Be Encouraged

Believers, stand strong! This is our season to arise in great faith because the King of Glory is coming into our circumstances and establishing His Kingdom in our midst. There are doors and gates to our minds, belief systems, lives and hearts - all of which God is protecting, exposing and transforming.
Spiritually, gates are important for they serve as entrances for both good and bad. We don't want to allow the enemy to have an entrance in our lives, so we must know how to "shut that gate ". Every time satan knocks on our door, we must challenge him , resist him and protect our gate of entrance. When we "go through the gates", we destroy the altars of the enemy and take back the city for God's glory.

Worship involves commitment.
What a remarkable statement from Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. They were captives, stranded in a country that was not a country of their birth, yet they still retained their allegiance to God and found an audience with the king because of it. The king was furious with them for refusing to bow to the statue he set up, but they stood their ground in the face of certain death.
That's commitment. That's confidence in God. Commitment. No matter what, live or die, they refused to bow to anyone or anything other than God.

It is an honor and a joy to serve Him.

Worship involves service.
Isaiah realized his uncleanness, he was filled with woe. He was unable to enjoy this moment of worship because of his guilt and the guilt of those who surrounded him in his everyday life. God immediately recognized Isaiah’s situation and made a way for him to be sanctified. As soon as God cleanses him, the Lord ask whom He should send and Isaiah answered "here I am, send me. Eager and willing to serve, Isaiah worship God with his life and his service.
This is the attitude of service we should have. We've been made clean. God has provided a way for us to approach Him without fear, reservation,or guilt. The appropriate response is "Here we are, Lord. Send us.

Worship involves sanctity.
God is holy. God deserves our respect. Jesus may live inside our hearts, but we still must make a conscious decision to approach God when we worship Him. We don't have to remove our sandals. We don't need the exhilarating appearance of a burning bush to be prompted to worship.
Let us turn our hearts towards God and say "here I am God, here I am. I have come to worship You, and that is what I shall do."

Worship involves time.
Day after glorious day, our soul desires to know God more and more. To seek after him each day so that his beauty can delight our hearts ever further, so that our hope for eternity grow ever greater.

We must desire to spend more of our time gazing the beauty of the Lord seeking Him in his temple all the days of our lives.

We can taste the eternity that awaits us when we worship Him.
What a wonderful hope! Our hearts yearn for eternity because our hearts were made for eternity. And it is there➡️in eternity⬅️ that we will see the result of our deepest dreams and desires, an unending amount of time to spend with God.

Worship involves eternity.
This is our hope. On our worst days, on our best days--there is no hope that will ever outlast or outweigh the hope of eternity. It is the greatest thing we can hope for, and we can get the tiniest taste of it when we set our face toward Him and reflect on that hope.

We please God when we worship Him without reservation.

Worship involves wholehearted participation.
When we worship God with our whole hearts, with everything in us, we are in a sense, reenacting this woman's extravagant gift.
We must not be afraid to break open our jars of expensive perfume-the things we most hold dear-and offer it to Jesus. Though we may feel like losing something, we are indeed gaining the whole world.
Extravagance is never wasted on God.

Worship involves perspective.
When we worship, we're asking God to open our eyes so that we may truly see a situation from His perspective. Though we may be tempted to be weigh down by the armies of evil that surround us, God lifts that weigh by showing us the world as He sees it. God is on our side, and He gives us the proper perspective.
He is in charge. Let our eyes be open.

Worship involves reliance on God.
If we could look with those God-opened eyes, we begin to see ourselves as we are, capable of doing nothing except through God. We are not doing anything on our own, but we can plainly see that what we do, we do through God's help.

There's no limit of what God can do, draw near to Him and He will draw near to you.

Worship involves the acceptance of Jesus'work on the cross.
In order for that darkness to vanish, we must accept the work that Jesus did when He came into this world. Because God knew we cannot be able to light our own way, He sent Jesus. God stepped into darkness once when He spoke creation into being but then He stepped into it again ... In human form... When He sent Jesus.
And He did it for LOVE.

Worship involves openness to God's light.
The world was dark at the beginning because it had nothing. Then God stepped in with four simple words: "Let there be light." and suddenly the darkness could define itself because it had finally met the very thing that defined it.
Light rules over darkness.

When your world trembles look at heaven's point of view.

For the rest of my days, I will praise!

Are any among you in trouble? They should pray. Are any among you happy? They should sing praises. - James 5:13

Jesus' parables open our eyes and expose our lives.

Pursue Heavenly things in our hearts.
We may be surrounded with great trials and heaviness engulf our hearts with sorrow and anxiety. Sometimes we may feel betrayed, jealousy, envy, hatred, grudges and oftentimes we tend to focus our hearts on these things that we forget the word of the Lord to set our hearts on things above. This reminds us that we have been raised to life with Christ, so we must set our hearts on things that are in heaven, where Christ sits on his throne at the right side of God.

We are weak, but God is strong. And He allows us the opportunity to approach Him in worship.

A grateful heart.
In all things give thanks to God. In all circumstances, defeat, tribulations, high and lows there will always be a reason to be thankful for. Jesus is the answer.
A heart full of Thanksgiving will lack nothing.

Worship involves the Almighty God.
God is almighty. He created the sun, the moon, the stars, and this very planet we live on. And all of his creation sings to him, each blade of grass, each grain of sand, each particle of space dust, it all proclaims Gods glory and righteousness.

Light of the world
Jesus said he is the light of the world, and if we get tired of the darkness which we should, we only need to follow him to live a life of walking in the light.
Walking in the dark is most certainly not easy even in your own home. Can you imagine living your entire life that way, walking through a spiritual darkness?
We must turn on the light. We must follow Jesus wherever He may lead us. He is the light of the world. We must follow Him out of darkness and gain the light of life.

Kind is one of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
There is beauty in kindness❤️