Lately, I’ve felt compelled to dig into the book of Ephesians. I armed myself with multiple versions, a notebook, and my favorite colored pens. After digesting the first chapter, I had to ask you, my readers…
Have you ever?
Have you ever felt chosen? wanted? pursued?
The truth is, no matter how you’ve felt, you are all of those things!!
You are Chosen! You are Wanted! You are Pursued!
In Ephesians 1, the Holy Spirit assures us that before the very foundations of the world, before Adam and Eve listened to lies, before sin became the norm, God designed a plan to restore our relationship with Him!
ALL OF US! Please don’t miss the ALL!* God knew what you were going to be like before your first breath. He knew about my struggles before I was formed. He knew the good, the bad, and the ugly about all of His creations before Adam and Eve opened their eyes.
Yet, He wants to have a relationship with us! He delights in us! You see, the same love He has for Jesus, He has for ALL of us. He longs to have relationship with each and every person He created. We are His kids, made in His image!
Through the sacrifice of Jesus, we are adopted and restored as His very own. He has co-seated us in the Heavens with Jesus! This is just a taste of what we are invited to participate in! Dig into Ephesians 1 for yourself! Ask the Lord to stir a hunger for a deeper relationship with Him.
Have you ever wondered if God is proud of you? As parents, we tend to tell our kids that we are proud of them for working hard, accomplishing a goal, or making wise choices. Agreed? As children of the Heavenly King, it makes sense that we’d want Him to be proud of our choices and efforts, right?
A quick dive into the Word of God reveals the following:
When God created man, He looked at His creations and said, “They are very good.” (Genesis 1:26-27)
We are to “walk” through life in a way that is pleasing to God. (I Thessalonians 4:1)
We have right-standing before God in Jesus. (II Corinthians 5:21)
God loves us with an everlasting love. (Jeremiah 31:3)
He declares that He delights in us. (Isaiah 62:4)
Our Father will lift us up if we choose to walk in humility (I Peter 5:6-7)
He rejoices over us with gladness and singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)
We are blessed when we give praise to the Lord. (Psalm 89:15)
So, I don’t know if God is proud of you and me. But I do know this….
We are blessed when we choose His ways!
He loves us deeply and unconditionally because we are made in His image!
The righteousness of Jesus covers us giving us access to His presence!
When we love Him, walk in obedience, and love others, He is pleased with us!
He adores us and rejoices over us!
Let those thoughts roll around in your spirit! Your Daddy delights in you! Why wouldn’t we want to live in a way that lights up His face with a smile?
Have you heard this song? Has it gripped your heart like it has mine?
The beauty of this song is that it is a simple, yet powerful, Truth!
“‘Cause Your name is power Your name is healing Your name is life Break every stronghold Shine through the shadows Burn like a fire”1 (Additional lyrics below)
When we speak the name of Jesus, there are ripples of power that radiate through the spirit realm!
Evangelist Steve Hill testified that at his lowest point, proclaiming himself an atheist, in the midst of drug-induced convulsions, he called out the name of Jesus until minutes later, he found himself sitting upright, completely delivered! There’s power in the name of Jesus!
When I think of how the world abuses the name of Jesus, it grieves my heart. How it must hurt the ears of the Lord! Conversely, imagine the oil of beauty that flows over His ears when we speak the name of Jesus in faith and confidence! Imagine the joy that fills His heart when we ascribe honor and glory to His name! How that must bring a smile to His face!
Jesus! What an incredible name! What a glorious name! What a powerful name2! The authority inherent in the name of Jesus is available to us! We are welcome to come boldly before His throne, ask in His name, and stand in faith believing that He will meet us right where we are!
Live loved,
1Songwriters: Jesse Reeves / Dustin Smith / Abby Benton / Raina Patt / Kristen Dutton / Carlene Prince
“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This quote packs a serious punch! One right to the gut and one that challenges us as believers. Meditate on the truth that MLK Jr. shares… it reflects the heart of the Father. Micah 6:8 states: “He {God} has shown you, O mortal {you and me}, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walkhumbly with your God.
Jesus seconds this expectation when He declares His passionate expectation: Love the Lord with all of our being AND love others as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39).
The POWER: We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to be Truth carriers, wonder-workers, agents of justice, and disciple-makers.
The LOVE: It’s love that paves the way for His Truth and His power to effectively impact our realm of influence! When His heart beats in us, we reflect His attitude, His motives, and His compassionate mercy to those around us.
