Lengthen and Strengthen

Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes ~ Isaiah 54:2

These two phrases--lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes--have to coincide because when God gives you a prophetic word or a promise about your life, your next step needs to be to go deeper with God than you've ever gone before, because the enemy's next step will be to try to steal that word or promise through a spirit of fear, condemnation, or insecurity. It's at those times that you need to dig a little deeper, cinch up your belt of Truth a little tighter, and pray God's Word a little harder, so that you can fight off the attacks of the enemy.

God has promised to do great things in your life, but as He's done so, the enemy has vowed not to let them happen and he will stop at nothing to try to steal those things from you. You need to be determined to hold fast, stand firm, and strengthen your stakes so that the promises of God will come to pass in your life.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

Lengthen Your Cords

Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes ~ Isaiah 54:2

Have you ever gone shopping for new clothes and came home only to realize that you have no room in your closet or drawers to hold them? The reason is that you never made room for them by clearing out some of the old ones. God is calling us to lengthen our cords so that He can bless us abundantly, but we have to have room in our lives for the blessings. And we do it through on-purpose, or intentional, living and by getting rid of some of the stuff we've been holding onto in our lives. Living on-purpose determines who and what will get your time, energy, and money. A good friend of mine once said, "I'll meet with anybody once, but I'm intentional about specific people who are always on my calendar." Being intentional with your relationships is not about shutting people out, but some relationships are for seasons. One of my dearest friends will always be there for me, and I for her, even if we don't get to see each other all the time. Be intentional with your money by drawing up a monthly budget, that way when opportunities arise for you to spend your money you already know if you will say "yes" or "no" to it.

The harder part about making room in our lives is giving up or getting rid of stuff. Some of our friends just moved and they had to examine what furniture they wanted to take with them to their new home. They needed to make room in their lives for new blessings and so had to part with some old furniture, which turned out to be a blessing in someone else's life. Sometimes giving up some stuff is used to bless others. Sometimes, though, it's stuff we really needed to turn over to God a long time ago, but never did. Those things can be anything from an addiction, to a relationship, to a dream. My mom used to have a poem in her bathroom that talked about how we give our dreams to God and then ask, impatiently, why He hasn't done anything with them and He says, "Because you snatched them back out of My hands." God wants us to willingly hand over the things we've been clutching so tightly so the He can do a work in them. But He won't force us to hand them over; instead, He will wait.

God is calling you to make room in your life so that He can bless you, but it has to be your choice and your action. Ask God to give you the courage to let go of the things you know so that He can take you from glory to glory to glory into things unknown to you.

Stretch Your Tent

Stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back ~ Isaiah 54:2

Jesus said that you can't put new wine into old wine skins, or the wine will burst the skins and both will be ruined, (Matthew 9:17). The same is true when God wants to make a change in our lives. If God tries to step into your tiny tent and reveal to you all the stars in the sky, He'll end up destroying your tent. So what does He do? He calls you to stretch your tent curtains wide. Your tent is the border the defines where you end. God is calling you to stretch your tent curtains wide--He wants you to break out of your boundary lines and go beyond what you thought possible. He is stretching you beyond what you think your limits are; He's calling you to be new wine skin so that He can pour His new wine--His vision and plan--into you and it won't break you. But first, He must stretch you.

Stretch your thinking wide, for God wants to do something new in you--something He's not done in you before. Do not give way to fear; do not hold back. Give God everything. Stretch your tent curtains wide!

Enlarge the Place

Enlarge the place of your tent ~ Isaiah 54:2

Everybody's got a tent in which they live. A tent is nothing more than a border or a boundary line. The "place" of your tent is the distance, the space, the depth, breadth, length, heighth, and width of your tent. It's as far a you can see. If the "place" is everything you can see and "your tent" is the end of the furthest or greatest thing you can see, then the question is what lies beyond your tent? God is calling you to enlarge the place of your tent, so it stands to reason that there must be something beyond your borders, beyond what you can see, beyond what you can hope for, beyond what you've been believing God for.

What can you believe God for? Is it just to make it through the day? It it to help you give up an addiction? Is it hope that your spouse wants to restore your marriage as much as you? Is it help finding a job, or changing to the job you've always wanted? What ever you've been believing God for, He's calling you to expand it, grow it, enlarge it.

How much can you believe God for... Enlarge the place of your tent!

