I remember when I was younger reading the footprints poem. Places in the sand marking whether the Lord had carried me through the troubles of life or walked with me side by side. I remember reading over this poem finding it beautiful and yet maybe in a way utterly missing all that this could mean to me. When I read the poem I was left with a thought, "Why wouldn't Christ want to carry me through all the troubles I face in this lifetime?" Isn't that a sign that He loves me? In particial, I am right..it is the mercy and love of Jesus Christ when we are carried through a difficutly. Yet, my understanding was limited. If Christ's carrying us means He loves us, then does that mean that all the times where my feet walked out the steps of my troubles, Christ didn't love me? For many years of my life I warred deeply in this troubling feeling. I lived like a pendulem. My mindset was, if all was going well in life, God loved me, but if things were not going well, then I had angered God and I was inturn being punished for it. Christ's love is not failed the way human love is!! We try to be unconditional, and in some cases, we do succeed, as much as a human can, but never once have we offered the same calibur of love to others or ourselves as Jesus has for us. His love is not based upon a merit system. His love not based on whether you offer it in return to Him. Instead, Christ's love is based on a choice, a nature, so in unison with WHO Christ is that He can be nothing less!!! The times when we are carried through troubles as opposed to walking the trials out side by side with Jesus, seem a moving target at points in life, doesn't it? The minute you think that you've decided just when Christ is going to carry through a situation, He will cause you to walk it out. Is this due to His feeling the name to toy with our emotions? No, honestly, it is not. Instead it is the Wisdom of the Lord and His understanding that complacency within the human heart is very easy to come upon. If we KNEW that we weren't really going to give much effort towards something and yet we were going to have fantastic results, we might easily become less invested in our relationship with Jesus. Nothing that Christ Jesus ever does is an action of impulse. Each of His actions are meant for the betterment of us in life. The fault with this thought, WE can't see what He sees, can we? From the outside....it just translates many times to the feeling that Christ is being cruel or not caring. If I told you that I want to start running marathons, you would say that's great...how long do you run right now? If I answered, "I don't run", wouldn't you find it ridiculous that I wanted to start running marathons? Preparation would be an essential in order that my goal could be achieved, right? Well, each of us have asked some pretty BIG things from God in life, haven't we?? We too have to have preparation times for what we've asked to be apart of. It isn't cruelty from the Lord that causes Him to walk out some of our troubles side by side with Him. Instead, it's a loving action of Christ knowing what it is going to take to be prepared to fulfill the dreams of our hearts. In a way, you are investing in your future self. Allowing your future self to become more prepared to live our in reality what only your heart's dreams have envisioned thus far. Looking back more in life now. The footprints that my feet have made in the sands of my life are many, but each of those prints have written across them a history that I have built with the Lord Jesus Christ. None of them have been easy, but they have caused me to learn so much about my loving Lord Jesus Christ. They are priceless to me. Pastor Daniella

I remember when I was younger reading the footprints poem. Places in the sand marking whether the Lord had carried me through the troubles of life or walked with me side by side.  I remember reading over this poem finding it beautiful and yet maybe in a way utterly missing all that this could mean to me.

When I read the poem I was left with a thought, "Why wouldn't Christ want to carry me through all the troubles I face in this lifetime?"  Isn't that a sign that He loves me?  In particial, I am right..it is the mercy and love of Jesus Christ when we are carried through a difficutly.  Yet, my understanding was limited.  If Christ's carrying us means He loves us, then does that mean that all the times where my feet walked out the steps of my troubles, Christ didn't love me?

For many years of my life I warred deeply in this troubling feeling. I lived like a pendulem. My mindset was, if all was going well in life, God loved me, but if things were not going well, then I had angered God and I was inturn being punished for it.  Christ's love is not failed the way human love is!!  We try to be unconditional, and in some cases, we do succeed, as much as a human can, but never once have we offered the same calibur of love to others or ourselves as Jesus has for us.  His love is not based upon a merit system. His love not based on whether you offer it in return to Him.  Instead, Christ's love is based on a choice, a nature, so in unison with WHO Christ is that He can be nothing less!!!

The times when we are carried through troubles as opposed to walking the trials out side by side with Jesus, seem a moving target at points in life, doesn't it?  The minute you think that you've decided just when Christ is going to carry through a situation, He will cause you to walk it out. Is this due to His feeling the name to toy with our emotions? No, honestly, it is not. Instead it is the Wisdom of the Lord and His understanding that complacency within the human heart is very easy to come upon.  If we KNEW that we weren't really going to give much effort towards something and yet we were going to have fantastic results, we might easily become less invested in our relationship with Jesus.

Nothing that Christ Jesus ever does is an action of impulse.  Each of His actions are meant for the betterment of us in life. The fault with this thought, WE can't see what He sees, can we?  From the outside....it just translates many times to the feeling that Christ is being cruel or not caring. 

If I told you that I want to start running marathons, you would say that's great...how long do you run right now? If I answered, "I don't run", wouldn't you find it ridiculous that I wanted to start running marathons? Preparation would be an essential in order that my goal could be achieved, right? Well, each of us have asked some pretty BIG things from God in life, haven't we??  We too have to have preparation times for what we've asked to be apart of. It isn't cruelty from the Lord that causes Him to walk out some of our troubles side by side with Him.  Instead, it's a loving action of Christ knowing what it is going to take to be prepared to fulfill the dreams of our hearts. In a way, you are investing in your future self.  Allowing your future self to become more prepared to live our in reality what only your heart's dreams have envisioned thus far.

Looking back more in life now. The footprints that my feet have made in the sands of my life are many, but each of those prints have written across them a history that I have built with the Lord Jesus Christ. None of them have been easy, but they have caused me to learn so much about my loving Lord Jesus Christ.  They are priceless to me. Pastor Daniella

In John 8:36, we read, “So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.” NLT   We have been set free, but so many of us have allowed the shackles around our minds to bind us so tightly that we aren’t willing to allow the freedom to become a reality to us.  Let’s pretend that I set a gift in front of you, wrapped in a box. When I set the box in front of you, I tell you that within the box you are going to find items you have wanted for years.  You look at me, look down at the box, but you choose not to open it. Due to this decision, you will not benefit from the contents of the box.  This scenario can be used to help further our understanding of the freedom made available in Jesus.  We are free, but we can live an entire life in shackles if we choose.  In Mark 2:22 Jesus says, "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins." NLTFor me, this scripture shows us that Jesus does not want to pour new thinking into an old mindset.  In other words, if someone has a mindset that keeps them in the shackles, and they are unwilling to part with it, what good is their freedom doing them?  When we allow ourselves to be transformed by the love of Jesus, we will start to soften in our mindsets.  Through this softening, we can begin to identify areas in our lives where we are hindering freedom to be a current reality in our life.  Just one example of this hindrance to freedom would be negative thinking.   Humans can set their minds to see the negative in almost any situation. I will example what I mean.  Years ago, I was at a birthday party for a lady I knew.  When it came time for the husband to give a gift to his wife, he very excitedly presented her with the gift box.  She took one look at the unwrapped box and began to complain about his “gift wrap” selection. She was so irritated at what he chose, that she refused to open the gift.  Find this ridiculous?  It is, but if we allow our minds to stay in the shackles of wrong thinking, we too will miss out on what Jesus has brought to offer us.  Again I site this scripture.   “So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.” John 8:36 NLT   The freedom that Jesus offers is there for us.  Please remember that the Lord gives gifts that look different than the World’s definition.  Try applying this realization to your life the next time that you are facing a difficult situation.  God is offering you freedom in the trouble, but it probably does not look the way you are expecting it to, you have to be willing to dig deep within the “gift box” in order to receive of this offering.  Pastor Daniella  http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella

