The Ites

Genesis 15:18-21
18 So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River—

19 the land now occupied by the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 

20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 

21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

Just as God gave the Israelites the land to possess, Jesus has given us everything we need to conquer all the "-ites" in our lives. The "-ites" in our lives are all the problems that face us, anger, pride, insecurity, low self-esteem, etc. We shouldn't be living our lives as victims. We SHOULD be living our lives as conquerors! 

When an "ite" rises up in your life, you need to be looking to Jesus, not the "ite." As you look to Jesus, His perfection, His beautity, His glory and worship Him, He takes care of the "ite," not you! In fact the more you try to take care of the "ite" on your own, the worse it will get. Worship Him as you face the "ite", worship Him as it seems it is getting worse, worship Him and keep worshipping Him. This will put your focus on Jesus and not the "ite." 

Day 2 at the Park

Exodus 4:13

But Moses again pleaded, “Lord, please! Send anyone else."

This past week, my wife and I went down to Orlando, Florida for a short vacation. One of the places we love to go is Universal Studios. We bought a 2-day ticket. The first day we went to Islands of Adventure which has the thrill rides, rollercoasters, etc. We were going back and forth on which park we wanted to go to on the 2nd day. In the past we went to the Studio park and had been disappointed, but I said "they have some new rides, lets go check it out." We did, and we are very glad we did! We had a totally different experience this time. What really stood out was the Harry Potter section. When we first walked up to it, all we saw was the front of a very ordinary "bank-looking" building, but we saw people going in and out of this small but also ordinary doorway. We didn't know where it led, we didn't know what was behind it, but something was drawing people into it. We decided to go through it...and we are glad we did! When we went through the doorway, we came out in this Harry Potter village that was filled with shops, cafes and one of the coolest rides we've been on.  Had we not gone through this ordinary doorway, we would have never discovered another section of the park.

When God called Moses, Moses didn't want to go. He let his fear guide him. He went back and forth with God..."send someone else," he said, "let someone else do it." Finally, God convinced him to go and Moses did. By deciding to go, this opened up a whole new world to him that he would never have experienced if he had let his fear guide him. Just about every day we have choices to make, some of which involve us doing something we've never done before, something that we are scared to do. If we don't do it, we will always be wondering "what if" and if we do it, we are scared that we won't be able to do what is asked of us. 

God knew Moses wasn't up to the task at hand, but it didn't matter what Moses thought, God was the One able to do the task at hand. When God asks you to do something out of your comfort zone, don't look at your abilities to do it, but look at God's ability to do it. Saying "yes, Lord" will open up a whole knew section of your life that you would never get to experience if you let fear guide you.

Mountain Biker Scars

Revelation 5:6

Then I saw a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty-four elders.

As a mountain biker, like all mountain bikers, I experience crashes. Most of them are not bad crashes. Usually, I hit a root or rock the wrong way and I lay the bike down and I have time to jump off the bike with no scratches or scrapes. But every once in a while I have a crash that scrapes the skin, draws some blood...and if I'm luck, it will leave a scar. Why did I say lucky? Because it is a battle wound. For mountain bikers, when we get scars while we are riding, it is something to be proud of, we want to show them off, we want people, especially other mountain bikers, to notice them just so we can say "yeah dude, I was riding down this gnarly trail and did an endo." Yep, we mtb'ers are proud of our scrapes and scars we get on the trails.

While our scrapes and some of our scars will fade away, Jesus' scars will not. He will forever have the holes in His hands and feet, the scars on His back from the whips, the scars on His head from the crown of thorns...all of those will NEVER go away. But I can only envision that for Jesus, He is proud of those scars. Without those scars, we could never be with Him. It if weren't for those scars, we could never have that forever life that we will have with Him. We could never have the never ending peace and joy that we have with Him. To Jesus, those scars are something that I think (and this is a Kentism) He never wants them to go away. That is how much He loves us!!! 

So the next time you get a scrape or scratch that draws blood and you have a scab for a while, or you get a scar, let it be a reminder of Jesus' scars and the love He has for you!

