Self-respect

Your Needs - It isn’t selfish to take care of your needs; it is essential. You are instructed to put the oxygen
mask on yourself first on a plane. Likewise, you take care of yourself so that you will have something to give to others in a healthy way. It is easy to neglect your needs in difficult relationships because others often pressure you to put them first, but if you don’t honor yourself by taking care of your needs, you are not respecting yourself.

Your Boundaries – Difficult people don’t like boundaries and will push you to change them for their own selfish interest. Your boundaries define what is and isn’t acceptable for you. When you allow things to violate your boundaries, you are disrespecting yourself because you are living in a way that violates your standards. Figure out what your limits are, and then respect yourself by standing firm in them.

Your Opinions – Remember, just because someone says it doesn’t make it so. Don’t discount your thoughts and beliefs because other people disagree with you. Your opinions are just that – yours. It doesn’t make them wrong when someone believes differently. It is tempting to give in to the pressure in difficult relationships to conform yourself to others’ perceptions and beliefs, but you need to resist it to be true to yourself.

Your Feelings – It is tempting to judge your feelings as right or wrong, but your feelings are simply there to teach you about how you are being affected by the people in your life so you can make decisions that value yourself. It is tempting to discount them and deny them. Instead, let yourself feel all your emotions, pay attention to them, and let them teach you about yourself.

Your Talents – God gave you your gifts and talents and expects you to do something with them. Don’t neglect them to take care of others or minimize them by deciding they are unimportant; instead, work on accepting yourself just as God made you rather than putting yourself down and comparing yourself to others. And figure out how to fulfill the purpose that God made you for by using your talents wisely.

Respecting yourself is important because if you don’t respect yourself, others won’t either.

Pray with me...

Dear Lord God,
Help me live in a way that honours who You made me to be and conduct myself in a way that is self-respecting.

Amen

Fear - the controller...

What if that one person in your life right now that you're not feeling so much love for, was also the one person in your life right now for whom you could make the greatest difference?

Deal with Your Fear of Honesty - “Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” ~James 5:16

If you want relief and release from the hurts, habits, and hang-ups in your life, you’re going to have to deal with the fear of honesty that you’ve got in your life. Honesty deals with some of the most common fears that Satan uses to keep you stuck in your rut and afraid to face the truth -

The fear of your own emotions - You’re afraid that if you deal with that issue, memory, event, sin, abuse, accident, or hurt, that you will not be able to handle your emotions and the grief and the shame. You think you may just go crazy! If you’ve ever felt like that, relax. Every human being has had that fear. Everybody has felt at some time in their life that they were losing their mind. It’s not as big a deal as you may think it is. In fact, only rational people have that fear. You are broken, but you are not crazy. You’re also in good company, because we’re all broken. We all have insecurities, fears, and habits we don’t like.

The fear of how others will react - You’re afraid to be honest because you might be rejected or dismissed or abandoned. Others might think you’re less of a believer in God than you claim to be. A fraud. You’re afraid to be yourself, because your overactive emotional mind tells you, that in the end, you’re all you’ve got. And if people don’t like what they see, you’re in trouble. And, you’re afraid that others will try to fix you. You've got to get over that fear!

The fear that being honest is useless - What will it do? What’s the point? Why tell anybody else about what you’re struggling with? You feel like you’ve been there before, and it didn’t help - But you didn’t go there! You haven’t ever really been totally honest, because if you had, you’d already be released.

The Bible says, “Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” - When you can let go of your fears and admit your faults to other people, God has promised you the healing you’ve been looking for.

Think and Talk It Over - How does knowing that other people have the same fears as you help you talk about those fears with someone else? What is it about yourself or your past that you want to keep hidden from others? How have you experienced healing through confession to God and by sharing your hurts and fears with others? Question it, question yourself.

Everybody needs healing from some sort of hurt, hang-up, or habit - As the song goes: 'Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue. Honesty is hardly ever heard. And mostly what I need from you...'

The fear of your own emotions.
The fear of how others will react.
The fear that being honest is useless.
 - the release is HONEST COMMUNICATION... to your God and yourself be true.

FEAR is a product of CONTROL - and guess what? - you are not in control - GOD IS IN CONTROL - Work with Him to work through you...

(formulation acknowledgement to Rick Warren ~ Stafford)

Inconvenient Truths... God, please be our help and strength!

