The Battle Is The Lords

Click Here to Buy This Card  Note: Inside can be personalized

The Battle Is The Lords
 A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

2 Chronicles 20:17
You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.’


Part of our job as a believers is to show up. To take our position by faith, to stand firm.
It is a awesome thing to see God’s deliverance in peoples lives. Often times we do have to face our fears and look them in the eyes and know that the Lord will be with us.
He does not hide us away from our enemies He sets a table for us in plain site. The enemy gets to watch the Lord lavish His blessings upon His people. 

Discouragement keeps us from showing up and from facing our fears. When we just sink back in our couch and send out invitations to our personal pity party - it is then we are loosing the battle. God may have been ready to act but we have tied his hands with our unbelief and doubt. Yep things look bad, they may look impossible, they may seem hopeless. Sure we must face our fears but we must look beyond them to the one who loves us and promises us that He will be with us. In 2 Chronicles 20:17 the people did not even have to fight. God did the fighting for them. God confounds the enemies and they fight and annihilate each other. God’s people got to watch and then clean up the spoils on the battlefield.

We too need to watch and be amazed what he does for people who will believe and trust him.
Our biggest part in the project is to allow him to do the work. To be open, honest and vulnerable before Him. I have found most everything boils down to two necessary responses from us.
The first is to repent - to take responsibility for the wrong we have done.
The second is to forgive - others and yourself as well for the wrongs done.

Things to Ponder:
Are there areas in your life where doubt and unbelief are clouding your view of God?

Is God bringing to your mind things you need to repent of or things you need to forgive?

Prayer:
Dear Lord,
Thank you for fighting my battles. I want to do my part. I have forgiven and repented of the things you have brought to mind today. I will forgive myself and stop beating myself up and allow you to heal me. Help me not to be afraid or discouraged but to trust you.

Keep Traveling Steadily

Keep Traveling Steadily
A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Psalms 37:34, Living Bible
“Don’t be impatient for the LORD to act!  
Keep traveling steadily along his pathway and 
in due season he will honor you with every blessing.”

Don’t be impatient for the LORD to act! There have been plenty of times where my impatience got the best of me and I have taken things in to my own hands, thinking I some how knew better than God. Those times generally ended in a mess or in consequences that I later regretted. There are often reasons why God makes us wait. Our motives may not be right, we may need to learn to trust him, other people or circumstances may not be in position yet. I think sometimes God uses that time to see if we really do want the thing we hope or desire. Will we hold on to hope or give way to depression and despair.

There are hopes and dreams that we should pursue but don’t out of fear and indecision, I’m not talking about those. We need to take faith and act on those - take the next step of faith and move forward. There is a balance in deciding if we are waiting because of fear and indecision or because God has really said for us to wait.  When God says to wait it requires faith, patience, humility and courage. One has to believe that God is working while we are attending to the other things that he has given us to do.   We have to learn to be in step with the Holy Spirit.  Its like crossing a busy street with a child. We wait for the light to change and then we cross. To go before the light changes puts us and others in danger.  To wait does not mean that I give up or stop believing that I will get to the other side of the street. A stop light in my path does not tell me to turn back or change directions.  It just means stop and wait till it is time to cross. It is in seasons of waiting that we have to look with eyes of faith rather than manipulative hands.  I don’t think when God calls us to wait that it means we just sit and do nothing, on the contrary there is usually plenty of things we can and should be doing. Sometimes our focus is on the future when it needs to be in the here and now.  I think sometimes God is waiting on us to trust him, to accept his timing and his plan.  Sometimes He waits for us to take a step of faith and then another,  rather than being consumed with doubt, unbelief, worry and fear. We need to determine if it is a matter of being impatient for God to act or if it is a matter of your own doubt and fear that causing God to wait for us to act.

Are you traveling steadily along the path God has laid out for you or are you stuck and wallowing in a mud pit of sin or worry and doubt that you need to climb out of and get back to traveling steadily.
In due season he will honor you with every blessing. In the Bible we read the stories of the trials of faith that others faced. We know the endings to those stories, but we don’t know the ending of our own story. There is a good kind of structural tension created when we look at where we are now and where we want to be objectively. That tension helps move us towards the desired end. I know my story like yours has it difficult days and there will be things I don’t do very well. I hope however that the over arching theme of my life will be that I followed Jesus  and that we walked together through both trials and blessings. That I pressed in to him and pressed on to over come the obstacles that I faced in my day to day journey with Him. I hope that will be true of you as well.
Prayer: 
Dear Lord, Help me to not be impatient. Help me to see where I need to wait and trust and where I need to act and take steps of faith. Help me to travel steadily along the path you have laid out for me and to enjoy the blessings and special graces that you offer me in this day.  I choose to walk in faith, trust, humility and courage, rather than in worry, doubt, unbelief and fear.

Bless Me Lord and I will bless others

Click Here to buy this card ~ Note: Inside can be personalized

Bless me Lord and I will bless others.
A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Numbers 6:26
The LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

I love it when my pastor or any speaker gives a benediction or speaks a blessing over a group of people. I know most people hardly notice it and probably don’t realize what is happening in that moment. For many people it is just part of the form of the service. Its just how we end things.
I challenge you to see it as much more than a poetic ending.

For me the benediction is a gift of a blessing being spoken over my life. Words are powerful. God spoke and created all that is. We read in Proverbs 18:21a that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” The benediction is a time where life is being spoken over us.

It reminds me that my God loves to bless me. I stand and I always raise my hands to receive the gift of that moment in time. I need the Lord to turn His face to me, I need peace. This is one of many wonderful blessings one can receive.  My challenge to you is to really receive the blessing spoken over you in such moments. So often we leave the gifts God has for us sitting on the shelf not realizing that a gift was even given.  It is like the woman who reached out to touch the hem of the Lords garment and received her healing.  Reach out and receive the blessing and watch and see what God does with it during the week.  A week filled with peace is an awesome thing.   There are days when peace seems very far away. If you are at that place of needing a blessing start with this one. Lord turn your face upon me, I need your peace. Help me in this moment to receive the blessing you have for me. You know the things that I will need to bring you glory in the up coming hours and days. Fill me up, let your peace over flow from my life on to the folks around me.  Bless me Lord and I will bless others.

Things to Ponder:
Have you experienced the peace of God? Are you walking in that peace now?______
Clearly God gives us peace  - are you willing to receive the gift or will you continue in the old familiar patterns of worry and doubt?______________________________________
Are you speaking life or death in to your circumstances and over the people in your life?
_____________________________________________________________________________
Prayer:
Dear Lord, Turn your face towards me and give me your peace. Help me realize the power of the words spoken over and into my life. Help me to be one who blesses and brings peace with the words of my mouth into the lives of others. Let your thoughts flow from my tongue