One-On-One

Matthew 26:39
Going a little farther, he threw himself down with his face to the ground and prayed

For many years I have made a habit of waking up in the morning, getting my cup of coffee and going into my "man cave" to have my one-on-one time with God. That is my time to worship, read, and talk to God. In having a discussion with a good friend of mine last night, he told me that he tried doing what I do, going into a room, sitting still and trying to have that one-on-one time with God. Unfortunately, that drove him crazy, he couldn't sit still, he couldn't be quiet. Another friend told me that she can't have that one-on-one time with God in the mornings, her time is in the afternoon when she gets home from work.

We are all wired differently. We may have similar personality characteristics, but none of us are alike. That is what is beautiful about how God made us. If we were all the same, it would be either a very boring world, or we would be at each other's throats! What is important about the interaction Jesus shows us between himself and the Father is that they had a one-on-one time. Throughout the gospels, Jesus meets with the Father at any part of the day, at any time. However, what is common in all his meetings is that He separated Himself from everyone so He could have that one-on-one time with the Father. 

Just because I sit still, have my coffee in the morning and meet with God, that doesn't mean that is the way you are to do it.  Be true to yourself, be who you are when you have that one-one-one time with God. My friend meets with God on his 45 minute commute to work, worshipping God and talking to Him. We each NEED to have that one-on-one time with God, and when you do, be true to who you are!

Recovery Workout

Psalm 119:154
Revive me with your word!

Last week was a rough week for me, physically speaking. I did two CrossFit workouts that were some of the toughest I've done. That was followed two days later by three days of mountain biking doing a total of 44 miles. On the last day of biking, I hit the wall, my legs just wouldn't go any further. My body was spent, and I was considering not doing any physical workout for the next week, however, a couple of my friends and my coach said I need to do a recovery workout with-in 24-48 hours of my last ride. So two days later I went to do a CrossFit recovery workout. Let me tell you, it was painful! The result? I was kind of shocked. My body felt as if it had a little more life in it and my legs weren't as sore. The next day I felt even better!

The psalmist also knew what was a good "recovery workout" when he was spent. The word of God! The word "word" in Psalm 119:154 in Hebrew is "imrah" which means the word of God or the Torah (which is the first 5 books of the Old Testament). No matter how down, how defeated, how near death the psalmist felt, he knew that the word of God, the imrah, would revive him. The word of God has power! It has power that we will never fully understand. However, one thing I DO understand is that it DOES revive me when I'm struggling. 

One of the things I will do when I feel spiritually spent is start reading the psalms out loud. Now I won't read all 150 psalms at one time, I spread it out over a few weeks, so that each day I'm reading 2 to 3 psalms. When I start out I feel like it is a chore, much like starting out a recovery workout. However, after reading psalms for a few days, I feel life coming back into me! 

I give you a challenge: when you feel spiritually spent, or you are suffering, start reading the word of God. If you don't know what to read, start with Psalms.

Its A Positional Thing

Psalm 119:71 

It was good for me to suffer,
so that I might learn your statutes. 

When I got my first forecaster job in Bismarck, North Dakota, I thought I was "it on a stick!" "I got a forecaster job, I can forecast, I just came out of college, I know everything!" Yep, those were my thoughts. It wasn't too long after taking that job that I got humbled real quick. The forecast called for rain, and for the most part it was raining, but then one city after another started reporting freezing rain. None of the computer models said it would be freezing rain, so I decided not to update the forecast and just keep the forecast as rain. One of the lead forecasters saw what was happening, asked if I was going to update the forecast, I said "no, because the computer models said it wasn't going to happen." He quickly updated the forecast to put in freezing rain, and, it was a good thing he did. But that really humbled me...in front of everyone that was on shift that day. I realized I had a lot to learn!

A lot of people would look at Psalm 119:71 and ignore it because, "hey, why is it good for me to suffer, won't God take care of it so I don't have to suffer?" When things are going well for us, a lot of us don't even think about God much less thinking that we need Him, but when we start to suffer or hurt or things aren't going our way, we go right to Him. God really doesn't want us to suffer, He would really like for us to keep Him at the forefront of our minds, continually seeking Him. Unfortunately for most of us that is not the case. I find it interesting that the Hebrew word used in this scriputre for suffering is "anah." This also means humbled. When we humble ourselves before God, what happens? We positionally put ourselves where we are seeking God. I believe this is what the psalmist meant when he wrote this, that it is good to suffer/be humbled, because it reminds us that we AREN'T God, that we need Him...CONSTANTLY!