The bottom line: We have no authority in situations where we refuse to demonstrate love (I Corinthians 13). But, love empowered by truth produces healing and growth!
Live Loved,
Note: This article was originally published here on August 31, 2021
This month, the Lord has protected loved ones from not one, but two, falling branches that could have potentially killed them. Not only that, but He protected us from a potential house fire resulting from a clogged dryer vent. How many other things has the Lord protected us from this week of which we are not even aware?
Psalm 91 tells us that God has given His angels charge over us. Isaiah 54:17 tells us that no weapon formed against us will prosper. Daily, Andy and I purposefully use our authority in the spirit realm to declare protection in the name of Jesus and to release protecting and warring angels to surround our family, church family, schools, and friends.
Consider this: The tax refund you expect drops into your savings account. That provision is of no benefit to you unless you decide to appropriate it by making a purchase or paying a bill. Jesus shed His blood on our behalf to provide forgiveness, healing, and protection (that’s provision). It’s our responsibility to tap into His provision (that’s appropriation)! Make no mistake, there is an evil plan at work against you and me. John 10 clearly states that Satan has a goal to kill us, steal from us, and completely destroy us! BUT JESUS!
Our position in Christ provides us authority (read Ephesians 1) in the spirit realm. We must appropriate or apply that authority in our lives daily. Will bad things still happen? Well… do we still live in a fallen world? Of course. (Matthew 5:45 tells us that it rains on the righteous and unrighteous.) However, we can rest in the knowledge that when we come boldly before His throne, request His protection, and release His angels, He will protect us from known and unknown dangers and be with us when the hard things do come into our lives. He is faithful!
Need some encouragement to speak it out? Listen to this song: Champion by Dante Bowe
My gym workouts are made bearable by three things: I know I need them, I go with my handsome hubby, and I watch podcasts that feed my spirit!
Today’s teaching came with a challenge*:
“Become unoffendable!”1
Wow… Think about that for a bit. I know it made me pause and process.
Our current American culture seems to be looking for offense around every rock and tree. People of all ages and socioeconomic levels are embracing the tendency to be offended by any opinion that differs than their own.
As believers, we should be different, right?
Sadly, Christians have a well-deserved reputation of being easily offended. We (and I use that word broadly) may find offense in how people dress, their political views, their colorful vocabulary, their opinions, and so on.
Conversely, Jesus was not offended… not by the poor, or by the demon-possessed, or by the coarse laborers, or by those caught in sin. In fact, Jesus was not even offended by the doubters or the soldiers that nailed Him to the cross.
Jesus was and is the epitome of “Unoffendable!”
Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with a new friend and felt a real connection to them? They like the same music as you, share the same tastes in food, and even have similar views on raising kids. You think, “Wow, this is a great person. I hope we can hang out again!” But then, a subject comes up that throws a wrench in that plan… a strong moral opinion, an opposing political view, a different stand on social topic, etc. and you emotionally slam on the brakes. “Woah, I guess we are not as in sync a I imagined! I can’t believe they think that way.” Thus begins an emotional withdrawal process because they are not as like us as we originally thought.
When we encounter people like ourselves, we feel validated. Our human tendencies are to gravitate towards people who are similar to us. We like when we see ourselves reflected in others! However, we give ourselves permission to dislike or disassociate ourselves from people who are different than us. We may even allow ourselves to dishonor people who do not share our beliefs or our way of life. This is not the example that Jesus set for you and I.
{Caveat: There’s a difference between honoring people and allowing people authority in our lives. It is not wise or healthy to allow just anyone the opportunity to speak into our lives. However, we should honor all people as valuable.}
Consider Philippians 2:3-5 in the Passion Translation:
3 Be free from pride-filled opinions, for they will only harm your cherished unity. Don’t allow self-promotion to hide in your hearts, but in authentic humility put others first and view others as more important than yourselves. 4 Abandon every display of selfishness. Possess a greater concern for what matters to others instead of your own interests. 5 And consider the example that Jesus, the Anointed One, has set before us. Let his mindset become your motivation.
How easy it is for us, believers or not, to major on the minors! As a friend recently said, “We tend to elevate the ways we are different instead of celebrating the ways we are the same.”2 Not only should we celebrate ways that we are the same, but we should choose to honor others in spite of or even because of our differences. We don’t have to agree with others to appreciate who they are as a person. The beauty of diversity is the richness it brings to our sometimes ethnocentric lives.
