Distractions are something that every believer must contend with and learn how to defeat so that they will keep their focus on the Lord. We can learn a lot from Daniel if we pay close attention. He faced many distractions just as we do, but He knew that to give in would change his life. He belonged to God and wanted to keep it that way.
Daniel 1:4-17 Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were so focused on God that they did not allow themselves to partake of the defiled food that the king offered them. Can you imagine what kind of distractions surrounded them? They were not the only children of Judah in the household, BUT they were the only ones that did not give in to the distractions. Now let’s think about this. • The Bible did not say that they were on a fast. • The smell of a lot of meat and other tempting aromas were assaulting them every day and almost all day. • and if the others were eating, don’t you think they were pressuring them to eat too. • The eunuchs were also pressuring them to eat of the meat. They were pressuring them to eat because they were afraid that if these boys began to lose weight or get sick then their life would be in danger because they were the Kings property. (vs. 10) Lose their heads. • The 4 decided that they would not eat the food because it had been offered to false gods and therefore it was defiled. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah made a choice and stuck by it. They made a choice not to give in to all the distractions they faced daily. They decided not to compromise what they knew to be true. No matter what the cost. Even if it meant their lives. "12 Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. 13 Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king's meat: and as thou seest, deal with thy servants. 14 So he consented to them in this matter, and proved them ten days. 15 And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat.”" For the 4 boys this was a true test of their faith. A test of where their focus laid. And because they did not give into all the distractions around them God blessed them with many gifts. "17 As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams." We must keep our focus on God at all times to keep us from making unnecessary detours in our walk. Eyes on Jesus! So stop looking at the situation like it's going to pull you down. Keeping your eyes and thoughts on Jesus will bring you favor and bring you through. Tell yourselves that it is just a distraction and then begin to adjust your vision. We must stay focused on God and His plan for our lives. Be blessed! Evangelist Cheryl Davies
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You know it sometimes seem like so many things in this life has the power to frighten us, but this is what it means to be deceived. It seems like. It seems like I won't have enough to pay the rent. It seems like they will be cutting my lights off. It seems like no one will hire me. It seems like I can't get through this. It seems like we've been having bad vision. Taken our eyes off of the one thing that has power over everything on this earth. Jesus. That has been the goal of the enemy from the start. To distract you and to get you to believe the lie. He can't do that without showing you the wrong picture. The wrong vision. 2 Corinthians 5:5-8 says, "5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. 6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) 8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." Being at home in the body will distort your vision, but walking in the spirit will keep us in the presence of the Lord which will give us the clear and truthful vision that we desire. The vision that dispels all fear. The vision that we all need in order to be able to move forward in God. If you have a true heart for the Father then you desire nothing but the truth so don't allow the enemy to cloud your mind with false visions. Tell yourself today, "No more false visions. I will begin to see what God sees and I WILL walk by faith and NOT by sight." Let's go beyond the fake by taking a true walk of faith because things are really never what they seem. Be blessed! Evangelist Cheryl Davies (Fear Not Ministries) Do you fight with feelings of being inadequate? The enemy within me. This is a fight within and the hardest battle to defeat. Am I living up to my full potential? Am I being obedient to God? I messed up once again. God said that he forgives me, but so He really? These are questions that we all ask ourselves at one time or another. I want you to know that this isn't you. This is words whispered at your mind. Thoughts that entered through the suggestions of the enemy because he knows that if he can make you fill guilty, he has a chance of persuading you to take that step out of alignment with God. If you beat yourself up it opens the door for him to beat you down even more. Just stop it. That's right. Stop them thoughts the minute they begin. Begin to take on the thoughts of God. Does He not say in His Word: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11) God's thoughts for us never change. He knows us better than we know ourselves so let's begin to see ourselves as God sees us. We have to stop listening to the report that does not belong to God. When those thoughts enter your mind begin to cast them out immediately. And if you begin to feel you are losing the battle in your mind, then you better go up. Use your spirit language because our spirit knows how battle even better than you. Be blessed! Evangelist Cheryl Davies (Fear Not Ministries) Years back the Lord showed me a place that I would be entering into in the future. Now when He showed me this place I can remember my heart gripping in fear and a desire to run from it so terrifying the vision was. I've recently seen this vision again and the fear was gone. That's how our Father works. He prepares you for what is to come and once you are prepared, all fear will leave. I want to encourage you today if you are still bound in fear. Know that God is preparing you for your future. a future that contains no fear, but He has to show you it now so that He can deal with it now as part of your preparation. Hold on to your faith because I promise you, it is the one major thing that is going to see you through to the other side of that fear. Pay attention to what the Father is saying in these days. He is speaking words of strength to your spirit. Continue to meditate