A Quicker Short-Cut

Psalm 119:10 

With all my heart I seek you.
Do not allow me to stray from your commands!

Last summer our wireless router went bad, so I had to purchase a new one for the house. When I got it home, I wanted to connect right away, so instead of reading the directions, I just plugged everything in and started it up...who needs directions, right? The lights came on, everything looked like it was working, but my phone nor my laptop would connect. I was surprised...it should've worked, right!!!!???? 

How many times have we tried to take a short-cut and not read the directions God has given us? Right here, many times! And why do we take short-cuts? Because we want everything quicker, faster, we don't want to expend that extra time reading directions when we could be doing something faster just so that we can do the next thing quicker and faster! When I went back to those directions on the WIFI, did what the directions told me to do, I realized I missed a lot of what was very important to the setup procedures. Once I did all of it, everything worked fine. If we stop, breathe, take the time to find out from God what is needed in a situation instead of trying to do it our way, a way we think is going to be quicker, we would find that in the process of doing it God's way, we learn more, we get closer to Him, AND the result of doing it His was is lasting!

Can't Play That Style

Revelation 12:11
And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony.

Many years ago I was asked to be in a band (I play keyboards). I agreed and over the next few weeks as we rehearsed, I began getting frustrated. I was asked to play a style I've never played before and didn't know how to play. I read about the style, listened to the style, but for the life of me, I couldn't play that style. The more we rehearsed, the more I started saying "I can't play this style." The more I said it, the more frustrated I became and it seemed like I was getting further and further away from playing that style. Finally, I had enough and met with the band leader. I told him I couldn't play the style they were asking me to play, so I'm going to have to quit the band. He said, "just give it one more try, you'll get it." I said okay, and as we went to rehearse, I said: "God, you are going to have to do this in me because I can't...and Kent (speaking to myself now), you are going to get this." No kidding, in the time it took for me to take my hands from my side and put them on the keyboard, I learned the style and started playing that style as if I've been playing it for years. We were all stunned!

So what happened? My testimony changed. The words I was speaking changed. I began trusting God and went from speaking negative, gloom and doom, to speaking life and positive words. If you think the words you speak don't make a difference in your life, think again. Scripture says it does, many times! There are people who have been speaking gloom and doom and negativity over their situation for so many years, it's become habit...and they are still in the same situation and wonder why! If we want to be overcomers, we've got to trust God Who is really the One Who is going to do it, and speak positive, life-giving words to our situation.

A House Meant To Be

Romans 4:18-19 (Amplified)
18 [For Abraham, human reason for] hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been promised, So [numberless] shall your descendants be. [Gen. 15:5.]
19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered the [utter] impotence of his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or [when he considered] the barrenness of Sarah’s [deadened] womb. [Gen. 17:17; 18:11.]

About 2 years ago my wife and I began the search for a new house. We had certain needs for a house that had to be met. One of the needs had to be at least 5 acres of land (I wanted to build some mountain bike trails), another was a house big enough where the basement would be large enough for a 2 bedroom apartment for my mother who would be moving in with us. Thirdly a location not far from my wife's work. This really narrowed down the number of homes that were available, but we were praying that God would lead us to the right house and we were standing in prayer and faith. We found a house at the very beginning of our search, but it didn't work out. About a month later another house came on the market, but it was well above our budget. However my wife wanted to check it out. (Men, always listen to your wives, remember, they are a gift from God). So we checked it out and it fit every one of our needs...except for the price. We made an offer that was below our budget and it was accepted. As we were getting close to the end of the due diligence period, one major thing came up, and then another until both of us decided to terminate the offer. We began losing hope that we would find a house for all of us. In fact, I was getting rather frustrated with the whole process that I didn't even want to look at other homes...and my wife was feeling the same way. 

Sometimes, in fact, I would say most of the time, when things don't go our way, or don't go fast enough for us, we lose hope and we give up. Unfortunately, in all of those cases, we give up WAY too early. Abraham had every right to give up, the man was 100 years old, fatherless...and Sarah was no spring chicken either. However, Abraham didn't lose hope, because he knew he had a BIG God! He knew the God of the impossible and improbable, and that even though he was 100 years old, he believed God's promises that he would be the father of many nations...and he held on to this hope.