Many times when trials are upon our lives, when troubles are presenting themselves within our lives, we quickly begin to question the motivations of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We don't mean to, but we do start to wonder if His conviction to bring to fullness the dreams He once wrote on the walls of our heart.  

A lack of results can quickly cause impatience within the mind of the one in waiting.  So often, we see time as our enemy.  Raising its ugly head to make us wait once more upon it. Yet, what if time were our friend? What if time waited was actually a sign that our path towards our goal was being made straight? (John 1:23) I would imagine that if we saw our waiting period as a friend rather than foe we would find begin to question Christ less.  

As a very goal oriented person, I am also someone very excited by the idea of quick resolutions to all matters. Yet there have been areas of my life that I haven't been able to rush to the result in.  One of the largest of these areas has been that of an emotional healing from what I have gone through as a kid/teen.  I have wanted to rush through the healing process, so desperatley I wanted this.  I just wanted a check list placed in front of me where I could quickly start clicking off each of the boxes and be done with it.  But that isn't how God works. 

He does believe in healing, but on His time and in His way.  Why His time and His way? The reason can be found in some simple life application observances.  I remember years ago, I had some friends who were desperate to build a deck in their back yard.  My friend and his buddy poured out the cement, spread it and then waited for it to set and settle.  My friend, not known for his patience decided the cement was taking too long for him, and instead of waiting for the cememnt to finish setting, he was going to get started building the deck.  Quickly he set about walking around on the still drying cement, setting the posts and building the landing area. He worked at a feverish pace, but the next morning when he came out to observe his progress, he saw that the decking had settle at different heights.  In his hast, he had rushed too many of the process that required time, and instead of a quality product, he and his buddy came to the conclusion that they were going to have to start most of the woodwork over.  

Now you might ask how this applies to your life due to the fact that you're not building a deck, neither am I, but I am trying to build a life founded in stability and a good foundation and it is there that my scenario has application in our lives.  Each of us wants progress, but if we are impatient and we start trying to rush the Lord, we are only harming ourselves. God knows that each of us need to have certain understanding prior to different break through's in our lives.  If we don't allow time for these understandings to take place in our lives, we are at risk that the break through's won't "set" right within our lives, and before long, we will find ourselves back where we started.  I don't know about you, but the idea of cycling over and over this pain I have been living in for many more years to come is a thought that I do not want to entertain.  

I want progress in my life, deeply, but I also know that I have to wait upon God to build the foundations in my life to be strong enough to uphold me upon each step towards getting better that comes my way. 

Christ wants nothing less than healing in our lives. In fact, the healing has already taken place, we are just learning what it is to walk within its reality. Waiting is not our enemy, it is a foundation.   

Personal note:
I, like you, am on this journey of life. I do not even begin to pretend to have it all figured out. I share these blogs because life's events have been difficult, just as they have for you, but I am determined to learn from my Lord and turn these Pains of life to Promises yet to come within my life.  I pray the same will hold true for you.  Pastor Daniella. http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella

The joy that we have been given as a gift from the Lord Jesus Christ is priceless. Many of us struggle to understand how to apply the joy of the Lord into our lives enough to gather strength from it.
I remember when my kids were younger, I would observe the events that would trouble them.  Many of these events were simple fixes to a parent, but to child, this was not the circumstance.  I feel the same is applicable to most of the situations that we are facing in our lives now. We trouble our minds so deeply over every issue in our lives, and yet with each, God has already set into motion the solution we will need to the problem.

God knows so much more than we do. I think many of us know this, but we don't apply it in times of pressure.  We resort to statements like, "Since I can't really do anything about what I am dealing with, I guess I will have to ask God for help." We often exhaust everything we can as a human and then reach out for the Lord.  Many of the times when we are rushing around trying to figure out what to do on our own, we are hindering the very strength that God is trying to render to us within our application of His joy in our lives.  We have such strength when we remember that Christ loves us and we are always within His protection, His assistance, His comfort, His sustaining all that we are not on our own. Each of these statements our strength to our ailing souls, but we have to let them live a longer life than just being words upon a page.

Instead, they need to become words where we draw the strength from in order to face all that we are in life.  My daughters will come to me at different points in worry over different matters. After talking over the matter, I am able to help them place perspective to what they are facing and that they can feel reassurance that I am here to help and that they don't have to face their troubles alone.  I reassure them of how loved they are and that we all make mistakes.  You see, this and SO MUCH MORE is what Christ is trying to do for us in our troubles.  He wants us to come to Him to find our strength because He is an unless pool of love, joy, and all things true and positive.

Christ never has a feeling anything less than being in love with us and living for us.  Always deeply desiring to help you lift your head from your troubles and instead to stare into His eyes that bounce in joy over you.

We are loved. We are worth it to Jesus. He's already proven what He felt over us. He already came and gave His life in order that a permanent connection would be eternally in place between you and him. Others in life might have let you down, but this is not true of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So the next time you face something that seems to suck the strength right out of you, instead of rushing to try to fix it all, take a moment.... place Christ first and ask Him to fill you with the joy that He alone can strengthen you with.  Troubles come and go in life, but Christ lasts forever. Pastor Daniella  http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com  https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella

A Life Walked Out, Step by Step

Remember being a kid and reaching up with arms out stretched in that universal signal children give of "Pick me up"? You, the kid, were so tired of using your own will to walk around, and instead you wanted someone else to do it for you.  Laziness, not really, just a realization that someone else was there that could, in fact, make life easier.  

When you become a follower of Jesus, you feel the same sort of "relief" is being offered to you again in your life.  Yet, we don't always get carried everywhere, do we?  What do I mean?  Think over the past four years of your life.  Make a mental note of the events that have taken place in those years.  You might have just listed some very powerful miraculous events, but more than likely, you also listed several moments that didn't feel so miracle filled. Let's leave that mental list on hold for a minute. Instead, follow me in a thought...

