The Word

Hunger Unto Death

February 22, 2018 By Eva Conner Leave a Comment

Hunger unto death!

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.
Has the Lord redeemed you? Then speak out!
Tell others he has redeemed you from your enemies.

Psalm 107:1-2

Laying in bed, I was prompted to grab my phone and read Scripture on my Bible app. I went to Psalm 107 and it brought me up out of bed in tears – good tears.

If we have Jesus in our hearts, we are redeemed.

We need to speak out and tell others! What He has done for me, He will do for everyone.

I recently heard a story that won’t leave me. There was an old preacher who was steadfast as a rock. He was unmovable in his faith and love for the Lord. A younger man was talking to this preacher one day and asking how to get faith like his. This younger man looked upon the old preacher in awe and wonder and wanted what he had. The preacher looked at the younger man and suddenly grabbed him and pushed his head under water as they were sitting beside a stream. The old preacher held the young man’s head under water for a very long time until the bubbles were becoming sparse. And just at the last minute, the old preacher pulled the young man out of the water. The old preacher asked the young man what he thought about while he was under water. The young man said he could think of nothing more than his need for air. The old preacher looked the young man straight in the eyes and told him “when you think about your need for Jesus as you do your need for air, you’ll have unshakeable faith.”

I don’t know about you but I want that unshakeable faith. Faith that can move mountains and cast them into the sea. How do we get faith? The Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). As we dig deeper into the Word, our faith grows.

Reading on in Psalm 107 (and I encourage all of you to open your Bibles right now and read this entire Psalm – try it and see if your faith doesn’t grow), we see that no matter the circumstances we create in our lives, God redeems us.

Some wandered in the wilderness, lost and homeless. Hungry and thirsty, they nearly died. “Lord, help!” they cried in their trouble, and he rescued them from their distress.

Psalm 107:4-6

He is our Rescuer and our Redeemer – NO MATTER WHAT. Period.

He led them straight to safety, to a city where they could live. Let them praise the LORD for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them.

Psalm 107:7-8

He leads us to safety and provides us with great love and does wonderful things for us. Not just love and things but GREAT LOVE and WONDERFUL THINGS. This is so important to get in our hearts.

God is good. Good is who He is.

It’s not an attribute or a character trait. It is the very essence of who God is. He is GOOD. Is it a coincidence that God and Good are only one “O” apart? Probably not:)

Start looking for HIS GOOD today. I promise you that HIS GOOD is all around you if you will only start looking. We each make decisions that dictate how we live our lives. We choose to listen to the voices in the world. Doom, gloom, disaster, violence, failures, death, destruction, loss, fear.

OR we choose to listen to THE VOICE of GOD. Love, light, joy, peace, grace, mercy, long life, abundance, redemption, protection, wholeness, victory, freedom.

It’s a choice we make every minute of every day. We either train ourselves to take our thoughts captive and make them obedient to the Word of God (2 Corinthians 10:5) or we continue down the path that will lead only to destruction and sadness by letting our thoughts control us. Let me repeat this – IT IS A CHOICE.

You and I are in control of the life we live.

Today I choose to listen to THE VOICE of GOD. Tomorrow I’ll choose again to listen to THE VOICE of GOD. What will you choose? I pray you choose THE VOICE.

Let’s choose to feed the hunger that is deep within us for more and more Jesus. In the world, when we are hungry, we eat and get full. But in God’s world, when we are hungry, we eat and get even more hungry!!! Hallelujah! Do you see the beauty in His ways? We eat from the Word and we get hungry for even more. It fuels the fire to study and meditate upon the Word for a lifetime.

But we have to take that first step to start reading the Word to get the hunger going. We will not be hungry until we start eating. Only when we start eating do we get hungrier and hungrier for more and more.

The voice said to me, “Son of man, eat what I am giving you—eat this scroll! Then go and give its message to the people of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he fed me the scroll. “Fill your stomach with this,” he said. And when I ate it, it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.