The evening that we terminated the offer, the seller came back and asked what they could do to make the deal go through. We prayed, repented for giving up on God, and now we have been in that house for almost 2 years.

Circumstances are irrelevant to God, He can do anything. I encourage you to not give up too early, even when the odds are not in your favor. Remember what He did for Abraham and Sarah, and remember their God and your God are the same! What He did for them, He can do for you!

A Day of Unfortunate Happenings

Deuteronomy 28:6
You will be blessed when you come in
and blessed when you go out.

Did you ever have one of these days...

I woke up from what I thought was a decent nights sleep, and the first thing I do is step in dog pee. Fortunately I was on the way to the bathroom so I decided to go ahead and take a shower. As I stepped out of the shower and started to dry my hair, not only did I realize that I didn't shave (because of my aggravation with stepping in dog pee), but I also didn't rinse out the conditioner in my hair. Well after I take care of all that, I go to get my coffee, realizing that the reservoir for the Keurig needed to be filled...but we had no more distilled water. So tap isn't bad, so I filled the reservoir with tap water, then as I open the drawer for the coffee...there is NO coffee...only tea. Okay, so I make hot tea. I head upstairs to worship and read and pray...fortunately the internet is working as I stream some worship music. Then as I'm drinking my tea, I mis-judge where my mouth is and spill tea down the front of me. So back downstairs (not finishing my praying), change clothes, then head out to the truck to head to work because now I am running behind time. I get to the end of the first road and realize that I not only forgot to make lunch for the day, but I forgot to eat breakfast. Of course today would be the day that traffic would be the worse it has been in weeks, and of the 32 traffic lights I have to go through, I get a red light at 26 of them! You can imagine by now I'm grumbling, saying things I shouldn't say...and I've only been up for 2 hours! 

Things are going to happen, whether we like them or not. But its our attitude that dictates how we handle all of that. God says that I am blessed coming in and blessed going out. Now I can tell you that particular day I told you about I certainly wasn't feeling blessed that morning...but the truth is I AM blessed! God's word overrides all of our perceptions of what is going on. Although I had a bunch of "crap" go on that morning...the truth was I was still blessed! 

Unfortunately, the rest of my day was exactly as the beginning of it. Why? Because my attitude didn't change...in fact it got worse as the day went on. HOWEVER had I started speaking God's truth to the situation..."Kent, you are blessed going out AND coming in"...my whole attitude would've been different. All of those things probably would still have happened, but my attitude would've been different. I would have been more stable instead of wanting to take somebody out that day.

We have a choice each day that will determine how our day is going to go. We can believe God's truth that whatever happens, I am still blessed...or I can let circumstances dictate how my day is going to go. Its up to you!

That "Somebody" Has a Name

Psalm 108:3
I will give you thanks before the nations, O Lord!
I will sing praises to you before foreigners!

On a particular day, shortly after I moved to Atlanta, I remember walking into the office and stopping at the administrative assistants desk. I was telling her about something that happened to me. I really can't remember what it was, but what I do remember and it has stuck with me to this day. I told her that "somebody" was watching over me. The words she spoke struck me to the core. She said, "You better give the 'somebody' a name!"

I, along with so many other Christians, are so afraid that we will "offend" somebody that we have stopped acknowledging God in front of other people. God has done so many wonderful things for us, but even if He didn't, sending His Son to die for me would be enough to acknowledge and praise Him in front of others! King David had no problem giving thanks to God before other nations, and these were nations that denied the God of Abraham. King David had no problem singing praises to God in front of foreigners...he wasn't afraid that he was going to offend them. King David would rather offend the foreigners and other nations than offend God. And really that is what we are doing, we are offending God. When we choose not to offend others by holding back our praises to God, we are really offending the One Who has done a wonderful work in our lives, the One Who has answered our prayers. I'm not saying that every time you see someone you have to shout "Praise the Lord." What I am saying is that when someone asks you "how did you get through this?" or "how did you get that job?" or whatever...that's the time to speak out and give praise and thanks to God!

41 and Soaked

Psalm 119:164
I will praise you seven times a day because all your regulations are just.

