When you want to be the BEST!

Photo credit:  Cindee Snider Re

Ephesians 3:17-18  "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.."

What does it mean to let Christ dwell in your hearts?   And to experience the fullness of God?

It means to let the Holy take up residence...live...hang out ...all the time...play outside with you, sit down and have coffee with you, and play video games with you. To engrave God's truth on the mother board of your operating system, the tablets of your heart.  To allow holiness to change you and your behavior.

Paul's prayer is that believers would wake up, and be strong in the Lord, filled with the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge...which means we have to know what His word says.  

We have to make time for Jesus and read the Bible.   We have to be doers of the word and we have to allow truth to influence our behavior.

We have to spend time with God, to get to know Him.  You can't have a relationship with someone you don't spend time with.  We can't live like we want after reading it.  The Bible is packed with wisdom that shows us how to be holy.  Isn't that what our Best Friend in the entire world would want for us?   

We were created in His image so we should follow as closely to the Master Designer as we can.  Ephesians 5:1 is one of my favorite verses "Be imitators of God, as dearly loved children."  Copy that!  No cutting necessary, only paste it in your heart!  

Dwelling on Truth will have some positive affects in your thinking, your language, your actions.  God gives us the perfect example to model in His Son, Jesus.  So when you are looking for something to influence your faith, the Bible with all of it's wisdom works perfectly to guide, shape and sharpen your faith.  

We have to walk with God and allow Him to walk with us.  Daily, all day, not just once a week in a pew in a Sunday morning.  

You think you are too busy and don't have time to meet with God on a one on one basis?  If so, then you are too busy NOT to consider what God has to show you and the ways you should go.  You would have a lot of time if you dropped the other 19,000 ways you tend to divide your day.  

Ahem...now I am really stepping on some sore toes aren't I?  So what do we do about this?  How do we choose what's better?

We seek first...

We seek first Him to be our First.  In everything.  In our homes, jobs, and especially in our minds and hearts.  Only looking to the Perfect source to learn how to copy and absorb His perfect behavior.  And then you keep coming back to the same source, same Teacher to learn and apply it until it becomes your nature.  

It's the better choice, the holy choice, the choice of the saved and sanctified.  Choose the wiser option.  
Choose Holy, choose Better.  It's the Best for you!  

How do you be the best "whatever"?  Learn from the Best in everything!

You better know where your socks are

"This is for those who wait." ~ Fireflight

Each and every time that song comes over my radio speakers, I stop and thank God.  I've learned a lot about God and waiting and me.

The Bible is loaded with stories of great people of faith that have waited in their lifetime.  It seemed as if their dreams would never come true or that God had forgotten about the promises He had given them.  And then after years and years and then some more years...and many struggles later, their time of waiting ended.  

There are many verses of encouragement in times of waiting, and God's truth really stirs deep and speaks hope into those long waiting periods.  But a few stand out that really make me thankful for waiting...and it seems that God delivers them just in the nick of time of when my exhausted spirit needs just a little more oomph.

I don't know what you are waiting on, or if you have had ever had to wait on a promise.  But if you have had to wait on God, how do you handle it?

I hope that you have done a little better this than me.  Because honestly there are times when I want to rush His plans.  It seems that I want to get ahead of Him and take the controls of His best moves and then kindly put God in His majestic place in running the entire universe, and act like I know what is best for me.  

What a fool I have been in this waiting.

Recently, there has been a new awareness in this growing season that has really changed my perspective about waiting.    

I simply laid a dream at His feet and left it there.  

Get that?  I left my dreams, the unspoken things between me and God, I left them at His feet.  And then I took my hands off.  I gave them back to the Giver of Dreams.  The very dreams that He planted deep, I let go of them.  "God, these are yours, do with it as you will."  There are God-ideas that I only wonder about, those I can't even wrap my mind around.  That's when you know it's a God-driven dream.  Those dreams that intimidate the hee-bee-jee-bees out of you!  Those dreams that are so big that you have no idea what to pray first.

Those were the prayers when I realized that God was waiting on me.

Did you know that God waits on us too?  Of course the ultimate wait is for us to choose to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior as His heart desires that we all live eternally with Him in Heaven.  He wants salvation for each of His children.  

Life is full of waiting periods for faith-filled sojourners and it's our faith that's on the line when we choose to believe God for what He has promised.  When God requires a hold on His sovereign plans, the One you wait for will not disappoint you.  

I am always encouraged when I come across these hope speaking verses:

Ps. 33:24  "Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord."

Ps. 27:14   "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

Ps. 33:11  "But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purpose of his heart through all generations."

Ps. 33: 20  "We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield."

John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world, you will have trouble, But take heart! I have overcome the world."

So when you lay your dreams, at the foot of the cross and then surrender your own will to let God, the most creative person I know take over, it's time to take heart.  Take His heart to heart.

Ps. 37:5  "Commit your way to the Lord;  trust in him and he will do this."

God will take our heart, he will take His heart and move it to action.  But not just to bring a solution to your problem or deliver a dream.  No, He will bring His fullness to your dream, your problem, your situation or your circumstance.

Keep track of your socks, because He is about to blow them off with His perfection that He's dreaming for you. He will bring His perfect fullness to your dreams.  God's fullness, because of His character, is what we wait on.  And honestly, it's my faint heart longs...for that and let me just encourage you today friend...this is worth waiting for.

So take heart, don't give up, but give into the One who brings His Heart of fullness just your most perfect and right time.  Take heart, God has not forgotten you.  


Let the God of Wonders draw you near while you wait on His Fullness.  Take heart!