Ezekiel 3:1-3

The LORD told Ezekiel to eat the Word. He told him to fill his stomach with it and to get it in his heart (see v. 10). Friends, this is exactly what we need to do to live a life of abundance and plenty in all areas.

Start eating the Word today.

Reading on in Psalm 107, we see the results of eating the Word:

He removes the darkness (v. 14).
He removes our chains (v. 14).
He breaks down prison walls (v. 16).
He speaks and brings healing by HIS WORD (v. 20).
He brings stillness in the storms (v. 29).
He gives great love (v. 31).
He does wonderful things for us (v. 31).
He turns deserts into pools of water (v. 35).
He turns dry land into springs of water (v. 35).
He feeds the hungry (v. 36).
He builds cities (v. 36).
He brings bumper crops (v. 37).
He blesses us with large familes and increased livestock (v. 38).
He scatters our enemies in the wasteland (v. 40).
He rescues the poor and brings them increase (v. 41).
He opens our eyes to see HIS GOOD (v. 42).
He shows us His faithful love (v. 43).

Hunger until death!

Stay in the Light and Love always,

Eva

Are You in an Impossible Prison?

January 26, 2018 By Eva Conner Leave a Comment

You are being released from prison TODAY.

God asked me to write down the very first word in the Bible? IN

He then asked me to write down the very last word? AMEN

I questioned God and asked what this means. Which prompted the third question.

What is in between these two words? CHRIST JESUS

IN CHRIST JESUS, AMEN!

Do you believe the Word of God?

Do you believe God created everything out of nothing?

Do you believe that Noah built an ark and had two of all animals aboard ~ for a very long time?

Do you believe Jonah was in the belly of a whale for 3 days?

Do you believe Daniel was actually in a den with real lions?

Do you believe the fire that did not singe so much as a hair on Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego?

Do you believe in Jesus?

Do you believe Jesus?

Do You Believe?

That’s all that is required of us. I love these words that our Lord Jesus said in the gospel of John:

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

John 6:28-29

This is our assignment: to believe.

Understand this very important truth – we must believe in Jesus and we must believe Jesus. Do you understand the difference? Not only do we need to believe in who Jesus Christ is but we also need to believe every word He speaks. Jesus is The Word (John 1:14) and each word written in the Bible is truth. Each word is solid and each word becomes our foundation.

All things are encompassed in the Word ~ beginning with “IN” and ending with “AMEN” with Christ Jesus in the between.

You see, when we believe the Word and when we believe IN the Word, we allow it to become the measuring stick we use for all matters in life which keeps us steadfast and sure. The storms of life will come our way and when they do, we’ll be prepared.

Do you question how you can have faith enough to believe even during the darkest storm of your life?

I know we all have gone through times of darkness. Maybe you’re in the darkest time of your life right now with no hope. And maybe you’re asking how are these words going to release you from your prison?

Let me share what I’ve learned through my own journey. I was in a prison of my own making for most of my life. The words written on my prison walls may have changed from time-to-time but the door never opened. Insecurity, rejection, unworthiness, hate, anger, lack, unforgiveness, jealousy. What was within my heart ruled my circumstances. It ruled all of my relationships. I was unable to have one good, stable area in my life.

My prison door was locked up tight and my life was taking a downward turn that I could not stop.

I had no hope of ever getting released into pure freedom. Until I met Jesus.

It wasn’t until I met my Savior that things started to change. Was it an instant release from that prison? Jesus opened the door to my prison cell immediately but I did not have the power or the courage to step outside those prison walls. It was all I knew. Stepping out into a new life was stepping into the unknown. It was scary. So I stayed in my prison a little while longer.

But He didn’t leave me there alone.

He stayed with me. During this time, I had to allow Him access to ALL of the pain buried in my heart. All those words printed on my prison cell walls had to be erased one by one. I had to allow God FULL ACCESS before I could move beyond those prison walls.

Maybe you are doubting His goodness if He isn’t answering your prayers.

Maybe you are doubting that you can ever get out of your prison.

Maybe, just maybe, you are even doubting His existence.