Exalt the Lord

With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng , I will praise him. ~ Psalm 109:30

Both extol and exalt mean to greatly or highly praise the Lord, as if to bring your praise to a higher level than ever before. And why wouldn't we praise Him? He has given us breath and life and joy and peace and friends and comfort and jobs and homes and list goes on and on and on. But even if He did nothing more than become our Savior and friend, that alone would be worth our greatest praise. The psalms are full of joy and despair, but through it all, praise is given to God. In life we have two choices when the storms come to beat against our life: keep God as our shelter and ally or push Him away as our enemy. I encourage you to keep Him as your ally, friend and protector. No matter what, praise Him anyway, for if He did nothing more than all that He has already done, that alone would be worthy of our praise forever.

I will exalt You...You are my God. My hiding place, my safe refuge, my shelter Lord, you are. My friend and King, anointed one, Most Holy. ~ Hillsong "I Will Exalt You"

Changing Pace

Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me ~ Matthew 11:28-29

If you know what a yoke is then Jesus saying, "Take my yoke...and I will give you rest," seems like an oxymoron. A yoke is a device used to break another animal of its stubbornness and to teach the younger animal to walk at the pace and in step with the older animal. The yoke forces them to work and walk together. What Jesus wants is for you to stop trying to do it your way, on your terms, at your pace, with your knowledge. Instead, He wants you to walk at His pace, along His path, in His timing, and following His word. It should be so easy to listen and follow what He says, but so often, we try to break lose from that yoke, assuming we know better.

If you find that you've been running into brick walls and closed doors everywhere you go, perhaps it's time to stop following yourself and begin to learn from the One who wants the best for you. Take His yoke upon you and learn from Him. He promises to teach you what you need to know when you need to know it, and more importantly, how to rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me...and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. ~ Matthew 11:29-30

Morning by Morning

He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. ~ Isaiah 50:4

Every morning, God longs to be with us, to teach us, to guide us, and to strengthen us. To those who get up and make Him their first appointment, God gives teaching, wisdom, courage, and strength. His desire is to pour into those who make themselves available to Him. He encourages us and teaches us and makes us stronger in our broken places, and He does all of it through our quiet time with Him and through people. He does it through people like you who needed Him to build up their broken places so that He could send them out to help build up yours. And when you are ready, He'll send you out to help strengthen someone else's.

Isaiah 58:11-12 talk about people who are going through a rough time in their lives, but the promise is that God will never leave them and will satisfy their needs. And when your needs have been met, and God has filled you up, your desire will be to go out and to help others. And when you do, they will ask you how you got there and your job will be to lead them back to Jesus. The next time you spend your quiet time with Jesus, thank Him for all He is doing in your life and for the people He's sent to help bring you along.

You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. ~ Isaiah 58:12

A Shift

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. ~ John 16:33

Everything we experience in life is based on our paradigm, our perspective. Do we look at the situations and circumstances from earth to heaven or heaven to earth? This scripture has always been one of my favorites. For me it meant that life's going to throw us curve balls, so keep an emergency fund, and everything will be ok because God's on my side. Consider, though, that it was Jesus who said it. Does it change the meaning a little bit? When Jesus spoke these words, He was walking on earth with His disciples, before the cross. Now remember, Jesus was fully man and fully God; He's gone through every joy, test, and pain that we've gone through. Jesus was able to look at situations and see both from earth to heaven and heaven to earth. Because He could capture fully our perspective, He said, "In this world you will have trouble." He was being honest with us. But, because He was also fully God and He knew what God had in store, He could also say, "But take heart. I have overcome the world."

Any fool can tell you that life will have bumps in the road. Any person who's lived a little bit will encourage you to have an emergency fund--and it's a smart thing to do. But how many people have the courage to let God shift their paradigm so they can say, "Yes, you'll get bumped and bruised by the world, but your God--the God of the cosmos who sent His only Son to die on the cross so that He could bust down the gates of hell to set you free--is bigger."

If you want it, ask God to give you a heaven to earth perspective, ask Him to expand and to sift your paradigm.

Our God is greater. Our God is stronger. God, You are higher than any other. Our God is Healer. Awesome in power, our God. Our God. And if our God is for us, than who can ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what can stand against us? ~ Chris Tomlin, Our God

©Heather Potts

Knees or Back?

Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains, for they had rebelled against the word of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. ~ Psalm 107:10-11

In life, we are given many choices: paper or plastic, color of our cell phone, flavor of our ice cream, etc. The most important choice that will affect your future decisions is: knees or back. Are you going to call out to God when you're on your knees or when you find yourself flat on your back? The difference are the choices you make: will you choose to find your Savior and get on your knees and seek His face or will you determine to go your own way until life trips you up and you come crashing down and land flat on you back?