WWJD is more than a slogan! It is a reminder to us to think like Jesus thinks! We as believers have the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:16) and the power of the Holy Spirit vibrating in us! When we encounter people who believe differently than us, spout contrary opinions, or embrace a lifestyle contrary to our way of thinking, we can still choose to honor them and treat them with the love that the Heavenly Father carries in His heart for them. We can choose to be unoffendable!
I’m convicted! I’m challenged! How about you?
Live Loved,
1Listen to Danny Silk’s complete teaching on being unoffendable here.
I was minding my own business when one of those songs came on. You know the ones, you haven’t heard it in 15 or 20 years, but suddenly you’re singing along with it like it’s a current hit. If you’re like me, you surprise yourself with how well you remember the words! (And often they aren’t the most uplifting lyrics.) Your mind may even flick to a memory that includes that song or the car you were driving in when it was a top ten hit.
Lyrics and tunes… for centuries the art of music has impacted the world; for decades (a few anyway!) it has impacted mine. Music has the ability to calm, agitate, uplift, restore, celebrate, annoy, and unite. Research has shown that listening to music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain as well as improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory.1 There’s power in music; there’s power in lyrics.
Music has never been more readily available than it is today. Literally, music is a tool at our fingertips that can be used as a melancholy, pity party tune or a stand tall, dig deep anthem.
What soundtracks do you have on repeat?
“Lyrics don’t matter.” I’ve heard this more times than I can count. But I beg to differ. Remember that song you haven’t heard for 15 years but you remember the words? Me too. Lyrics do matter and they stick in your mind for much longer than you’d imagine. When you find yourself in challenging circumstances, when you are feeling at your wit’s end, when you feel like no one else knows how you feel, music will draw you in… and it will either lift you up or drag you down.
Today our worship team sang an oldie but a goodie: Your Love Never Fails by Jesus Culture. As I sang along, the lyrics flowed out of me with such boldness, joy, and peace! My confidence came from 2 sources:
I have lived through a few things and have seen God come through on my behalf!
I recognized the lyrics as simply a poetic reassembling of the Truth found in God’s Word.
Take a few minutes and listen in: Your Love Never Fails. Listen and lean into the lyrical Truths found in this song2:
Nothing can separate (Romans 8:31-39) Even if I ran away (Psalm 139:7-12) Your love never fails (I John 4:7, I Corinthians 13:8)
I know I still make mistakes (Romans 3:23, Romans 2:4) But You have new mercies for me every day (Lamentations 3:22-233) Your love never fails
You stay the same through the ages (Hebrews 13:8) Your love never changes (James 1:17) There may be pain in the night But joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5)
And when the oceans rage I don’t have to be afraid (Psalm 112:7, Isaiah 43:1-2) Because I know that You love me (I John 4:10) Your love never fails
‘Cause You make all things work together for my good (Romans 8:28) You make all things work together for my good2
Personally, I find that music has helped heal my heart, rejuvenate my faith, and put a spring in my step when I desperately needed it. Instrumental songs have their place and provide a soothing backdrop for me when in work mode. However, songs filled with lyrics of truth affirm my confidence in a faithful God and open the door for intimacy with my Heavenly Father. Other songs simply bring joy and reminders that the world still has a lot of good in it! Either way, I get to choose the soundtracks that roll around in my head, heart, car, and home!
If you’re reading this, you are old enough to make your own choices regarding what you will listen to. Choose wisely! Choose well for your soul, choose well for the other listeners in your home. Be encouraged to fill your heart and mind with music that uplifts and lyrics that inspire!
Live Loved,
P.S. If you enjoyed this, please share on social media and include your favorite uplifting song! 🙂
I’ve stated from the get-go of this series that joy is an inside job. People and circumstances can make us happy… temporarily. But we cannot rely on people and circumstances to keep us happy for the long haul.
And yet, healthy, authentic relationships are definitely a source of joy!
What is a healthy, authentic relationship? One way to determine what is healthy and authentic is to think about what it is not. Here are some symptoms of unhealthy relationships:
Tiptoeing on eggshells: You are always worried about what you say and do around this person because they are easily offended or upset.
High maintenance: This relationship is characterized by one person always NEEDING something or depending on the other to make them happy.
Volatile and/or abusive: One person is tightly wound feeling their emotions intensely and struggling to manage the extremes.
Co-dependent: Unhealthy, destructive habits or addictions are excused and rationalized in this friendship.
Fluctuating friend: This person is your friend on some days and not on others. You may only hear from them when they can benefit from you or your skills.
Two faced: Can we call this person a friend really? They talk about you to others and others to you.