on His Scriptures telling you to 'fear not' and to be not afraid'. He wrote those words for you for this time. They are alive and will strengthen your spirit even as you are reading and speaking them. Deuteronomy 31:6, "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." God has only done a small percentage of what He is planning to do in you in this season of preparation. Be encourage and as always be blessed! Evangelist Cheryl Davies It is not my job to change anyone. My job is just to encourage you to the best of my ability and to love on you the way Jesus loves on me. The rest is up to you and God. God is the transformer of man's spirit, soul, and body. This is what happened to me. God transformed me from the inside out. But He didn’t do it without my permission. You know, that free will thing. Yes, God will not get in the way of your will, but when you turn your will over to Him… Change is coming. On the Potter’s Wheel. Genesis 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” That was just the beginning. God is still trying to mold us. Jeremiah 18:6 ““O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!” We all are in the Father’s hand when we begin to agree with Him. Even as I am writing these words, I’m spinning and being molded into something beautiful. The funny thing is that when I was in the world I saw myself as beautiful. But my eyes had been covered in scales. I only saw what the world saw and that was not everlasting. The moment that I said yes to God I began to get a whole new picture and what I saw wasn’t beautiful at all. I was ashamed of myself and God even took THAT away. He slowly began to fix the broken things inside of me so that I would be able draw from His strength and not my own. On the Potter’s Wheel. You need to know that God is asking you to say just one little word. A word that is so small that it seems insignificant, but it means so much. It is the word that will truly begin to change you and your life. “YES.” That’s all God needs is your, “YES.” Wet me up Lord with that Living Water so that I may soften and become pliable. On the Potter’s Wheel. And you know what? I don’t ever want to stop spinning because when I come off the wheel I will be in one of two places, back at the beginning starting all over again (because I can never give up trying) or united with sweet Jesus in heaven once again. So yes Father. I will be the clay. So here is my question for you today: Will you be the clay also? Be blessed! Evangelist Cheryl Davies This is so important! It is one of your keys toward walking into your purpose. If they are not going where you are going they will become a distraction and can possible send you towards detours. I love to be with people that look like me, and by me I mean they also are a reflection of Jesus. What kind of reflection do you see in your friends? Evangelist Cheryl Davies Fear Not Ministries Some of you will not want to read this posting, but if you are truly seeking after the truth, then seek it today and be enlightened. Throughout the Bible God has placed great emphasis on names. For example: Genesis 29:34-35, “She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing.” (Levi and Judah were the beginning of two tribes, the Levities and the Tribe of Judah. Levi means “attached” and Judah means “praise”. ) Genesis 32:28, “And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”” (His blessing for his struggle. Israel means “God contended”) 2 Samuel 12:24-25, “Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah. (His name was changed out of love. Jedidiah means “beloved by God”) Acts 13:9, “Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him.” (His name was changed because of his rebirth. Paul means “humble”.) Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” (Immanuel means “God is with you”.) Names are very important in the Kingdom of God. Now with that in mind we have to look at one of the most sacred events that is almost here. The resurrection of Jesus. Years back I request the Father to cut out of me everything that was not of Him and that meant I needed to know the truth in everything. All lies had to be revealed so that I could destroy them and they would no longer have dominion over my life. I pray this for you today as the truth is revealed to you. Many Christians have adopted the habits of the secular world and get excited when it is time to celebrate “Easter”. So what does this word “Easter” mean? It was ultimately named for the Germanic spring goddess Eostre. It was traditionally given to children born on Easter, though it is no longer done today. This goddess was the god of fertility, thus you have the egg and the rabbit. She was a sexual god that the pagans committed many sexual rituals to honor her in the belief that they would bear children with her blessing. It is these rituals that the early Christians attempted to remove the pagans from committing. These sexual rituals were the most important thing to stop. It wasn’t so bad that they had idols, but it was really bad what they did for these idols. If they could just stop them from practicing the rituals and teach them to believe in Jesus, maybe, just maybe, they will be converted. In actuality, they still preformed their rituals but in secret. Why? Because they had not been fully changed. These early Christians made compromises not only with faith of the pagans, but also with their own faith. It was a case of give and take, but wait! Are we not taught to take nothing from the world? That everything we desire can be found in God? They placed more emphasis on the conversion than on the lifestyle and this resulted in a bad root. Now this is what the Word says on the root: Hosea 9:16, “Ephraim is stricken, Their root is dried up; They shall bear no fruit. Yes, were they to bear children, I would kill the darlings of their womb.” If the root is bad, then there will be no fruit or bad fruit. This made me see this second scripture in a whole new light. Jude 1:12, “These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;” Easter is a love feast that is feasted on without fear. It does not serve God. It only serves man while implying that it is serving God. When we come to God the Bible tells us to leave behind the things of this world, something the early Christians failed to do or teach when they converted the pagans. It has no association with the sacrifice that Jesus made on the Cross so that you could have salvation. In fact, it is an