It's hard to watch someone who keeps turning away from God and godly counsel, only to go their own way and hurt themselves and others more. The important thing to remember for those who choose "knees" is that you can pray for those who may one day land on their back. And landing on your back is not the worst place in the world, because it gives you direct line of sight to God. When you are as low as low can go, up is the only place left to look. I encourage you, if you've never chosen "knees" before, today is a great day to start. If you're already on your knees, pray for those around you that you see stumbling, as they may not have anyone else to pray for them. And remember, we serve a God who longs to draw us to Him and redeems and frees those who cry out to Him. Cry out to your Savior today!

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. ~ Psalm 107:13-14

See

I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. ~ Isaiah 43:19

We don't think of ourselves as living or having lived in either a desert or a wasteland, but you could be there now. The desert is a time and a place where it's easy to lose your way and where it's easy to lose sight of the things you are supposed to be focusing on. Sound familiar? The wasteland is a time and place that drags you down, burdens you, causes you to lose heart, and wearies you to the core. Have you ever been there?

To any who are wandering through the desert, do not lose heart. Help is on the way! To any who are thirsty and worn down in the wasteland, do not lose hope! Help is on the way. His name is Jesus and He promised us that while we may go through desert and wasteland times, we were not to give up because He came to overcome those places and to take us to new heights! He says, "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19). God wants to open your eyes to the new things He has in store for you. He's already begun to prepare you. Now He's calling on you to open your eyes to them. Look for them, see them, live them.

Turbulence

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. ~ Psalm 91:1

They say that the eye of the hurricane is a peaceful, safe place, but if you go out from there, you’re sure to be caught in turbulent winds. At different times in our lives, we will all experience some form of turbulence, where everything feels in violent disarray. But that’s all part of growing our faith and trust in God. If everything were easy all the time, we wouldn’t need God or faith but because we live in a fallen world, we need both.

When God is taking us to a new level, our world can feel as though it’s being slammed into by wind gusts and that we are no longer in the eye of the storm, but rather in its destructive winds. It is at those times we must ignore our circumstances and keep our focus on Jesus. Like when the synagogue ruler’s daughter was sick and the people kept saying it was too late because she was dead, Jesus ignored them and said to the ruler, “Don’t be afraid, just believe,” (Mark 5:36). You must ignore the circumstances and the naysayers in the world and just believe the promises that God has given you.

This fallen world we live in will stop at nothing to try to destroy us, but we must draw closer to Jesus during those times, because as we walk through them we will grow stronger and He will help us to stand.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway, Farewell to Arms

What's Your Egypt

Otherwise...you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ~ Deuteronomy 8:14

Jesus said that no one can serve two masters, (Matthew 6:24). In the Greek, a master is, "he to whom a person or thing belongs," (blueletterbible.org). Which means that if you are a slave to someone or something, they control your every thought, word, and action. A slave master can be anything from debt to an addiction to to a mind-binding disorder (such as depression, or anxiety). God warned the Israelites not to become proud and think that it was by their hands that they had been freed from slavery, thereby forgetting the Lord and following their pride into slavery, again, and into destruction. We, too, have been freed from slavery, for Jesus said, "everyone who sins is a slave to sin [no matter the sin]...So if the Son set you free, you will be free indeed," (John 8:34-36). God wants us--as He did the Israelites--to remember that He is the One who freed us, not because He wants us to always remember the time when we were not free, but so that our children for generations to come will know why we serve the living God. Your "Egypt" is your testimony. It's your story to tell to someone who is walking where you have walked; it's your chance to encourage them and to lead them to the One who set you free.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. ~ Galatians 5:1

Steadfast

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. ~ Isaiah 26:3

Steadfast: fixed in direction; firm in purpose; resolute; unwavering (dictionary.com). 2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. If we are told to do something, that means we have the power to do it. Through grace, God has given us the power to accomplish the things He calls us to do. That means that we are able to take our thoughts captive, we are able to keep our thoughts fixed on Him, and we are able to tell the devil NO when he tries to bombard us with negativity and things that try to keep us down. What are you fighting today? Who’s speaking negatively into your life? Do you know the best way to defeat those attacks? It’s not to yell at them or tell them to be quiet, but to pray for them; boldly approach the throne of grace where we can receive strength in our times of need, (Hebrews 4:16). Look to the One who keeps you in perfect peace. Keep your thoughts fixed on Him today and always.