Ear-tickler: This friendship is characterized by friends that only say what the other wants to hear or thinks they need to hear, whether it’s the truth or not.
Discontented: This relationship includes a friend who is just not happy, not with life, not with you. They want you to change, but no matter what you do, it’s never enough.
Narcissistic: This person is only a friend to themselves. There really is no one else of value in their world; life is all about them, their opinions, their stories, their ideas.
I’m sure you can think of a few other less-than-desirable-friend traits. There’s a very good chance that some of these descriptions made you think of some people in your life. Me too… I’m not saying cut them off, though you may need to distance yourself to find some health and joy in your life. It’s important to understand the value of boundaries in every relationship, but especially in ones that are not fulfilling. There’s a reason that some relationships are considered toxic; like a poison, they destroy parts of your heart and wellbeing. Those relationships will feel empty and leave you hungering for deeper more fulfilling relationships.
So, what IS a healthy, authentic relationship? One that reflects these traits:
Encouraging and uplifting
Honest, even when it hurts
Fulfilling for both friends
Open to constructive criticism
Life-giving instead of draining
Puts the needs of the other above their own
Equal give and take on multiple levels (conversation, paying for coffee, sharing skillsets)
Relationship trumps being right: Agree to disagree respectfully
Spiritually and mentally stimulating
Those types of friends are more challenging to find, but they’re out there! Keep looking! On the journey to establish these life-giving relationships, you will take some detours and hit a few potholes, but when you find them, you will know blessing!
Participating in mutually healthy relationships and experiencing the blessing of authenticity is a pathway to joy! You get to be the real you and loved for it! Your friend gets to be real too and you love them for it! You are able to share your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and dreams in a safe place and so does your cohort! When you start to veer of the path in one way or another, your friend gently steers you right and you do the same with their best interests in mind.
These friendships are truly an incredible source of joy!
Here are some words of wisdom on friends: “The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Proverbs 12:26
“A man who has friends must himself be friendly” Proverbs 18:24a
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” Proverbs 27:6
“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17
“Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.'” I Corinthians 15:33
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion…. If one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him.” Ecclesiastes 4:9,10,12a
My prayer for you today is that you already have some quality relationships in your life. Grow them! Invest in them! However, if you are lacking the healthy, authentic relationships described above, I pray that you will ask the Lord to lead you to people who will bring life to you and vice versa.
Note: Healthy relationships are often hard to establish if you are functioning out of woundedness. When we’ve experienced pain, betrayal, or warped friendships, we tend to put up walls to protect our hearts. The result is that we isolate ourselves in an effort to avoid pain. Though understandable, this is unhealthy and will make establishing healthy relationships difficult. If you find yourself in this place, I encourage you to do two things: Seek counseling that promotes healing AND think of one trustworthy person in your life and purposely be the kind of friend you need. Both of these actions will lay a foundation for authentic, healthy friendships that will be a source of joy!
You don’t need to look far to see it. It’s running rampant on the internet… Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, in news articles, and most definitely in the comment section off all of the above. Hate, anger, disrespect, name-calling, accusations, insults, character defamation, sarcasm, hate. I think if people could snarl and spit nails over social media, we’d see that too!
Internet anonymity seems to bring out the inner hulk in too many of us!
It’s not okay! It is one thing to have strong feelings and opinions, it’s another thing to attack people because their beliefs differ from ours. It’s not okay to call people names because they disagree with you and me. It’s not okay, to defame their intelligence because they don’t see things our way. It’s not okay to “scream” insults with our keyboards while telling our children to “sprinkle kindness like confetti” and “don’t be a bully.”
The more comfortable that people (including us) become with verbally destroying one another on social media, the more readily it will manifest in person! Think about it, the rioters who are looting and destroying… Do you think this is their first go-around with attacking others? I’m not going out on a limb to say, “No way!” They’ve done it online already if not in person, but they now feel that world events make it socially acceptable to take it to another level regardless of the consequences.
How do we manage to ask a whole nation of social media experts to hold up, think carefully, choose a better pathway? I wish I knew. But we have to start somewhere.
Somewhere is here: #wipeouthate Wednesday.