In life, an incorrect perspective can form.  This incorrect perspective can cause a follower of Jesus to feel that Christ is not rendering help unless He is carrying you out of a situation.  Remember above I asked you to make a mental note of the events that have taken place in the last four years?  Many of those events that you noted weren't situations where you were carried out of the trouble, were they?  This didn't mean that Jesus wasn't there for you.  Those times you weren't carried were actually times where a deepening of your trust was forming in your relationship with Jesus.

The Bible teaches us that we can only please Jesus through faith.  Faith is a very difficult idea to maintain in life, isn't it?  We fade in and out of this idea many times over the course of our walk with Jesus, but there has to become an underlying base of faith.  A foundation that starts to form.  The foundation becomes a faith not based on whether Jesus is there for you in a miraculous manner, but rather a firm understanding that Jesus is there for you all the time, no matter what the natural looks like.  This faith forms when we start exercising out trust towards Jesus.  Times in life when we are not being carried out of a situation serve to further a more personal relationship with Jesus.

Remember those times when you were young, when you did ask to be picked up by a parent, and they told you instead that you were going to have to walk.  At first, you didn't take it so well.  You might have even thrown a bit of a fit at the idea, but as fatigued and frustrated as you were, you still made it.

Don't we feel a bit the same way when we realize that the trial we are facing is not going to be one that Jesus will be carrying us out of?  What one of us wants to hear that we are going to have to walk out a difficult situation step by step?  Yet, if we yield our spirit to humbly learn from Jesus moment by moment, we will find that an inner strength is birthed.  This strength is fortified by the relationship that you and Jesus are building as you together walk out, step by step, of the trial you are facing.  A new relationship between you and Jesus is taking new form.  In place of wavered faith, a new foundation is forming where a vital trust for Jesus is coming to the forefront of your life.

This strengthening helps us to understand the very personal relationship Jesus wants from us. Which one of us really wants a God that only shows up for the miracles, and then walks away?  I know I don't.  I love miracles, but I will not allow life's precious moments of tender help from Jesus pass me by.    Pastor Daniella

 http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com TWITTER: https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella

Safe Guard Your Dreams

Doubt has an insatiable appetite, it will quickly devours our dreams, if we let it.  Each of us have dreams within our heart.  You might not have spoken them to a single other soul in life, but they are none the less a dream you feel will come to fruition.  I know from personal experience just how hard it is to believe that a dream once placed upon your heart, will in fact come to pass.  Doubt, at times almost seems in step with your every thought.  You exert effort towards believing, and just as quickly, doubt rushes up beside you to tell you how ridiculous your efforts are.  With doubt so quick to war against our dreams, we must learn how to “safe guard” our dreams against it.

The Bible teaches us that we overcome all evils with good.  Since doubt is an evil thinking in our lives, we must apply positive thinking in order to overcome it. 

1.       Invite Christ in.  John 15:5 tells us, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”  In everything we must include the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is the most vital step you take in setting out to accomplish anything in life.

How do we invite Him in?

First, ask Jesus Christ to help you in being sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s quiet nudging.   The Holy Spirit seeks to lead us to Jesus daily.  By requesting that Jesus help you to be sensitive, you are admitting that the human spirit can very quickly drown out the Holy Spirit, in order to follow our own ambitions.  You might not think of doubt as an ambition, but our soul seeks emotional extremes at points in our lives, and doubt can lead us to a great emotional extreme. 

2.       Trust that Jesus does want to bring the dream to pass in your life.  Isaiah 30:18 shares with us this, “The Lord longs to be gracious to you.” Niv   Christ planted that seed of a dream in you.  But just as everything planted takes time to come to harvest, so too do our dreams.  The waiting period that we go through while we anticipate our dream to come to pass is a blessed and has anointed time.  Luke 12:48 expresses why the waiting is needed. “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.”NLT   Too often in life, much is given and an utter failure shortly follows.  Jesus is not a careless giver.  He is preparing you to be ready for all your dream is going to require of you in life. 

3.       Learn to rejoice in the journey towards the dream with each day that you wait, and are willing to be changed and molded by the love of Jesus Christ, you are coming closer to the dream coming to fruition.  When we learn to trust that Christ knows what He is doing by having us wait, we will start to learn that each day’s wait is another day closer.  Remember, we overcome evil with good.  Perspective greatly determines how we can overcome many of life’s difficulties.

4.       Find daily things you can do that cause you to daydream about your dream coming true. 

Examples:  

•   Find music that inspires you, and uplifts your spirit.  

•  Place motivational scriptures in places that remind you that God is good and what He starts, He finishes. Philippians 1:6  

•   Make up a poster that announces your accomplishment as if it has already come to pass, place it in a room where you will pass by multiple times a day. 

•  Find something motivation to wear.  My husband had a ring made up for me that has “Abide, Pastor” written on it.  Do you have an heirloom that means something to you?  If it is small enough place it on something you can wear, a chain, or a jacket, some place where you will see it daily.  

5.       Guard Your Dream Many dreams are stolen by the devil in the blink of an eye.  Just one bad day can be enough for the faint of heart to give up.  If God placed this dream in your heart, then you have to understand, it is not up for grabs by the devil.  It is your dream that only you and God have together.  Protect your dream as you would the front door of your house.  You don’t just leaving it standing wide open and go to bed.  Why would you leave the door to your dream open to anyone who wants to walk in and steal from you?  You wouldn’t, but we do get lax in guarding our dreams.   Don’t leave your dream up to the interpretation of other people’s opinions.  Many people, whether deliberate or not, snuff out others dreams.  Their criticism is taken to heart, and when our dreams are unguarded, the criticism can be the poison that taints the entire work God has begun in you.

Vitally Important:  This thought has been very empowering for me in my life, JESUS IS THE LIFTER OF OUR HEADS. Psalms 3:3 He loves you with a real love.  One that you will experience nowhere else but in a relationship with Him.  It is out of this love for you that He has planted a seed of His dream for your life, in you.  Believe in Christ first, then together you and He will bring that dream into a beautiful state of reality.  https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella 

When I was young, we would bring my grandmother on some of our family trips. Many times, she would hand me a book filled with pictures that had purposely misplaced items within them.  With each picture, you were to scan over the items and then decided whether something was misplaced, disordered, reversed, or had nothing no place within the image.  I came across an old picture in a memory box the other day. Many times when when playing this game, you were to find about 22 items that were incorrect within the image.  I thought of how strange it was that many times when she first handed me the photo my mind was so quick to compensating for the mistakes within it that often times they would remain “hidden” to me.