If you keep soliciting for human support for the gospel you preach, you will be forced to compromise God’s word to please your hearers. Your most important goal should be to please our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. Beware of the temptation to seek for human support; neither should you be afraid of the empty threats of the ungodly. If you are preaching God’s truth, you will be persecuted, abused, insulted and called names. Even our Lord was accused of being a servant of Satan.

Think for a moment what it means to be an earthly soldier, talk more of being a soldier of Christ. You will need to endure so much and free yourself from every form of entanglement which come in form of receiving flattery, gifts and accolades from the ungodly to pervert the truth.“You therefore must endure hardship as a true soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who enlisted him as a soldier.” ~ 2 Tim. 2:3-4

If people are hearing what you preach and they are affirming you while continuing deeper in their sin, then you have been deceived by Satan to preach what pleases the flesh and people. When people affirm you, it should be because you have given them God’s undiluted truth that will set them free and this should cause them to glorify Jesus Christ NOT you. If it is God’s truth, it MUST pierce even to the division of the soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, discerning every thought and intent of the hearts of the hearers. To those who are being saved, the truth of God will be the aroma of life leading to life. To them who are perishing, it will be the aroma of death leading to death because they are refusing to receive the undiluted truth of God’s word; they fear that their evil deeds will be exposed.

ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT GOD NEVER DEALS WITH THE ‘MAJORITY’ -

DO NOT over-analyse, mis-interpret, rationalise, or dilute God’s word to suit the flesh and to please your hearers/readers. Please beware of preaching doctrines that indirectly glorify or protect Satan and demons. Let your motivation for preaching God’s word NOT be the number of ‘likes’, ‘comments’ or friends you get on Facebook, Twitter, G+ or other social web-sites, or how much applause you receive in the church services.

Do not be deceived by Satan to believe that you should apologise because someone got hurt when you preached God’s truth; never apologise to anyone for preaching or sharing God’s word against sin or for preaching righteousness, holiness and right-living - NEVER! "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted ME, they will also persecute you..." ~ John 15:18-20

"Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven." ~ Matt. 10:27-33

NEVER STOP PREACHING GOD’S TRUTH JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE AFRAID OF LOSING FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT THERE IS A SECTION (far worse than other sections) RESERVED IN HELL FOR COMPROMISING SERVANTS OF GOD; FEAR GOD! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE CROWN OF LIFE THAT AWAITS YOU; AND THE RECEPTION THAT OUR LORD JESUS IS PREPARING FOR YOU FOR YOUR TRIUMPH AND FAITHFULNESS...

“Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” ~ 1 Cor. 9:27

Don't let your emotions make you a bitch?

Some of our struggles involve making decisions, while others are a result of the decisions and choices we have made. Some struggles result from choices others make that affect our lives. We cannot always control everything that happens to us in this life, but we can control how we respond.


Many struggles come as problems and pressures that sometimes cause pain; others come as temptations, trials and tribulations...


Life may have different chapters, but one bad chapter doesn't mean its the end of your book. Its just a new beginning for you, see it as a second opportunity in life to be greater and do better in your next chapter. How successful you are is completely determined on how you appreciate what you've got and what you'll make out of what you have.

We often fear too much; that eventually our own fears cheat us out of our dreams; right now God is bigger than whatever you're worried about, even though life puts you in tough situations; don't ask why? Just say try me. Understand that every day is a challenge but not every day is the same challenge, its like a test; you pass or you fail, but that doesn't mean give up on yourself, believe in yourself enough to know what's your worth, and don't overlook the people, answers and signs He places in your path...


Life is not perfect; it never will be. You just have to make the very best of it and have to open your heart to what the world can show you, sometimes its terrifying and sometimes its incredibly beautiful. So, ignore the next person's ignorance, hate, drama and negativity - it stops you from becoming the best person you can be. Mistakes made are proof that you are trying; it's not proof that you'll never be successful - God hasn't given up on you, why would you want to give up on yourself?


You need to learn how to select you thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day, this is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad - work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control. Once you learn how to be happy, you won't tolerate being around people who make you feel anything less... - you are somebody's reason to smile... it is part and parcel of God's purpose for placing you here - find, embrace and revel in that purpose!


Godspeed, y'all! (",)

The character of love...