attempt of the enemy to remove you from that salvation. It has become a generational curse to man. A curse that only you can break off of your bloodline. Pull it up now and destroy it. I appeal to your desire for the truth. Here is another question: What should you give to someone that gave up his life for you? An egg? Come on people! Time is short and this, like so many other things we need to get free of. Our desire has to be more for God than for man. I refuse to face the Father and have Him say to me, “I don’t know you.” But this choice is yours alone to make. Study and show yourselves approved by seeking out the truth on your own. Look for the root and when it is rotten, rip it out of the ground. Be blessed with the truth. Evangelist Cheryl Davies Today I was totally under the favor of God. Psalm 44:3 "For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, Nor did their own arm save them; But it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, Because You favored them." (NKJ) From morning I have been declaring His favor and I was really in the midst of it! Only the front parking space for me today. And then... I lost my cell phone in Target Store. (For those of you not living in America, Target is a big store where you can buy anything from food to clothing to sporting goods.) The whole family was searching for it when we got home. I continued to call forth God's favor. My daughter,Melissa began to call it repeatedly. Finally I called Target Store with her phone and while I was on the phone a call came in. I looked and it was "my number". I answered praising God and the girl told me that her mother had found my phone and gave it to her asking her to help the lady get her phone back. FAVORRRRRRRRRR! Glory to God for His favor. When you are walking in the favor of God, even your own mistakes cannot hinder you! Begin to declare God's favor upon you everyday. As His people we should always be walking in His favor and I want this not only for myself, but I want it for you even more! Be blessed! Evangelist Cheryl Davies ( Fear Not Ministries ) Today I feel that I need to talk about the power of God that lives in you. This is a power that you can depend on. Inside of each of us is a Prayer Warrior. It is more focused in some of us but we all carry this spirit. How focused you are tells of how you see things. Mark 14:37-38, "Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”" Earlier in this Chapter it says that He took Peter, James, and John with Him. Jesus asked all 4 to watch and pray, yet He rebuked only Peter. Could it be that Peter was a more focused Prayer Warrior and more was expected of him. Nevertheless, Jesus asked them all to pray. Luke 22:39-40, "Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. 40 When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”" If you are in Christ, then you to are called to "Watch and Pray". I now understand why the majority of the time that I am praying I keep my eyes open and am watching what is going on around me and I’m not looking in the natural. As we pray we need to be alert to what is going on around us in the spirit realm, less the enemy creeps in and distract you. Watch and Pray. Yes there is nothing wrong with closing your eyes while you pray but there are times when you need to be watching. The power of prayer forces things to change. To watch the change will allow you to know whether you are praying the right prayers. Here is an example. In one prayer session I began to come against an addiction and I spoke the wrong words trying to kill the thirst for the substance my words became tangled. I immediately saw a change in the atmosphere and stopped praying to see what it was that was wrong. The words were just sitting there waiting for me see my error. I began to pull them back from out of the atmosphere and changed my words to words of life. To watch for some has a different meaning than for others. Some see through their natural eyes and some see through their spirit eyes. This also goes for prayers. You can pray in the natural and you can pray in the spirit. Which is more powerful? The prayers that we pray in the spirit. The reason why is because everything happens in the spirit realm before it happens in the natural. So this isn't a watch in the natural sense. This is a watch in the spiritual sense. Watch and Pray. No matter what level you are at, we all can and should be praying. Even if you don't think you pray very good, keep praying. The more you pray the stronger God becomes in you. Prayer is an activator. We need to be activating things in our lives daily through the power of prayer. Things are moving swiftly right now and this is not the time for us to be distracted. God is moving and Jesus is asking us to, Watch and Pray. Be blessed. Evangelist Cheryl Davies ( Fear Not Ministries ) Tonight I was surrounded by people that were burning! It is so important who you are surrounding yourself with. Distance yourselves from all liars. If they speak a lie then they will believe a lie. Reside with those who only speak truth. It's breakout time and the fire of God will be doing one of two things: 1) Purifying & Empowering 2) Striking Down & Destroying The shift isn't over yet, but if you don't get in alignment with the Lord God, you will miss it entirely and be left behind. God is moving swiftly and you must move with Him! Let's move forward. 1. Stay on the path! No side-steppin allowed. You are headed in only 1 direction. 2. Be steady! That means no stopping and wavering. Set your mind to go forward and keep going. 3. Pour into your brothers and sisters! Don't think someone is using you. We need to help each other. What God gives you is for sharing and sometimes because we are all at different levels of our walk what your sibling does might hurt you, but if they love Christ you keep on pouring. It helps them to mature when we don't turn away at their faults. Remember the mistakes you made at first? Let's look beyond the mistakes of others and see what God is trying to create in them. It is YOUR actions that Jesus is concerned about. If you retaliate with anger, then the battle is lost AND a life could be lost. As we move forward we want to propel others forward. I can't succeed without you succeeding. One body! Ephesians 4 The Message (MSG) "1-3 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences." Be blessed! Evangelist Cheryl Davies Fear Not Ministries) |
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