A few weeks ago I was getting ready to do a mountain bike ride with my best friend. I was excited to ride with him and to get out in the outdoors, I mean it was going to be a good day. Now one thing you need to know about me is that I hate to ride in cold weather. If its under 50 degrees, I really don't want to ride. Well, the morning we were going to ride, it was 41 degrees, so already my mind was thinking "I really don't want to ride in this weather." Then on the 30-minute drive to the trailhead, that was all I was thinking about..."its too cold, I won't enjoy this, I'll be freezing the whole time." So I get to the trailhead, my buddy is there and its still 41 degrees. He's wearing shorts and excited to ride, I'm bundled up with several layers of clothes and wondering "what the heck am I doing here." So we started on a ride, me grumbling about how cold it is. So we get to a creek crossing. I started across, my front tire plants in a hole and I go over the handlebars and land in the water, feet soaked, gloves soaked...and its 41 degrees! For the next hour I rode with wet, cold feet, grumbling, feet starting to go numb and all I wanted to do was head home. 

What happened that morning that set the tone for the whole ride? It wasn't that it was cold outside...it was what I did knowing it was cold outside. I could have focused on riding with my best friend and enjoying the time with him...but NOOOO! I chose to focus on how I didn't want to ride in the cold...and it went downhill from there. We do the same with God. We will let some thing get our minds off of our Lord and on to a circumstance. What the psalmist was trying to convey in Psalm 119:164 was how important it was to keep our minds on God and in order for him to do this, he would praise God seven times a day. Now I don't think the actual number is the important part, what IS important is that he put God as the focus of his day. When we praise God, we get our minds off of our circumstance and onto Him. When that happens, He is able to work on whatever it is that is bothering or troubling us. 

Make a point of taking several moments each day to praise God!

Being on the Team

1 Corinthians 12:27
All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.

When I was a kid, my dad wanted to get me into sports. So he got me on a soccer team. I was terrible at it. I couldn't kick the ball to save my life! I was so bad that during practice, the coach put me as a goalie on the other end of the field...where they were NOT practicing! Although I was a member of the team, I felt useless, like "why am I here?"

A lot of people feel that way as a Christian. We feel we have nothing to offer to God, and in feeling that way, we wonder "why would God want anything to do with me?" This kind of thinking can only go one way, and that is downward...downward to a point of giving up on God, getting depressed, diving into low self-esteem...well the list goes on. However, the reality is God sees you as a necessary part of His family! When Paul says we are Christ's body, he is talking about Christians, the family of God that we belong to (and yes, if you claim Jesus as your Lord, you are part of the family of God). And being in the family of God, each of us is a necessary part of it. You may not know what your part is right now, and you may not think you have anything to offer...but God thinks you DO have something to offer. All you need to do is to be available and willing and have the "I can" attitude. He WILL let you know what your part is when you need to know it.

Human-Being or Human-Doing

Hebrews 4:10-11

10: For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. 

11: So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall. 

When I started to write today's devotion, I got writer's block. I could not figure out how to start this devotion. You don't know how many times I typed the first sentence only to delete it and start again. Then the Holy Spirit said, "uhh, why don't you rest." I chuckled a bit, but He made a point. Its just like when you are trying to remember the name of a band that played your favorite song, but for the life of you, you could not remember the name of the band? No matter how hard you were working your mind, you couldn't remember it? THEN, a few hours later, when you were in the kitchen chopping an onion, suddenly the name came to you! There is something physiological that happens when our mind is at rest, and God designed it this way for a purpose.

When we are at rest, that is when God can do His work! He put Adam to sleep so He could work and take the rib out of Him. Adam had to be at rest. When God needs to work in us, we need to be at rest. That is why it is so important to Him that we enter into His rest, so He can do His work in us. If we are constantly trying to figure things out, we do not allow God to help us...and He WANTS to help us.  When we don't enter into that rest, like the people of Israel, we will fail at whatever it is we are doing (Heb 4:11). I'm going to use a phrase from Joyce Meyer...we are human-BEINGS, not human-DOINGS. We need to be STILL, enter into His rest, and allow Him to do His work.

Wish or Exercise?

Luke 10:19 (AMP)
19 Behold! I have given you authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]; and nothing shall in any way harm you.