If this is you, friend, I encourage you to open your Bible and begin reading. Tell God how you are feeling. Pour out all of your doubts and unbelief. All your despair, hurt and anger. You cannot give Him anything that He cannot handle. HE IS BIGGER THAN YOU. And He knows exactly what you need right now. Ask Him to guide You to the right place to begin reading and ask Him to bring His Word to life for you.

Remember the beginning of the Word is “IN” and the end “AMEN” with Christ Jesus in the between. “In Christ Jesus, Amen!”

God is faithful and good and He will not leave us in an impossible situation without helping us. But sometimes He is waiting on us to step beyond those prison walls of our own making before He will change one thing.

Let me ask a tough question. Please have ears to hear.

Is your focus on yourself or on God within you?

So many of our trials in life can be avoided if we have the right outlook ~ or maybe I should say the right “inlook.”

Are you waiting on God to miraculously act when maybe He has already spoken to you?

Maybe He told you to rest in Him.

Maybe He told you to trust in Him.

Maybe He told you to seek Him.

Maybe He told you to just believe.

Sometimes what may appear to be an external matter between you and others may very well be a heart issue between you and God. What has He been speaking to you? I say these words with nothing but love in my heart. I had to walk through my own prison door. My prison was full of death, despair and hopelessness but I was terrified of stepping outside of it. I was used to my misery and self-pity. We were good friends. I knew how to live that life well.

But God.

He refused to leave me in that prison. He turned my heart from being self-focused to being Christ-focused. It takes self-discipline and intentionality on our part but He’ll meet us there and He will give us the strength necessary to endure. I’m still learning but I’m so thankful that I’m not where I was.

We find freedom in the Word – In Christ Jesus, Amen!

I once allowed my circumstances to control my entire being – my mind, my emotions, my actions, my eating, my words – and it inevitably took a toll on my physical being. I was one hot mess of tears and instability.

But when I started to believe Jesus and believe in Jesus, things shifted. When I started reading the Word and taking control of my thoughts, things shifted.

If we do these things consistently, we will be forever transformed – even if not one thing has changed in our situation.

Learn from my past mistakes, please! If we cannot turn our thoughts away from ourself, we will remain in the hopeless despair of our prison cell. And friends, this is NOT the life Jesus died to give to us. The life He died to give us is complete victory. Victory over death. Victory over our prison cell.

Something amazing happens when we step into victory and commit to being intentional about Jesus.

Light enters our life. Smiling isn’t as hard. Hope is restored. We start seeing mankind all around us once again. Suddenly, stepping outside the open door of our cell isn’t impossible or scary.

Jesus did this for me. And He is not a respecter of men meaning what He does for me, He will do for you too. I know this is true because His Word says it and I believe every single word written in the Bible.

The battle is real. But know this, the battle was conquered by Jesus. Even if our circumstances do not change we will be freed from our prison.

I’d love to hear from you. If these words helped you today, please leave me a comment. If you need prayer, leave me a comment. I pray for my readers every single day to be released from bondage and prison ~ to be blessed each and every day. It’s my heart’s desire to see others walk in the freedom I know is possible through Jesus. Thank You for helping me to share the hope and love in Christ by sharing my site and post with others.

Stay in the Light and Love always,

Eva

Rewrite Your Vows

January 17, 2018 By Eva Conner 1 Comment

Chasing Hard and Running on Empty

Rewrite your vows!

Here is a word that I received in my spirit during prayer time this morning. This word makes me weep with joy and also with sadness for all the glory and awesomeness we miss because we’re too busy chasing the here and now.

This word is for all of us because we all have moments when we are not chasing hard after the only thing in this temporary land that matters – the eternal. This word makes me sad because we have things so backward and wrong in this world compared to what God truly wants for us. What Jesus died to give us. Here is what He spoke:

I desire to shower you with lavish gifts. I love you as a Bridegroom loves His bride. I AM your Bridegroom. I wish to take care of you in a way that you never have to fear. In a way that you never live in lack or want of anything.

