Striving To Be "Christ-Like"!

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Valley of the dry bones/Speaking Life. In these verses, the dry bones symbolically represented the utter state of defeat, there were no signs of life. Their breath and hope were gone. Many are experiencing dead places in their lives: whether it is spiritual, emotional, situational, physical, financial, or mental. We feel dead on the inside, meaning all of our hope is gone. When we receive hurt after hurt and dissappointment after disappointment, it can place us in a valley of dry bones condition. God’s desire is that our trials make us stronger, but often before the strength comes we find ourselves in a dark and seemingly lifeless valley of despair. When we are in the valley, we look to the right and see hills, we look to the left and see mountains, meaning problems are all around. When we are in the valley, we find ourselves in one of the lowest conditions in our life. When Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones, scripture reads the first thing God told him to prophesy, ...

One of the best benefits we can receive from a prayer life is learning to let go. In fact, I think prayer is really the process of letting go. You are letting go by taking your burdens and giving them to God. People are carrying burdens they were never designed to carry. The sooner we learn we are not in control of our lives, situations, or heartaches the sooner we will learn to trust God on a much deeper level. After all, our lives are in His hands and not our own. I've realized that prayer is essentially telling God, "It's not up to me, it's up to You." His perfect will must be done in every situation, and He must get the glory for it all. Prayer is where burdens change shoulders (from yours to God's). There is power in prayer and prayer changes things. Don't ever think your prayers are in vain. However, 99.9% of the time the mountain (obstacle) that is standing in the way of our deliverance, healing, breakthrough, miracle, etc. is our refusal to 100% gi...

1 Samuel 1:1 - 2:11 - this scripture looks at Hannah's journey from misery to praise. Waiting is one of the hardest things we must do. So much of life involves waiting, and in an age of instant products, waiting irritates us. But waiting is hardest when we see the clock running on, the years going by, and still our hopes and dreams are unfulfilled. Hannah knew about waiting. In a society that measured a woman's worth by her children, Hannah was barren. Year after year she waited in misery for the answer to her prayers. She had two choices: to be bitter or to continue seeking God's help. She continued to seek God's help and God gave her a son, whom she named Samuel, which means "God Hears" and in that moment her misery turned into praise. Just like Hannah, we must continue seeking God and standing on His promises that our prayers will be answered and heard according to God's will and time, knowing that our misery shall turn into praise.