The King is Enthralled with You!

Do you know that the King is enthralled with your personality? The Lord God who flung the stars in the sky and calls them each by name is delighted in and captivated by you! You are beautiful to him! He finds you interesting and important! (See Psalm 45, especially verse 11).

Jesus is so drawn to love us that he relates to us as Bridegroom to his bride! Wow! We can intimate with Jesus, passionately in love with him as he is with us!

How could we not honor him as our Lord and King? How could we not seek to live as servants of his kingdom in all that we do?

Pray with me - now and in the midst of whatever you're doing today, "With joy I embrace Christ in his kingdom" (Based on Psalm 45, especially verse 15).

Let the prayer descend from your mind down into your heart... "With joy I embrace Christ in his kingdom."

Keep this prayer open in a window on the computer screen of your mind. Picture Jesus shining in white robes and glowing as he embraces you in love.

This prayer puts a smile on my face! It warms my heart! In all that I do today it's helping me to look to Jesus and to follow his lead and rely on his grace.

How does this prayer effect you?

Staying Hydrated with Spirit Water

Have you ever gotten dehydrated?

I went for a long jog of about 14 miles in the heat yesterday. I love to run in the hills and pray and meditate. I got a late start and it was a HOT day! I drank lots of water before I ran, but didn't have any with me. I thought if I loaded up I'd be okay.

By the time I finished jogging I was really dragging. Afterward, I drank glass after glass of water. It took me the rest of the day to get fully hydrated!

What's the lesson? It's not enough to drink lots of water all at once - you have to keep drinking water.

It's the same way in our relationship with the Holy Spirit. He's the Living Water that our souls thirst for, but we can't drink him up all at once! We need to keep drinking in his presence through prayer. That's why Paul teaches us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

And when we're fully hydrated with the Spirit then we can become like a fountain that overflows with the Spirit to others.

Meditating on verses, thoughts, and images from Scripture - especially from the Psalms - is what helps me to keep drinking in the Spirit's living waters.

What helps you to stay hydrated with Living Water?

Your emotions: Can you trust them?

Many of us struggle with our emotions and what to do with them. Our emotions effect every part of our life, especially our relationships with people and with God and our effectiveness in life.

Some people try not to have emotions because they make life difficult or seem too vulnerable. They're afraid to react to emotion. So they rationalize or just detach. Or just stay busy. Anything in order to avoid being emotional or needy. They experience emotion as overwhelming or at least inconvenient.

Other people depend on their emotion to do the things they need to do. (Usually these people are emotionally reactive too.) They try to generate emotion to get excited or get them moving. They'll use music, drugs, food, or whatever to generate the feeling they want. (This is the basis of addictions.)

Jesus models a balanced approach to emotions. He felt his emotions, but was not controlled by them. He was always aware of his feelings, but not dependent on them. The Psalmist shows us the same balance, an "honest faith."

We shouldn't confuse our emotions with our heart. The "heart" in the Biblical understanding is our will, our freedom of choice. If emotions are in the position of our heart, our center, then we're in trouble!

Can you trust your emotions? Yes and no. They are one source of discernment and energy (we call them e-motions). But we need others sources.

Always we want to be aware of our emotions. But never do we want to be controlled by them.