Let me ask you a question? If I were to ask you to quickly name off 10 things that are not going well for you, wouldn’t you be able to do this within less than a couple of minutes? Probably.  Why do I bring this up this question?  Honestly, I think we don’t spend enough time, at points in our life, focused on what’s going well.

Rather than keeping a running tally of all the things that are right in our life, we tally up what’s wrong.  Instead of allowing a growing list of “thank you’s” to be mounting upon our lips for the Lord, we begin our morning prayers with a list of what’s wrong.  Life is not stress free.  My family is facing more than one difficulty in our lives right now, but to remain in a state of constant focus upon it, or to remain in a state where I am in constant search for yet another mistake within my life, serves no real purpose. Do we ignore the trials in our lives?  No, we can’t, but to let them become our primary focus is to missout on so much of life’s joy.  Try to begin a running talley of the good in your life, okay at first it might be harder to find, but a perspective change will aid you in this search.

When I would be doing those picture search pages that I spoke of above I would often reach a dead end about four away from finding them all.  Often times, I would decide to put the image away from my eyes for a few minutes and then revisit it.  When I would return to looking at the picture, I often times was able to very quickly identify the remaining 4 items. Why? Due to perspective.  I feel that perspective plays and enormous part in our lives. Some of the difficulties within our lives now are actually helping us to grow…they just don’t feel like it right now.  God’s blessing you all this evening. Pastor Daniella https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella  http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com

I remember years ago my friends and I decided to turn the typical game of “Mother May I” into a game of “Trust Your Mother”, or so we called it. We decided that instead of the original theory of asking, “Mother, may I take two steps? To which the one picked to be “mother” would answer, “Yes or No you may or may not” depending on what they decided about your progression through the game….We would turn the game into a game that would cause you to trust the person playing “mother”. You would exemplify this trust that you placed within the “mother” in your willingness to believe that they would guide you, by verbal commands, around a series of obstacles in the room, all while you were blind folded. The game, silly and childish, but I look back on that game at points in my life and think over the frequency of my unwillingness to trust the one directing me. I would analyze their motivations, were they sore losers? Did they favor someone else in the group typically? Should I really trust that they had my best interests at heart? To Trust- we give certain levels of trust every day, don’t we? Much of it is due to necessity, but we do exert it daily. We place some level of trust that our vehicle will not break down on us or that the subway will in fact reach the station. We trust that the elevators inspector has checked that the elevator has met all safety needs. We trust that our food has been correctly packaged and inspected. These and multiple other examples show that we do in fact exert trust daily. Many of us are struggling with the ability to let ourselves delve further into trusting Jesus Christ. At the slightest downturn of events in our lives, we quickly begin questioning whether Jesus really does mean to be the Lifter of our Heads, or uphold the promises that He’s given to never ignore the slightest glimmer of hope that still burns within us. Trust is a choice that we make. Yes, sometimes the trust that we are placing within those who do the above jobs aren’t always met with their end of the deal being fully upheld. Food does get tainted, elevators break down, vehicles don’t perform to their full potential, and occasionally, I would end up with a friend within the above mentioned “Trust Your Mother” game that didn’t guide my steps safely. A wariness sets in within our thinking that if it happened once, couldn’t it happen the next time just the same? This is entirely possible when it comes to human frailties and failures, but Jesus Christ has NEVER let down humanity and yet we are so easy to stop trusting Him or be very fearful to even start out doing so. Christ shows His “credentials” well prior to His asking us to trust Him. How? He came to Earth and gave His life for you in order that you would want to walk this life out with Him. Prior to his asking us to trust him He showed what he was really “made of”. He knows this journey that you are on with Him towards trusting in not an easy one, but it is through His very action of showing His true intentions to you ahead of time, that you can allow yourself liberty to realize NOW that Jesus Christ is the One that we can trust in life. Jesus Christ is patient, but He does ask you to be willing to keep walking towards Him daily in your journey of trusting Him. Pastor Daniella

Many of us spend years waiting in great anticipation for a blessings arrival. Yet when that moment arrives, often times we are met with a feeling of being utterly overwhelmed. Whether is be a new position at work, or a dream vacation long planned….these and many more can be situations that are filled with great dramas, both good and bad. God promises never to give us more than we can handle. I think this this idea applies to blessings as well. Often times, we are being “prepped” in our current situations in order to be prepared for our much anticipated blessing to arrive. Blessings come with frustrations. With a raise in position comes more deadlines, and more people depending on you for guidance. With a dream vacation come unforeseen hiccups in your travel plans and added stresses of full itineraries. Many of us apply the promise of God never giving us more than we can handle to the awful things in life, but do we actually allow ourselves to realize that the good things that we are waiting for are affected by this too. If God can see that you are going to be overwhelmed with a blessing you’ve been waiting on, wouldn’t it stand to reason that He would lovingly want to prepare you for its arrival? Allowing yourself to be worked with by God gives Him the ability to build you to be who you need to be for those amazing things to start taking place in your life. Above all, God wants to bless us, but He never wants His blessing to be seen as a curse in your life. He loves you. Pastor Daniella

I remember years ago when my daughter was a toddler she came into the living room holding a box of building blocks. The box so tightly gripped by her little hands, like she’d found the greatest of all treasures, she was beaming. My husband asked her if she would like to open the box and build something with the blocks. She quickly dumped the contents of the box on the carpet. When my husband started to pick up the blocks to build something, she said, “No, they need to stay in a pile.” Perplexed my husband looked at her. My daughter didn’t seem to understand that the blocks were meant for a loftier purpose than to lie in a pile on the ground. I think many times, we too don’t realize what Jesus is trying to build something amazing out of our lives seemingly mismatched pile of troubles. Many of us have had very difficult events take place in our lives. And through that, we have allowed these events to start to define our thinking. We decide that we will never be more than a child of a rage filled alcoholic, or no more than one who suffered at the hands of abuse, or someone who will never overcome to afflictions of verbal pain that we were placed under. But when we start to allow this mindset to grow within us, we are depriving our lives of the involvement of Jesus Christ. When we do this, we are shutting out the very involvement that will help us to build a beautiful life out of the pains we’ve suffered. Christ isn’t interested in our living with a pile of broken spirits and dreams, instead He wants to build a beautiful life for you. When my husband was able to realize that my daughter could not understand why he wanted to use the blocks to build a building with, he slowed down and asked her if she wanted to make something beautiful out of the pile on the floor. She answered that she did. He then very gingerly started to pick up the blocks one by one and build a tower. With each block that would leave the pile and be added on to the building, my daughter’s eyes would widen. She was so excited that such a large structure was in front of her. As the height of the building grew so did her cheers for her daddy. “Higher daddy, higher!” I believe that the more we start to release the pains of our past and present situations into the capable, trustworthy hands of Jesus Christ, we too will find that we become amazed by what Christ is trying to build with them. Isaiah 61:1 tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ has come to heal the brokenhearted. He came to proclaim that instead of our living captive to our pains that we are instead set free in Him. Freedom is a beautiful word with an amazing meaning behind it, but until we are willing to take hold of the fact that the reigns of our pain don’t have to dictate how we see this life, we aren’t really going to live in the freedom that Christ is seeking to give us. Until my daughter was willing to let go of her need to have the blocks in a scrambled pile and instead trust her dad to build something with it, the blocks remained nothing but a pile upon the floor. We too can often make this mistake. We hold so tightly to the pains of our past/present life that we don’t ever see what Christ was trying to make out of them. Allowing yourself permission to think differently than what your emotions dictate to you is one of the most amazing steps to recovering from the chains that pain can hold over us. Tomorrow, we will begin to talk over what is it like to start walking out of the power of the pains in our lives. For now, many blessings upon you. Until tomorrow, Pastor Daniella.

