This morning when I woke up the Holy Spirit spoke these words to my heart: People who live in the past miss the grace available for the present.  The fears from our past chain us to our past so we can’t go forward.  There is a phrase from an old hymn: the sins that bound me, bind me no more.

Isaiah 42:9 says, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”  Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Do not remember the former thing, nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?  I will even made a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Last night I was meditating on Hebrews 5:8.  How do we learn obedience through the things we are suffering?  Obedience is a submitted will which is true humility.  Our suffering is something that God has allowed, so our will needs to be submitted to that.

2 Corinthians 10:4 says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.”  Our flesh is a stronghold because it opposes God’s will.  Humility is our greatest weapon against our flesh.  It is coming in an opposite spirit.  Humility defeats pride.

Suffering in our flesh allows our spirit deeper communion.  Our flesh is subdued in the crucible, but our spirit thrives.  Our spirit thrives when our flesh suffers.  We “kill” our flesh when we humbly submit to His will.

Hebrews 5:8 says, “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.”  Matthew Henry says: We need affliction to teach us submission.

1 Peter 4:1 says, “Therefore since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.”  In verse two I am picking up the highlights: that he …should live…for the will of God.

I’ve been meditating on this phrase from Romans 5:21: so grace might reign through righteousness.  We are never more humble then when our purpose, thoughts, and actions are conformed through obedience to the will of God, which then allows grace to reign triumphant in our lives.

2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

Do the people you meet in the marketplace sense the fragrance of His presence in your life?  Did the gal I talked to yesterday at Farmer’s Market encounter a new fragrance that awakened her heart?

Here is the first verse of a song the Holy Spirit gave me April 2003

Your Embrace

Your presence O Lord is what I long for

To feel Your embrace as You hold me close

The fragrance of Your life permeates every particle of my being

As I rest in the arms of Your love

I was meditating on “O, the depth of His riches…” from Romans 11:33 during the night.  I just want to quickly remind you of how rich you are!

Ephesians 1:7 – forgiveness according to the riches of His grace.  Ephesians 3:16 – riches of His glory to be strengthened with might.  Ephesians 2:7 – exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness.  Ephesians 1:18 – riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.  Ephesians 3:8 – unsearchable riches of Christ.  The Amplified: unending (boundless, fathomless, incalculable, and exhaustless).

A walk in humility is rich in grace.

Nourish means to keep in one’s mind, typically for a long time.  We are encouraged through several Scriptures to be rooted and grounded in our faith, and to remain steadfast, immoveable, and enduring.  Trials purify our faith to make it strong.

This morning I read the book of 1 Timothy.  I was delighted when I came to chapter four and verse  six.  It says, “If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed.”  The Amplified says, “…ever nourishing your own self on the truth of the faith…”

Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  Each time we meditate on the truths from God’s word, we are nourishing our faith!

This morning I had a revelational encounter during the speaking part of our church service.  Our speaker was recounting the life of Joseph.  Connecting the will of God to man’s sinful ways.  It was as though I instantly saw how He has threaded each seemingly destructive event with the one following.  All of them had to be included to make up the tapestry of my life.

The incredible orchestration through it all to bring me here where I now live.  Each rich insight gained in the crucible, strung together with the next as a garland of praise to Him.

So it is in each of your lives.  Nothing is in vain.  He redeems it all.

We cannot navigate our trials through our minds.  It takes spiritual discernment through God’s wisdom, and His empowerment of grace.  He wants us to process our thoughts through who He is.  Not to process them through our limitations and impossibilities, but through His unlimited ability and power.  This is His higher purpose in maintaining inner peace.

Last night I was telling the Lord something I was concerned about.  Immediately this thought came from Him.  Our flesh worries, but our spirit is confident in You.

When we worry it is our flesh which profits nothing.  When we START to worry, we must quickly acknowledge that worry as sin.  We switch our thoughts by saying, “Your will Lord, not mine.”  That immediately changes our fleshly focus on our circumstances, and moves us over to our spirit who communes with the Lord.  With our spirit we can  confidently affirm who the Lord is in our present situation.  It is truth that sets us free.  Our circumstances are constantly changing, but He remains who He is at all times.

Romans 6:4 says, “…just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”  The Amplified says, “…by the glorious (power) of the Father, so we too might (habitually) live and behave in newness of life.”

We have no past except in our thoughts.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”  The Amplified says, “…Behold, the fresh and new has come!”

Ephesians 4:23 Amplified says, “And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind (having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude).”

Each time we think of something in our past, we are renewing our mind.  If it is a negative thought, then we are digging a deeper rut.  Each time we meditate on God’s Word, we are renewing our mind.  Which is beneficial for your present?