When I got married, I inherited three dachshunds. Up until we got married, these dogs had seen me but maybe a handful of times, so I was really nobody to them. Then when they moved in, they quickly learned I was a somebody to them. I started exercising my authority over them. They didn't listen to me for a while, but they soon realized I was the one in authority, not them. Now I could have let those dogs run around, doing whatever they wanted with me "wishing" they would listen to me, but I CHOSE to exercise my authority, and the more I did it, the more they listened.

We have a choice in our daily walk with God. We can either let the enemy run all over us, making us feel defeated, making us feel worthless, stirring up anxiety in us, getting us depressed...well the list goes on and on. OR, we can exercise our God-given authority over the enemy and walk in victory, joy, peace, and contentment. The enemy may push back (and he probably will), but as long as we keep exercising our authority and keep doing it over and over and over, we will walk in the fruit of the Spirit. Wishing for it to happen will not work, you must EXERCISE you authority. 

Start exercising your authority over the enemy, and if you don't know how to do it, read the scriptures, find out what God is saying about a situation, then stand your ground, acknowledge the problem and then announce what God says about that problem...and keep doing it!

The Supervisor

1 Peter 5:6-7
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

One of the hardest things to do is to release control of something to someone else. If you are a supervisor at your work, that is something you need to do on a continual basis. And when you do release control, you are trusting that person can do the job. Now they may not do it in the way YOU would do it, but you know that they will get the job done. And the more you give control to that person to do a job, and the more they get the job done, the easier it is to release control of something to that person.

But why do we have such a hard time giving control of an area or problem in our lives to God? God has the ability to handle more than you could ever imagine, but yet it is one of the hardest things to do. This is a Kent-ism, but I think the reason we don't give God control is because one of two reasons, 1) we don't completely trust Him to get the job done; OR 2) we hand the problem over to Him but with the condition that He does it the way WE want Him to. It could be a combination of both.

In 1 Peter 5:6, Peter says we need to HUMBLE ourselves under God's power. That means we need to come to an understanding that His power is greater than what we can do. When we do that, we KNOW that God can handle our problems, that way we can cast/give/place upon all our problems on Him KNOWING that He will take care of it in His own way with His own power.

The Training Ground

1 Cor 9:26-27 NLT
So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

As some of you know, I love mountain biking, it is one of my passions. This past year I started doing something I said I would never do, and that is racing. I never thought I was really competitive, but after doing two races, I discovered something about myself. One; I was competitive, and two; I was not ready to race...in other words I needed training. So starting last month I began training so I could be race ready by March. My training involved CrossFit, and it so happened that my wife was doing CrossFit and her instructor was a road biker.  He knew exactly what I needed to train, not only working out, but also diet. I learned that there were things I was doing in my normal workout routine that were not helping me, in fact, they were hurting me. I also learned that my diet was not what it needed to be, there were things that I was doing with my diet that were hurting me. So I had to change my workout and diet and get rid of what was not helping me.

What does this have to do with our walk with God? You can look at our Christian walk as a training ground. In training, we learn that there are things we do that help us and that hurt us in our relationship with God. In order to find out the things that hurt us, we need to take an inventory of our lives, such as what we do, what we say to others, what we dwell on in our minds, what we view, whether on our phones, iPad, TV, Facebook, whatever...and whatever we find that doesn't help us in our walk with God, we need to get rid of it. In doing that, we will have a stronger and more solid walk and relationship with God.

The January Challenge

Romans 8:16 (NLT)
For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.

Today is January 1, 2017, the beginning of a new year. We have many opportunities to start a "New Year's Resolution," but like most people, what we start out and what usually has good intentions, well, by the end of January most of us not only have stopped our resolution but even have forgotten that we started one and what it was. But I challenge you today, this 1st day of 2017, to start looking at yourself in a different way, and make a point to do this. So many Christians still see themselves as unworthy in God's eyes, but Romans 8:16 says something completely different. It says we are God's children, His child, His son, His daughter. We need to start seeing ourselves as God sees us, and a good way to start out is by seeing ourselves as a son or daughter of God. When we start seeing ourselves as such, and continue to see ourselves as such, our whole attitude, the way we carry ourselves, our behavior, our talk, our desires begin to change. 

My challenge to each of you is to make a point today, January 1, to start looking at yourself as a son or daughter of God, and make a point to do this everyday during the month of January. How do you do this? By reading this scripture each morning and speaking out loud "I am a son/daughter of God."