This is the vow that I SPEAK to you:

I, Jesus, take you, my beloved, to be my lawfully wedded bride, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better and never for worse, in richness and never in poorness, in health and never in sickness, forever, not even death can separate us.

I chase after you always.

But you don’t see Me. You don’t look My way. You chase after things that will never bring you wholeness and fulfillment. You look to one another to bring you things that only I CAN.

When will you look to Me? What will it take for you to see me standing here? How long before You accept my vows of marriage?

In this time of prayer and meditation, He brought back memories of new romantic relationships ~ courtships. He brought back those sweet memories of dating and the excitement that came with the newness of the relationship. The memories of wanting to do something nice for that other person who suddenly became so very important to you. The heart to shower them with gifts to show your love. This is what He brought to my heart this morning.

The tenderness, sweetness and innocence that exists in the closeness.

Jesus feels these things for us. He wants to shower us with His good and perfect gifts. He desires for us to rest in that tender, sweet innocence with Him. And He desires for us to not just rest for the moment but to settle in to it. To get comfy and put our feet up and stay there! Jesus is not just our comforter and protector. HE IS COMFORT. HE IS PROTECTION. These things to Him are tangible and part of his DNA that cannot be separated from Him.

He is standing there with His arms stretched out just for you.

Do you see Him there? Do you sense His excitement and eagerness to love you and lavish His goodness on you?

This word completely unglues me even as I am experiencing it again as I type these words. And this is just a mere shadow of what we’ll experience with Him in eternity.

So why do we fight against it? Why do we twist and distort His Word by bringing it down to what we can comprehend and explain?

What He showed me when He spoke the wedding vows is that the vows we speak when we marry our spouses are completely opposite of what He wants us to speak.

Man-made vows speak of illness, poverty and death.

The vows that are most commonly used today are rooted in religion ~ from man. You can do a Google search and find the origins are rooted in the medieval church in England. What you cannot find are the vows in Scripture with one exception. Ironically, the one part of the vow that you can find in the Bible is the piece that most people omit because they find it offensive – for the wife to vow that she will obey her husband.

For centuries, has no one asked where these vows came from? Who wrote them and were they inspired by God to do so? If someone were to say they were inspired by God to write these vows, why do they not line up with Scripture?

These are questions I’m asking myself after hearing Jesus clearly speak His vows to me this morning. He clearly denounced the “sickness, poverty and death” words that currently exist in our vows.

Jesus died on the cross for us a broken man so that we could be whole. He died in lack so that we could walk in abundance. His Word clearly states that death is not final. God desires for us to walk in the fullness of Jesus Christ. And that fullness is not sickness, poverty and death. That fullness is total wholeness in all areas of our lives with abundant fruit and gifts.

Wholeness and nothing less is what Jesus died to give us.

We need to rewrite the vows! The wedding vows must be modeled after the love of Christ and the truth of Christ. They must include grace, complete surrender, covenant bonds of undying love. UNDYING love – not death.

We need to stop watering down the Word of God to accommodate our limited, finite thinking. The minute we begin logically explaining who God is, is the minute we should fall to our knees and repent of idolatry. For when we put God within the limits of our thinking, we are creating a false god to worship.

God is outside the limits of our thinking.

He is SO incomprehensibly huge and powerful that we cannot possibly know anything about Him other than what He’s chosen to reveal to us.

The minute we start putting God in the confines of our mind is the minute we begin rationalizing why there is sickness, poverty and death in our world. It’s okay to not have answers to life’s tough questions. What’s not okay is to try to wrap theological doctrine around not having answers. God is a God who will hide things from us in order for us to search them out. And when we search for the things of God, He is so good to show them to us.

Rewrite your vows today.

Speak life, health and wholeness into your marriage. Take out those things that are not of God. Seek Him above all things and He will show You all things. Don’t stop there either. Rewrite your vows with God. Ask Him to scrub your heart clean and purify you in His Word. His Word is cleansing and it will reveal to you all the things you are searching for in this life. His Word will reveal Jesus from front to back.