“Reputation is what others think of us; character is what God knows of us. When you have spent what feels like eternity trying to repair a few moments of time that destroyed the view others once had of you then you must ask yourself if you have the problem or is it really them? God doesn’t make us try so hard... only enemies do.” - Shannon L. Alder

May God bless and enhance your day (",)

Break Me and Make Change...

Have you ever heard the saying that old habits are hard to break? That means that change is hard to do. The definition of change is "to alter, to transform, to switch, or to transfer". However, the definition that really stuck out the most to me was "to break", meaning "to shift to a lower register" as in to "Make Change".


In order to "Make Change" out of a rand, it has to be "broken". When you allow God to make change in your life, things you have have to be broken.


 You may end up having a lot of fragmented pieces once He starts breaking things down in your life, but it's okay. You may end up as 10 ten-cent pieces, or even 100 cents, but once he adds all the change, you end up being whole again.

"He heals the broken hearted, and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:3)

Familiarity is often hard to walk away from, but it breeds complacency and stagnation. While on the other hand, change is altering - doing away with a routine or habit. Change is a breaking point in our lives where we have to step out of the ordinary to step into the extraordinary. To change means we have to sacrifice things to become broken - to be made whole.

Allow God to "make change" in your life. A path in a circle eventually takes you back to where you started, so you end up going nowhere. You end up in a cycle that seems to keep repeating itself over and over again... The same bad choices with the same results. The same mountain. The same test that you have taken so many times that you end up memorizing the questions. If this applies to you, you need God to break you and "Make Change".

"Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise." (Psalm 51:8-12; 17)

Awaken your soul to the eternal things...

I was out jogging one day when I noticed a person in front of me; about a quarter of a mile ahead. I could tell he was running a little slower than me, and I thought, 'good', I'll try to catch him. I had about a mile to go on my path before I needed to turn off.

So I started running faster and faster. Every block, I was gaining on him just a little bit. After just a few minutes I was only about 100 yards behind him, so I really picked up the pace and pushed myself. One would have thought I was running the last leg of an Olympic event, so determined was I to catch him. And finally I did it! I caught up and passed him by.

On the inside I felt so good. "I beat him!", of course he didn't even know we were racing. And after I passed him, I realised that I had been so focused on competing against him, that I had missed my turn. I had gone nearly six blocks past it. I had to turn around and go all the way back.

Isn't that just what happens in life when we focus on competing with co-workers, neighbours, friends, family - trying to outdo them, or trying to prove that we are more successful or more important? We fail to recognise that we spend our time and energy running after them; and we miss out on our own path to our God given destinies. We compare our journey Home with temporary things, instead of Jesus Christ's example.

The problem with unhealthy competition is that it is a never ending cycle. There will always be somebody
ahead of one - someone with a better job, a nicer car, more money in the bank, more education, a more attractive partner, better behaved children, etc. It is therefore very important, and more blessed, to realise that, "You can be the best that you can be, when you are not competing with anyone." - i.e. just being a better YOU than yesterday. Some people are insecure because they pay too much attention to what others are doing, where others are going, wearing, driving and living.

Take and use what God has given you - your height, weight, personality, state of prosperity and current circumstances. Dress well and wear it proudly! Let it blend into your Godly character. You'll be blessed by it, when using it to the glory of God!

Stay focused and live a healthy life. There's no competition in DESTINY - run your own RACE and wish others WELL! There are no comparisons in ETERNITY - to wit - ETERNITY is incomparable...

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

Good Day to y'all - give thanks with a grateful heart...

Browsing through the messages on my various social media platforms earlier, I came across this cryptic 'missal': "What have you done?"

Nothing further, just the question, "What have you done?" - it was amazing (yet not surprising) how my immediate thoughts went scouring through my behaviour, my utterances and actions that may have caused distress or harm to someone. In other words, I looked for the worst thing I may have perpetrated recently that would condemn me as a 'bad person.' I don't know, because the message didn't elaborate on anything, or give me any indication about what I was supposed to have done - and because I cannot read minds, does that mean (the intention is this?) I have to squirm in torment?

It prompted me to say a quick prayer request for guidance; as to how I should proceed; and then an amazing thing happened - my ruthless optimism kicked in; my FAITH in a loving, gracious and merciful God brought my mind back to the realisation that His peace is with me.