One of the most powerful promises being offered to us from Christ Jesus is the Promise that He will be our firm foundation, our stability. I think many times we over look this offer. Why? Because by the time that we are conscience of this offer from Him, we are so damaged by life that we have long been living as Pain as our foundation, not Christ. Many of us have been living with instability in our lives for so long that we have lost the sensitivity to understand that this is not how we are to be feeling. Have you felt utterly overwhelmed in the past few months? Have you found yourself in a state of saying, “this is more than I can handle”? What about this one, have you said, “If even one more thing goes wrong, it’s going to be my undoing.”? If you’ve found yourself saying these or other statements kin to these, please know you are not alone, many of us struggle with these thoughts as well. One of the most powerful steps we take to living differently in life is to recognize that the current condition to in not working. As you begin to identify the areas in your life where instabilities exist, don’t beat yourself up over them, instead just try offering a prayer something like, “My weakness is made perfect in your Jesus.” This is not about condemnation, this is about getting better! Jesus is the Lifter of our Heads, my friends. Lock that statement deep within you. How do you start working on the area you are beginning to identify as a trouble spot? When the situation arises where you would normally become disrupted, try to allow yourself the permission to react more out of the Peace of Christ than you do fear, worry, doubt, anger…. In order to live in Peace, we will do it by choice. Often times, instabilities in our lives are due to the fact that we allow the physical situation that we are living through carry more weight on our heart that Christ wants them to. Does that mean the life situations we are facing are not powerfully difficult? No, in fact they are, but each time that we are losing our Peace we are actually losing one of the most powerful tools we’ve been given in Christ Jesus. Allowing the Peace of Christ to begin filling your life with the stable foundation of Christ means that we are daily and hourly choosing to stare longer at our Christ than the situations in our lives that seem to be sent out to swallow us. As you begin to identify the areas of your life where you let instability steel your footing, your foundation, your PEACE, don’t allow yourself to forget the vital need it is to pray daily. In doing this, you are asking Christ to be the offering of strength that you need. Taking this journey WITH CHRIST is so important to its success, apart from Christ we are nothing, but it is in the journey of life that we find the strength to earnestly TRUST Jesus. You will eventually begin to live in a state of mind that sees that your Peace and Stability are not up for grabs. You will begin to live a life where more and more of your life is spent in stability, not because all is going well in your life, but instead because each time situational instabilities take place in your life, you seem them more as something that you will ride out with Christ than an event that you will allow to cause you to lose foothold. In this journey towards stability in Christ, you are going to have times where you feel set back. You cannot allow these to be an utter derailing for you. Remember, you are learning to live differently than you’ve ever lived in life. It’s going to be foreign to you at first, but the longer you walk it out with Christ, the more will come to a point where you value the stability and Peace FAR BEYOND you do giving into the “feelings” you are having of allowing yourself to become unraveled or overwhelmed. Above all—Keep your head up! Jesus has come to free the oppressed, to be the firm foundation on which we can build, and to be the Lifter of the heads of those who are broken. Jesus Christ offers you a love that has already shown its intention…for it is HE that has already given His life in order that you could live out this life with Him, united in a journey. I wish you nothing less than stability on the foundation of Jesus Christ in your life. Forgive the length of these past blogs, but these are some of the more important subject of frustrations that we face in life, instability, and I find it to be one of the most powerful promises being offered to us in Christ, the KEY is learning what it means to be being offered Peace in Christ as our stable foundation. It doesn’t mean that life is going to be perfect from here on out, but what it does mean is that you have a faithful friend/confidant within Christ Jesus and it is through Him that you are being offered more stability than you would ever find by everything going perfect to plan. I pray this blog is a blessing in your life. Pastor Daniella

Christ Jesus is trying to offer each one of us a firm foundation in which to build our lives on, but I think many times we over look this offer. Why? Because by the time that we are conscience of this offer from Him, we are so damaged by life that we have long been living as Pain as our foundation, not Christ. To begin to live upon the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ means that you begin to allow yourself to understand that you’ve been living among instability. One of the quickest ways to start identifying this instability in your life is to ask yourself how many times you feel “overwhelmed” in a given year. How many times do you begin to believe that if “just one more thing goes wrong”, it’s going to break you and be too much for you? When something goes wrong in your life, does it unravel the entirety of your emotional and physical being? If you are finding yourself answer yes to any of these questions… TAKE HEART!!! Many of us have lived in this state and are learning to live differently. (Instability in life sneaks up on us. Often times, I am finding that many of us have never truly lived within the Peace of Christ and this is the catalyst to our instability.) The most important thing we do in a road to changing is to make the decision that we WANT the change. We decide that we WANT to get well. Once you’ve come to the understanding that you are tired of living in the instability that you have been and that you want something different, then please allow yourself to take in this next statement as the truth that it is. Jesus Christ is more committed to being the help, support, and shelter you need as you set out on this goal, than anyone in your life! His offer to help you is iron clad and never reneged on. His support, help and shelter that are being offered to you are explored by your involving Him in your journey. Therefore, the next step you want to take towards living in stability with Jesus is to PRAY! This prayer is one that you will offer in variation over and over through the course of your life from now on. Why? Because we are to give the Lord Jesus Christ our First thoughts, desires, wishes, hopes, dreams….. The Bible very clearly tells us that we can do nothing without Jesus Christ. He means this not egotistically, but more rather from this aspect… Jesus Christ knows how hard life pushes at you, and He knows that you, just like He when He was here on Earth, need divine guidance through your journey. By involving Christ in the very beginning of anything you set out to do in life, you are “opening the door” of your heart, your trust, your thinking to Him. I will leave you with this thought tonight. This section of learning to live in stability, where your feet are starting to find firm footing is very important. I am going to break this blog up into section so we can take our time over the matter. As your day comes to a closing this evening, please allow these statement to wash over you. Christ didn’t intend us to live this journey of life alone. He didn’t want us to be stressed and overwhelmed by life. Many of us are, but instead of that being an area of condemnation, let it be the cry of help it needs to be in your life. Each of us are in need of help in life, and Christ is willing to fill that need. Tomorrow we will continue this journey towards learning the idea of applying a new thinking towards living without instabilities in our lives. Pastor Daniella

I remember last year walking out to our apple tree that we have in our back yard and picking an apple. Upon pulling it from the tree, I seem to unsettle many others from their connection to the tree.  Down from the tree fell about 10 more apples. This story seems irrelevant right now, but I ask you… Are there times in your life where one troubling event seems to send ripples throughout your entire existence?  As I your stability is no more than quilt hanging by mere threads of connectivity, each thread so feeble, so freighted in its own structure that if someone began pulling only at one of the threads, the entirety of your “stability” will fall to pieces.

If you aren’t familiar with this feeling in a metaphorical sense, these thoughts might sound of those that you’ve heard before.  “If even one more thing happens, I am giving up!” “I am barely holding on, I can’t possibly be expected to take on yet one more.” Any of those have a familiar ring to them?

One of the most powerful areas of our lives that Christ Jesus is trying to offer His Promises in our life is the Promise He gives to be our firm foundation. I think many times we over look this offer.  Why? Because by the time that we are conscience of this offer from Him, we are so damaged by life that we have long been living as Pain as our foundation, not Christ.

To begin to live upon the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ is to allow yourself to understand that you’ve been living among instability. What you might feel has been offering you stability may merely be situational stability.  The first way that you will know if this is the case would be by asking yourself if you often feel overwhelmed in life. Do you only feel at rest when life is running according to how you see it should? If it does, don’t worry… Many of us have lived in this state and are learning to live differently. TAKE HEART! The first step to solve anything is to recognize that the current condition to in not working. Due to the importance of this subject, I am going to split between two different blog entries. Tomorrow, we will talk over the life application ideas of learning to live with Christ as your firm foundation rather than the situations of life. I pray that these blogs are of a blessing to you.  May God bless your evening. Pastor Daniella. https://Twitter.com/PastorDaniella

Trust is a very difficult idea to build in a relationship. It is a time stamped process built around a slow growth of belief that someone is who they say they are. 

Jesus’ character has been misrepresented on so often a case that people being believing the deceptions of Him, rather than the Truths of Him. The antidote, to present the Truth of our Lord Jesus Christ in hopes to “clear up” the misrepresentations of Who HE really is for us in our lives.

So far, I have spoken of the Lord Jesus Christ being our Life, our Light, and now we are speaking of His being our Truth. Yesterday we talked over the level of deceit that many of us have lived under in our lives. Powerful lies that have recycled within our minds as we strive to live out life. Thoughts that often defeat us well before we even begin to live.

Trials and troubles raise their heads within our lives many times. Many of us have spent years letting each of these derail us at their onset.  But in Christ, we are being offered Promises that are life altering to our thinking. The Truths of Jesus Christ are the beautiful promises of Who He is for us.

 -Promises that He makes Perfect our Weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9) Times when it seems that the only “truth” rushing to meet our thinking are all the frailties of this physical life, Times when more Fear lives within me than Faith, Times when the evidence that surrounds me seem far more convincing than believing….these times and millions more are times where our Lord Jesus Christ is stepping in and perfecting our weaknesses.  When you are no more than a pile of broken dreams, hopes ,and wishes…please realize it is in our weakest states that Jesus’ strength is being offered as a backbone to our brokenness. Instead of beating yourself up that you don’t feel all the strength you are hoping to within every moment of life, come to the feet of Christ and pray. It is HE who perfects our Faith. He offers not a hand of judgment, but rather a heart of compassion.

-Jesus Christ is our Daily bread (John 6:48) We are being invited to sit at the table with the Lord and dine more on His love and Promises than we do the daily dolling of painful thoughts of life’s lies. I remember when my children we young. They would be readily accepting of food offered until they reached a point of being “full”. Their bellies so content that there was no need for further nutrients.  We too must live ready to dine only on the love, comfort and promises our Lord and then once filled up on Him, be ready to set out to take the day on.  Why be full of the Lord? So that when the lies of life come to offer their falsehoods as something for us to feed on, we have no room to eat of them.  We too, just as my children would do, push the spoon being offered away and shake our heads.  The longer we allow Jesus Christ to be the one who feeds us, the more readily we will come to see that the lies of this world offer no sustenance to our lives. This is a daily journey and one that Christ Jesus is willing to walk with you.

Tomorrow we will continue to learn of the truths that Christ is for our lives by exploring both his promises and the actions that He takes within our lives. I pray that you are blessed by the words shared with you in this blog. I pray your evening is a good one. Until later, Pastor Daniella. https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella  http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com

Yesterday I talked about the fact that trust is a time stamped process. Trust is not built in a day, but more rather it is a seed planted within us that is slowly and lovingly fed in order that its strength gains daily. In order to truly “trust” anyone in life, we decide that we have learned enough of their character and habitual actions that we can feel “safe” to allow a belief that they are someone who won’t hurt us. 

Jesus’ character has been misrepresented on so often a case that people being believing the deceptions of Him, rather than the Truths of Him. The antidote, to present the Truth of our Lord Jesus Christ in hopes to “clear up” the misrepresentations of Who HE really is for us in our lives. 

In preparation to our speaking about the Truth that Jesus is in our lives, I spent time talking about the deceit that many of us are faced with. The things we treasure most in this life are often precious to us because they are rare. The Truth of Christ is the rarest of its kind.

Many of us have awakened to thoughts that we quickly start mulling over and taking in as our truth. Thoughts like: “You aren’t worth it. You will never be able to accomplish what you’ve set out to do. That thing about Jesus never giving you more than you can handle is such a crock. No one in life will be able to love me, I am not lovable. I can’t overcome this addiction. I will never be able to rise above the situations I am facing. Pain is all I am ever going to know in life. I am so stupid, I’ll never learn this. I’m the only one I can trust in life.” Each of these and many more are greatly difficult to overcome, and left to our own devices, many of us will not overcome these thoughts.  Yet we are not alone in our daily battle to overcome the deceitful thoughts that we each struggle with. Jesus Christ is Truth and He is willing to live as that truth in your daily life.

Above I listed deceitful thoughts that meet our minds. These thoughts are very powerful in their nature, aren’t they? In a world where we are forever struggling to keep our heads above the water, it doesn’t take much being said in order that we would start to believe that we are in fact in over our heads, or not worth it, or that pain is forever going to be existent in our lives.  I spent years getting into agreement with the painful things that have been said over me in life, but then I slowly started seeing them as lies. But here’s a key…the only way that I started to see them as lies was through the fact that I started believing that Jesus Christ was the ONLY TRUTH in my life. I started seeing that His viewpoint of me was the only Truth that held weight in my life.

When I was growing up, my father, so hurt by his painful past, would drink heavily. His drinking left him with a nightly rage session that he would take out on us. Due to this, I have lived with guilt ridden thinking and enormously overwhelming anxieties that have been a burden that I have carried almost my entire life.  Due to this thinking, I have allowed enormous deceitful thinking into my life.  I allowed myself for so many years to live in a state of emergency. Peace had never once be present in my thoughts, not once. Even in a moment of joy in my life, I had such a deep dread for the oncoming of something going wrong that I truly can say peace was utterly foreign to me.  But as I spoke of above, my life started changing when I discovered what it mean to have the Truth of Jesus Christ present in my life.  I found that when a situation would present itself where I would normally become replete with anxiety, that I could in fact learn to become more peace driven than I was anxiety driven. I started seeing, over time, that in those first few seconds of doubt, worry, anxiety….became present in my life I was being offered a moment of Truth in which to view the situation, I was just too wrought with the anxieties of my emotions to hear it.  I found that the more I exercise not reacting in the first few seconds of life’s troubles and instead waiting for the Truth that Christ was trying to show me in any given situation, I found that the deceitful thoughts started losing more of their power over my life.  As anxieties, worries and doubts lost their power of my thinking, I found that I began to gain in strength of my Trust towards Jesus Christ. In turn, I began to experience Peace, Stability, and Strength in my life.

The Truths of Christ are the promises that He has left with us. Tomorrow we will visit what some of those promises are in our lives in order that we can learn how to start viewing WHY we would want the involvement of Jesus in our lives.   

On a personal note: My friend, the relationship that we are in with Jesus Christ is a journey. Please understand that Jesus Christ knows how hard it is for those of us that have been deeply hurt in life to trust. Due to this, He IS a patient God! He knows that Trust is not built overnight, it is a lifetime’s journey. A journey that can be filled with your heart being healed by His love. I wouldn’t trade the journey I have been on with Jesus Christ for anything. He will forever be the Lifter of my Head and the provider of my joy and Peace. I pray my blogs are a blessing to you in your life. This is my deepest desire. To allow those who feel they have no more hope to know there is ALWAYS hope in Jesus Christ. Pastor Daniella. 

Daniella. https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella  http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com

Trust is a time stamped process. Trust is not built in a day, but more rather a seed planted within us that is slowly and lovingly fed in order that its strength gains daily. In order to truly “trust” anyone in life, we decide that we have learned enough of their character and habitual actions that we can feel “safe” to allow a belief that they are someone who won’t hurt us.  This process of thought holds true within our relationship with Jesus.  We are on a journey with Jesus Christ, learning to trust that He is all He is said to be.  Please understand something, Jesus knows how HARD it is for a hurting person to open their lives to Him. But, Jesus is patient and better than anyone in your life, He truly seeks the best for you.  He’s willing to walk a lifetime with you in order that you learn of Him and grow in your trust of Him daily. He just wants you to begin the walk with Him, step by step, day by day.

One of the ways that we learn to trust Jesus Christ is by beginning to truly allow ourselves to accept that He is Truth, but in order to present truth, we must spent time thinking over the idea of truth and why we value it so heavily.  Many times, we value something because it is a stark contrast to our daily exposures of life. In preparing for this evenings blog, I spent time allowing myself to freewrite my thoughts are the contrast of truth. The first that came to mind is the most evident, lies and deceit.  

All of us, at some point or the other, have been victim to rumors spread about our character that were not built upon a single validity.  Those rumors often warp the perception in which people view us.  The only antidote to the believability of these spreading lies is people learning the Truth. 

Jesus’ character has been misrepresented on so often a case that people being believing the deceptions of Him, rather than the Truths of Him. The antidote, to present the Truth of our Lord Jesus Christ in hopes to “clear up” the misrepresentations of Who HE really is for us in our lives. 

Deceit runs ramped in this world, doesn’t it? Whether it is a commercial claiming to be the “world’s best”, a boss misrepresenting his intentions to his employees, or cover ups so magnificent in size that they topple entire corporations, we have all been exposed to deceit.  Yet there is a much quieter, conniving deceit that is present in each of our lives daily. It is fed to us in palatable spoonfuls and many times coated with a tasty substance designed to encourage our devouring the lies to such a degree that we begin to take them on as truths.  

These lies that we swallow are not as easily distinguishable as a company that hides its red ledger books only to be found for the fraud it is. No, these lies, readily accepted among the masses, have encompassed many of us well before we knew we were being brought for a ride.  These lies are those words that float around in your head that tell you: “You aren’t worth it. You will never be able to accomplish what you’ve set out to do. That thing about Jesus never giving you more than you can handle is such a crock. No one in life will be able to love me, I am not loveable. I can’t overcome this addiction. I will never be able to rise above the situations I am facing. Pain is all I am ever going to know in life. I am so stupid, I’ll never learn this. I’m the only one I can trust in life.” You may not have heard all of these lies, but at some point in your life, you’ve heard something a kin to them.

Each of these lies and millions more are fed to humanity daily. We take them as truths because we are hurting and utterly starved of hope.  But these lies have provided nothing but depression, anxiety, fear, worry, doubt, smashed dreams, addictions, and mistrust among us as a people. To reach for something different than what we’ve currently been accepting as truth, we must decide that we want an alternative to the roller coaster of emotions that we’ve been living.  It means that we will start to allow our thinking to come up out of the fog of deceit we’ve been living among and instead start to have faith in Christ being Who He says He is. 

Tomorrow I will speak of the Truth that Jesus Christ is in our lives.  I look forward to this. I have lived many years in an emotional struggle against the battles of overcoming the pains of my childhood.  I share these blogs with each of you in hopes that your heart, too, will start to experience what real freedom and truth tastes like. I want nothing less for you. May this blog be a blessing to you in your life.  Until tomorrow. Pastor Daniella. https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com/

Yesterday I spoke of the idea that many people are willing to accept the idea of there being a Jesus Christ, but few allow themselves trust Christ to become intricately involved in their lives. 

When people are told that the love of Jesus is offered only through a merit system, When the courage is summoned long enough to step foot in a church only to be met with judgmental glances, When those sent to be the “children of God” find more reasons to exclude than to include………you can easily see why a discouragement towards the involvement of Jesus can begin.  

Jesus Christ is not a religion. He is the Son of God seeking to love the whole of humanity…not just the select few that others of this world would deem “worthy”.  When Christ is presented in a light that cast undue shadow upon His character, the result is an overwhelming mistrust of just Who Jesus Christ is and the true intentions that He has for our lives. 

Today, I would like to talk about discovering, perhaps for the first time, the true heart of Jesus Christ. In order to truly “trust” anyone in life, we decide that we have learned enough of their character and habitual actions that we can feel “safe” to allow a belief that they are someone who won’t hurt us.  This process of thought holds true within our relationship with Jesus.  We are on a journey with Jesus Christ, learning to trust that He is all He is said to be.  Please understand something, Jesus knows how HARD it is for a hurting person to open their lives to Him. But, Jesus is patient and better than anyone in your life, He truly seeks the best for you.  He’s willing to walk a lifetime with you in order that you learn of Him and grow in your trust of Him daily. He just wants you to begin the walk with Him, step by step, day by day.

As I spoke of above. Trust is a time stamped process. Not built in a day, but more rather a seed planted within us that is slowly and lovingly fed in order that it’s strength gains daily. In order to learn of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must first turn to the only source that has never misrepresented Him, the Bible. Many of us know some scriptures that have been quoted here or there on a social media sight or seen on a billboard. Each of them powerful scriptures, but when we are unsure how to apply them to our lives, we find can find ourselves thinking, “Great text, what do I do with it?”

We are told (John 1:4) that Jesus Christ is the source of Life, and that this Life is the Light of all humanity.  The morning breaks and the day’s events seem to slap each of us up the face with stresses. Each of us are seeking a renewal within our bodies and minds daily. Jesus Christ offers to be this renewal of Life that we are desperate to find.  The Life that He brings to our daily life is to be the Light shed across the day’s events encouraging us to not take hold of the reigns of worry, but instead to seek the Face of Christ, our Life giver and Light bringer, as our day’s motivation.  I say Face of Christ, and something like that might not make all the sense in the world at first.  I guess in a way, I used to think it didn’t myself…but then I after the birth of my children I started to understand what this phrase truly meant in our life.

When my children were babies they were never really grand about going to anyone but me.  When they would find themselves in the arms of someone other than me, their face would become distressed and quickly their eyes would start to dart around in search of me.  All their stresses would subside and peace would return to them once I came in to view.  I picture this scenario being much to our lives as it was to my children’s…Our lives are stressed, out of sorts, and we are in constant seek for the source of comfort. This comfort we seek comes from only One source in our lives, the sight of Life giving Light bringing Jesus Christ.  

When we allow Life’s renewal and comfort to brought to us through Jesus Christ, we are learning what it means to allow the Light within the Lord’s life giving love to be the guide we need. We are learning that grasping at the fragility of life’s situations to be a source of peace giving comfort and stability is never going to play out in our favor. Life’s circumstances offer many a frustration, not a comfort. And if it is comfort that we are finding in a situation, it’s often times a temporary comfort.  Learning to let the Life that Jesus Christ is for our lives become the first thing we seek in a day, will aid us in setting the tone for our day and through that mental state of being we find that less of our thinking is quickly shaken by the disappointments and troubles each of us are dealing with.  Tomorrow we will explore another truth of Who our Lord Jesus Christ is to our lives.  For now, I remind you that Jesus Christ knows this takes time, but the most important thing is to start STEP BY STEP, allowing Jesus Christ into your lives. I wish you a blessed evening. Pastor Daniella https://twitter.com/PastorDaniella  http://pastordaniellaministries.weebly.com

She wakes, her feet hit the floor. Thought of the day begin to fill her head. They weigh upon her. “You’ve so much to accomplish today. How will you get it all done? You know it’s more than you can handle.” She sighs, worry and dread fills her heart. This scenario plays out in many a home across this world. The seemingly inevitable position of worry and dread of the days coming events. Many of us are facing uphill battles in our lives. None of which are honestly without their frustrations. Yet each of us are to be living a life of becoming renewed in Christ, not daunted and dismayed. True, many of us do face tasks that seem overwhelming and left to our own devices they would be, yet each of us are being provided an opportunity to live out this life with Jesus Christ at our side. Many people are willing to accept the idea of there being a Jesus Christ, but few allow themselves trust Christ to become intricately involved in their lives. When people are told that the love of Jesus is offered only through a merit system, When the courage is summoned long enough to step foot in a church only to be met with judgmental glances, When those sent to be the “children of God” find more reasons to exclude than to include………you can easily see why a discouragement towards the involvement of Jesus can begin. Jesus Christ is not a religion. He is a God/Man seeking to love the whole of humanity…not just the select few that others of this world would deem “worthy”. When Christ is presented in a light that cast undue shadow upon His character, the result is an overwhelming mistrust of just Who Jesus Christ is and the true intentions that He has for our lives. Tomorrow I will focus my blog on some of the truths that Christ shares Himself to be within the Bible. For now, I will ask you to please be willing to open your heart to understand that it is people who break our hearts and judge us harshly, it is not our Lord Jesus Christ. I too have fallen victim to the pains that people have caused in my life all in the “name of God”, but I want to encourage you that our Lord Jesus Christ is Love. Until tomorrow. Many blessings on your evening. Pastor Daniella.

A NEW RELATIONSHIP Have you ever had a teacher that believed in you? If not a teacher, a parent, a friend, a boss, a co-worker, a peer...someone who extended belief in you prior to your rising to the occasion? Due to this belief that they had in you, you decided that you could stretch yourself farther than you believed. You saw your potential through their eyes. Well then, you have seen a bit of what this relationship with Jesus will feel like. But, let me encourage you. HIS IS MORE, much, much MORE. Jesus does not just encourage, He gets right in the middle of the situation with you, rolls up His sleeves and works beside you. Do you look over and "see" Him, no...but it almost feels as if you can at points. I have not been perfect in my life. I have made many a wrong turn and at points just stood in stubbornness against what Jesus was trying to do in my life. He patiently loved me through all of that, and He will do the same with you. A teacher, a boss, a co-worker, a pier... their belief in you is only so deep. Jesus' belief is so strong for you that He DIED for you. Stop a minute. Take that in for what it is. Jesus believes in you so strongly that He Died in order that you could live. It is that man, the one who has given all that you might live, that asks to be in a relationship with you. Not some angry, overbearing, heartless Lord...instead the one that was moved in His heart so heavily that He offered forgiveness knowing full well that it was going to cost Him EVERYTHING! If you knew that you were going to be put to death in order to save the lives of people who are currently seeking after everything you hold abhorrent, would you still die for them? Jesus did. He offered forgiveness to those who were societies worst, knowing full well that each time He offered it, it was going to mean His life. We are being offered that same forgiveness. For while we are sinning He offers love. It is that Jesus that we can be in a relationship with. Not a Jesus that sees the stains of life upon us first, but instead... a Jesus that sees the beauty underneath...FIRST. He sees the one He loves first. He has seen your hurts, He knows the damage they have done, and wants to start a relationship with you that offers healing that will far outreach your pain. Pastor Daniella