Chase hard after Jesus.

He chases after us and pursues us with a self-discipline we know nothing about. He is intentional about US. Let’s get intentional and self-disciplined about HIM.

HE IS all things.

Period. Nothing less than ALL things. And in Him we find our fulfillment and all of our emptiness is suddenly gone.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment center.

He wants to be the center of your life. Will you let Him? It’s a decision we make that will alter the course of our life for eternity.

Time is short. Total surrender to Jesus is the only way to live the few short years we have on this planet. You see, this life is not what it’s about. This life is but a mere test for eternity.

I remember as a child I would often lay on my back in the grass staring up at the clouds, trying to think about eternity. I use the word “trying” because eternity is so big that it’s hard to grasp. It’s hard to fully get your mind wrapped around what “forever” means. No end at all. Compare 70 or 90 years to forever. It’s hardly any comparison at all.

When we shift our thinking from temporal to eternal, we find a lot of things in this world that once seemed huge and insurmountable become like mountains that can be cast into the sea.

This is the word for you and for me today.

Rewrite your vows and chase hard after Jesus.

He is waiting and He longs to lavish us with gifts and love.

Stay in the Light and Love always,

Eva

PPP ~ Privilege. Praying. Partnering.

January 6, 2018 By Eva Conner Leave a Comment

Prepare your plan today and see His provision as You’ve never seen before.

In the professional services world, PPP typically means “Personal Performance Plan.” PPP’s are completed by the professionals stating their goals for the year. However, this morning in my prayer time, God used this acronym “PPP” but showed me something else that ties into our personal performance planning.

Privilege. Praying. Partnering.

God has given each of us the privilege of praying and partnering with Him to do His work in this dark world.

It’s important for our growth to have a gameplan or roadmap that helps us stay on track in doing His work. This is what a personal performance plan is, or a vision board. I encourage you to get before God and ask Him to help you outline some goals for the year. Put pen to paper and list the deepest desires of your heart. Ask away. There’s nothing that we cannot ask of Him in prayer. We have not because we ask not.

As we write our personal performance plans, or vision boards, we’ll see one common thread in our dreams and goals ~ the need for provision. That provision could be the words to write in blog posts that will encourage and reach the hearts of the readers. The provision could be for time to pray for others who He is laying on our heart. It could also be for open doors, closed doors, money, food, faith, strength, good health, connections, platforms, etc, etc.

We need a clearer picture of God’s provision so that our dreams and goals don’t get stuck in lack.

God's provision will launch us into our destiny! Click To Tweet

I believe I could study God’s provision the remainder of my lifetime and never truly grasp the depths of it. But I welcome the challenge to go deeper and deeper as He leads.

This morning, He led me to the two books of Thessalonians. Let’s look in these two books for His provision. And actually I’m just going to share a glimpse of it from the first two chapters in the first book. I encourage you to also read these two books. It is an experience that will change the way you see provision.

1 Thessalonians

1:1 God provides grace and peace.

1:2 God provides people for us.

1:3 God the Son provides us enduring hope.

1:4 God provides us with His love and provides us with family because He chose us as His own.

1:5 God the Holy Spirit provides us with power to know truth.

1:6 God the Holy Spirit provides us with joy.

1:7 God provides our witness.

1:8 God provides our platform or stage to be heard.

1:9 God provides the ability to be hospitable to others.

1:10 God provides our hope for the future and for the return of Jesus Christ.

The first chapter in first Thessalonians has ten verses and each one of these ten verses contains God’s provision! A perfect 10.

So often, when we pray for God’s provision, we are praying for money to meet our needs. His provision is SOOOOO much more than money. Yes, His provision includes money for our needs but we need to open our eyes and ears and hearts to fully understand what His provision includes so that we don’t limit what we receive.

Let’s take a look at chapter 2:

2:1 God provides our success.

2:2 God provides our courage and boldness to declare the Good News of Jesus.

2:2 God provides a way through opposition.

2:3 God provides purity in the words we share.