#Wipeouthate Wednesdays is a chance for us to remember that we are more alike than different! I can wax eloquent here in listing the gazillion ways we are alike! But for brevity, here are some biggies:
We love
We want to be loved
We feel pain
We hurt others
We seek happiness
We work to achieve goals
We want freedom
We appreciate respect
We have values and beliefs
We have melanin in our skin, hair, and eyes
We prefer health over sickness
We prefer life over death
We love
#Wipeouthate Wednesdays for Social Media means: NO to: political posts, hot topic or current debate posts, conspiracy posts, accusation posts, or even face mask posts! (No rude comments either.) YES to: encouraging words, kind thoughts, celebrations, positive artistic expression, hopeful ideas, and cute pet pictures! (Lots of positive comments too!)
Think about it… choosing to set aside the things that divide us and focus on the things that unite us??? That’s like a gooey, warm stream of salted caramel sauce pouring over vanilla bean ice cream! Let’s do this!
You cannot have faith without hope. You cannot have hope without faith!
Think about it… these two are inextricably entwined. The very nature of having faith inspires hope! All is not lost, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The very nature of hope requires that you have faith… faith that what you are presently enduring is temporal, good things are coming!
Faith is a belief, or confidence, in something or someone. Hope is an expectation of better.
Faith and hope pair up to create a pathway to joy! I’ve experienced this over and over in my life. Whether you value faith or not, I cannot share pathways to joy with you without spending time sharing how faith has impacted my journey.
A popular song in worship these days is called The Goodness of God. This song deeply moves me. It celebrates God’s goodness amidst all my ups and downs: life and death, hurts and healings, gains and losses, success and failures. I can’t help but sing with abandonment:
“All my life you have been faithful, All my life you’ve been so, so good, With every breath that I am able, I’m gonna sing of the goodness of God!”1
You might read that and think, “Joy, you have no idea what I’ve experienced. I can’t possibly sing those lines and believe it.” You’re right, I don’t know what you’ve been through. You may be still dealing with dredges of pain that I can’t imagine. Even if I’ve experienced what you have, your journey is your own.
Let me share how I’m able to declare that God has been faithful to me in spite of painful times. It’s in the lyrics: “With my life laid down, I surrender now, I give you everything.”1 You see, I choose to submit everything I’ve experienced, the difficult things I’ve endured, to the Lord and His purposes. This is where faith and hope come in!
I have faith that God will cause everything to work together for my good because I love Him and have an amazing destiny! (Romans 8:28)
I have hope that God can bring good out of what the enemy designed for evil in my circumstances! (Jeremiah 29:11, Genesis 50:20)
It’s all about perspective. When we set our difficult journey within the framework of divine goodness, we can believe that our lives are a tapestry in which the threads of all we experience are woven together to create a masterpiece of beauty called our life.
“But Joy, how can this loving God allow terrible things to happen to us?” This valid question has been asked through the centuries. People have written books on it.2 I will not attempt to answer it here, but will share this simple truth: humans have free will to choose their actions! When God created Adam and Eve, He said, “Let them have dominion over the earth.” He gave us the opportunity to govern ourselves (as well as animals and nature). Why didn’t God stop Eve from talking to satan or eating the fruit that was off limits? If He had, would she have had free will? Nope… He would have overridden His own law by stopping her free will.
So, why do terrible things happen in the world? Because you and I, as well as all the people who affect us, have free will.
This is why faith is important! When we have faith that He is a good God that loves us, we invite Him into our lives and circumstances and give Him permission to intervene on our behalf! It doesn’t mean we have life without pain or sickness, but it does mean that He will cause goodness to be the theme of our lives! That is faith that breeds unstoppable hope, resulting in incredible joy!
Let me go a bit deeper… I don’t just have faith in God… I TRUST God! I trust that He has good plans for me. I trust that He created me amazing. I trust that He loves my family more than I can imagine. I trust that He will never leave me or abandon me. I trust that His Word is true! I trust Him as a Father and Friend. There are times that my journey has been unbearable, yet I’ve come through on the other side! He has proven Himself to me over and over! What joy I have found in my faith! Hope rises up in me when I meditate on His goodness!
If you haven’t considered yourself a person of faith, this may have been a difficult read for you. I hope that you will explore the Word of God and ask Him to show up in your circumstances! I pray that you will encounter His goodness and come to know that He has been there all along, crying with you in the painful times, sharing your laughter, and celebrating your successes.
I would love to pray with you if you want to start your faith journey or need encouragement in it. Drop me a comment with your email and I will connect with you!
Live loved,
1Lyrics from Goodness of God, Bethel Music, Written by Jenn Johnson / Ed Cash / Jason Ingram / Ben Fielding / Brian Johnson
2Where is God When it Hurts? Philip Yancey, When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner are two books you can explore.
