ABUNDANCE

God desires to overtake us with His love, peace and presence. Just like one becomes saturated when standing under a downpour of rain, God has His abundance of rain ready to saturate our lives, changing, blessing and enriching us in His fullness in every way.

In order to be affected by rain, we have to be in the correct position. In the natural sense, the correct position would be standing under the rain. In the spiritual sense, part of positioning ourselves is asking. Zechariah 10:1 says to "ask for rain even though it's raining". That means that even though we know that God's presence, peace, joy, health, and hope are available, we should ask for it, and by faith, believe that we are going to receive it.

It's important to take what you know a step further and by faith, out loud, acknowledge the manifestations of God's presence, and part of doing that is to praise and worship.It's interesting to think about the components of water. A water molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms bonded to a single oxygen atom. Likewise, the rain of God is God Himself and everything that comes along with Him. What is that? It's healing, peace, goodness, forgiveness, self-esteem, joy and so much more. When it rains, you experience and have access to it all.

There is transforming power in the declaration of praise. I believe that worship along with our praise, thanksgiving, and confessing the word of God is essential to our Christian life. Worship is our response to God in our lives which only enhances intimacy, obedience and revelation of who He is and who we are. I leave every worship experience in the presence of God more influenced by Him and more like Him than before. That's why I take advantage of every opportunity to praise and worship the Lord. It always brings more strength, wisdom and understanding toward whatever situation I might be going through. As a matter of fact, there have been times when I've entered prayer with concerns and after being in His presence and worshipping Him, it wasn't even worth bringing up because I knew that my needs were already taken care of.

Worshipping the Lord is not only a privilege, but it is life. It's in the life of every believer. The Bible says that even the rocks cry out and give God worship. God is so worthy of our worship and adoration. We all have something in which we are thankful; for one, Jesus saved us and came to give us a full life! We have a reason to live and we have hope in our lives. That's reason enough! Through worship, we activate and release our faith by acknowledging God's lordship in our lives. And according to Psalm 1, when we acknowledge the Lord in all our ways, He directs our steps and gets us into proper alignment; that's an abundance of rain.

And it's through our worship and adoration that we experience and are drawn more and more into all of the manifestations of God's presence. The cloud of God's favor opens up, and begins to pour over our life, equipping, anointing and enriching us.

The presence of the Lord is the safest place that you can be when it seems as if your world is crashing around you. I love the fact that when you are close to Jesus, you will see your life and everything around you from His perspective, which is found in the abundance of His rain.

-Steve Crawford,  "Hope for Today Worship" 

Attitude Determines Everything!

How we react, what we do or say, all depends on our attitude. It determines whether we'll be happy or sad. Attitude can help, or hinder us in all areas of our lives.

If your thoughts are constantly of doom and gloom, you will receive the same in return.

Your thoughts and your perception of the world influences all that you do, and all that you are, and all that you can be.

Changing your attitude is really changing the way you see things. To begin the change, you must start looking for the good in every situation, rather than the negative.

So, you see the choice is yours. If we compare attitude to swimming, which are you doing?

Are you swimming - even against the currents and the waves you keep going, you see your destination and you are taking action to reach it.
Are you floating - just allowing the waves to carry you, you end up where ever the water takes you.

Are you drowning - you see the waves and the currents as difficulties you can not over come

Keeping a positive mental attitude will help your swim through life!

-By Catherine Pulsifer

The Birdcage Story

A man was on the side of the road with a large birdcage. A boy noticed that the cage was full of birds of many kinds. "Where did you get those birds?" he asked.

"Oh, all over the place," the man replied. "I lure them with crumbs, pretend I'm their friend then when they are close, I net them and shove them into my cage."

"And what are you going to do with them now?"

The man grinned, "I'm going to prod them with sticks, and get them really mad so they fight and kill each other. Those that survive, I will kill. None will escape."

The boy looked steadily at the man. What made him do such things? He looked into the cruel, hard eyes. Then he looked at the birds, defenceless, without hope.

"Can I buy those birds?" the boy asked.

The man hid a smile, aware that he could be on to a good thing if he played his cards right. "Well," he said hesitantly, "The cage is pretty expensive, and I spent a lot of time collecting these birds, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll let you have the lot, birds, cage and all for ten pounds and that jacket you're wearing."

The boy paused, ten pounds was all he had, and the jacket was new and very special, in fact it was his prized possession. Slowly, he took out the ten pounds and handed it over, then even more slowly he took off his jacket, gave it one last look then handed that over too.

And then (well, you've guessed it) he opened the door and let the birds go free.

The Enemy of the world, Satan, was on the side of life's road with a very large cage. The man coming towards him noticed that it was crammed full of people of every kind, young, old, from every race and nation. "Where did you get these people?" the man asked.

"Oh, from all over the world," Satan replied. "I lure them with drink, drugs, lust, lies, anger, hate, love of money and all manner of things. I pretend I'm their friend, out to give them a good time, then when I've hooked them, into the cage they go."

"And what are you going to do with them now?" asked the man.

Satan grinned. "I'm going to prod them, provoke them, get them to hate and destroy each other; I'll stir up racial hatred, defiance of law and order; I'll make people bored, lonely, dissatisfied, confused and restless. It's easy. People will always listen to what I offer them and (what's better) blame God for the outcome!"

"And then what?" the man asked.

"Those who do not destroy themselves, I will destroy. None will escape me."

The man stepped forward. "Can I buy these people from you?" he asked.

Satan snarled, "Yes, but it will cost you your life."

So Jesus Christ, the Son of God, paid for your release, your freedom from Satan's trap, with His own life, on the cross at Calvary. The door is open, and anyone, whom Satan has deceived and caged, can be set free.

U want your friends to xperience God and experience Love.. share it with them.. Godbless..

AMEN!

... really nice. Listen to it carefully... God bless

Attitude...

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, then circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.   We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

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Learn...

...skipping the Lessons of Life is not an option to easy living.