2:4 God provides the ability to please only Him.

2:4 God provides purity in the motives of our hearts.

2:5 God provides us with a powerful witness in Himself in protecting our motives.

2:6 God provides us with NO desire for human praise.

2:7 God provides us with the discernment to care for His flocks.

2:8 God provides us with the ability to be transparent in our living.

2:9 God provides us with the ability to work hard.

2:10 God provides the strength to be steadfast and honest.

2:11 God provides us with the love of a Father.

2:12 God provides us with the encouragement to build others up in His kingdom.

2:13 God provides us with confirmation that His Word is being spoken through us and being heard by others.

2:14 God provides us with strength to withstand persecutions for His Son’s sake.

2:15 God provides us with strength to conquer death for His Son’s sake.

2:16 God provides vindication upon those who persecute us.

2:17 God provides heart connections among His people.

2:18 God provides open doors as well as closed doors.

2:19 God provides our reward and crown as we share His Son Jesus.

2:20 God provides pride and joy through the love and sharing with others.

Again, every single verse in chapter two is filled with God’s provision.

And chapter two has 20 verses – double that of chapter one! Double the provision. I won’t continue through these two books but you truly can see God’s provision throughout if you are looking for it.

As I mentioned above, in my prayer time today I received these words for the acronym PPP ~ Privilege, Praying and Partnering.

We have the privilege of praying with God as He chooses to partner with us to do His work.

And as we pray and partner with Him, He will provide all that we need! What a privilege it is to be able to not only talk with but to also partner with God Almighty! His ways are so perfect. Let Him start showing You provision today.

Here is my prayer for all of us:

Father,

As we come before You in our time of prayer, open our eyes, our ears and our hearts to receive all that You have for us. Please break down those barriers we’ve erected that hold us back from seeing Your provision in our lives. Help us cultivate a giving and loving and thankful heart. Create in us pure hearts and renew steadfast spirits within us.

Father, use us in mighty ways in Your kingdom. Show us those in need around us and give us Your Words to speak that will open their hearts to receive You. Thank you, Father, for Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit which you have given so freely. Help us to give freely to others.

As we stand before You, enable us to live a life worthy of Your call. Give us the power to accomplish all the good things that our faith prompts us to do. Let us bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. It is in His holy name we pray.

Amen♥

Stay in the Light and Love always,

Eva

31 Days of Joy ~ Day 28 Stop and Reset

December 28, 2017 By Eva Conner Leave a Comment

The batttle is all in our head. We must stop and reset.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

Dear Father,

Thank You for Your Word. We praise You and love You. Help us to grab hold of our thoughts and take them captive. When those things that are not conducive to bearing fruit pop in our heads, help us to replace them with thoughts of You.

To do this, we know that we need Your Word tucked away deep within.

Give us the ability to read Your Word and retain what we read. As we read it, make it come alive for us so it’s easier to remember. As we lean into You, help us to become more and more conscience of our thoughts and mindsets.

Break strongholds that cause us to think incorrectly. Conform us into the very image of Your Son Jesus.

It is in His name we pray.

Amen♥

Today’s Transformation Tip

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5

The battle is real. And the real battle is in our head!

We must learn to take our thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. This is how we will be transformed into His image. Paul’s words tell us when we take our thoughts captive, we demolish arguments that speak against the knowledge of God. This is a powerful truth.

We have to begin getting the world’s voice out of our head and replace it with God’s voice.

It’s not something that happens overnight. It is a long process that we must be intentional about in order to be transformed.

Intentionality and persistence win the prize!

When those thoughts pop up about that person who hurt you and you start rehashing it in your head, stop.
When you think about that situation at work with the co-worker who rubs you wrong, stop.
When you rehash that fight you had with your spouse, stop.
When you begin to think about how much is due and how little you have, stop.

Stop, stop, stop and stop!!

Stop and reset. This is how we take our thoughts captive and retrain our minds. It’s worth the time investment. Not only will you be transformed into Christ’s image, you’ll be less stressed and anxious.