If 'what I have done' has caused disharmony that is contrary to His glory, I must ask for forgiveness, and do whatever I can, within the scope of my changing attitude and resources to set it right, or retract it - incidentally, I couldn't think of anything that was sooo bad that I couldn't correct with His help and strength - then again 'what have I done', could be something good or worthily life-changing for this other entity that I may have affected - I'd like to think that is the case...

I just pray that the next time someone leaves the message, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" - my first thought would be peaceful, because whatever I do should always be to the glory of God; and thereby cryptic oneliners become commonplace validation of the goodness inside of me; and not the agony of ambivalent self-recriminations.

Stay blessed - and remember, no good deed goes unpunished (",)

Given For Free...

I have no doubt that many of us are carrying some deep wounds that we’ve carried for months, maybe even years. When one thinks about that person who hurt one, it’s still as fresh as if it happened this morning. The pain is still there, and we’re still filled with resentment.

We say, “Why in the world should I forgive that person who hurt me so much? You have no idea how much they hurt me. Why should I offer grace to that person?”

We ought to do it for three reasons:

1. We need to be gracious to others and forgive those who have hurt us because God has been gracious to us.

We can never forgive anyone else more than Christ has already forgiven us. We should consider that we don't always get what we deserved, either. God has been gracious to us; now be gracious with others.

2. We need to forgive others because the alternative is bitterness.

Scientists tell us that resentment is the unhealthiest emotion there is. It always hurts you more than anybody else! Resentment will not change the past, and it won’t solve the problem. It doesn’t even make you feel better. In fact, it makes you feel worse.

Scripture says (and I paraphrase), “Be careful that none of you fails to respond to the grace which God gives; for if you do there can very easily spring up in you a bitter spirit, which is not only bad in itself, but can also poison the lives of many others.”

3. We need to show grace to and forgive others because God expects us to do it.

If one says, “I could never forgive that person,” then best hope you never sin. If you just don’t feel like doing it, do it anyway, because it’s the right thing to do.

The reason why some of us have a hard time forgiving is because we don’t feel forgiven; and if that is so, pray this prayer of liberation and freedom from the depths of your heart:

“Dear Lord, You know that I have been hurt by others. You know that my resentment has made me act in ways that have been unreasonable and unhelpful and unhealthy. I need Your power to release and forgive those who have hurt me so I can stop letting them control me. Lord, please replace my hurt with your peace. God, I realize that I have hurt a lot of other people with my habits and my bad decisions and my hang-ups; please forgive me for the way I've hurt others. Help me to make a list of those I've harmed and in the right way at the right time to humbly seek to make amends. I want to refocus my life on YOU. I want to face the future courageously with love and peace in my heart. I implore You, dear Father, to help me replace my resentment with Your love, and my bitterness with Your grace.
My sincere and contrite thanks for Your gracious forgiveness for all the things that I've done wrong - help me to help You set things right. Amen.”

This is the first and most important step to start loving yourself again; in His mercy and to His glory - stay blessed, love Staf xxxxxxx

By the book...

Life, happens when you're making plans

flying high and shaking hands

a song will write you, you don't write it

I, didn't mean to fall in love

was rhythm that created us

I was running, we collided

Baseline, I will always make time,

I just wanna know that feeling's in your heart for me

Baseline, after all the great times,

I just wanna know that feeling's in your heart...

When the beat drops out

and the people gone

will you still be there, still be there

for me child

When the lights go out

and the morning come

will you still be there, still be there

for me child

When the beat drops out

and the people gone

will you still be there, still be there

for me child

When the lights go out

and the morning come

will you still be there, still be there

for me child

When the beat drops out...

With you, I found a new way to live

I see an alternative

Now we started, we can't stop it

I, I didn't mean to fall in love

last thing I was thinking of

was you and me, but we collided

Baseline, I will always make time,

I just wanna know that feeling's in your heart for me

Baseline, after all the great times,

I just wanna know that feeling's in your heart...

When the beat drops out

and the people gone

will you still be there, still be there

for me child

When the lights go out

and the morning come

will you still be there, still be there

for me child

When the beat drops out

and the people gone

will you still be there, still be there

for me child.

When the lights go out

and the morning come

will you still be there, still be there

for me child

When the beat drops out...

when the beat drops out...

when the beat drops out...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMiIrVDtHpw