Happy New Year 2019: Entering the New Year With Hope and Prayer!

Read: Jeremiah 29:11-13, Mark 11:17, James 4:2, Matthew 7:7, Hebrews 4:16, Romans 5:1-5, 1 Corinthians 3:16, and Numbers 6:24-26

Happy New Year 2019!

Can you believe it’s a new year already!? As we look forward to any new year, we often look forward with the hope of better things to come and if you’re in Christ, you have much to remain hopeful about!

If we’re honest, sometimes we can lose sight of the hope we have because of the circumstances we face, but, we need to be sure that our hope is grounded completely in The Lord or it’s not true hope at all! Why? Because if our hope is in Christ, this is not a temporal hope as hope in Him is an unshakable hope! This is the true hope that is built on the unshakable foundation of Jesus!

Let me encourage you to remember during every season of life, including all that’s ahead in this New Year, that nothing you face can shake the hope you have in Him!

Hold on to hope in Christ! Don’t allow anything to steal your hope and may you realize that your faith and hope should grow even stronger through the help of The Holy Spirit.

It’s been an especially challenging year for many of us for sure and for some it’s been a year of blessings upon blessing.

Regardless of what you’ve experienced, it’s still a perfect time to reflect on all the Lord has done in your life and to take a perspective, or “pulse” check to see where you are in your walk and life with the Lord.

He calls each of us to seek Him with all of our heart and promises that we will find Him and He will listen. Enter the New Year focusing on building and enhancing your prayer life. Based on His Holy Word we know that He wants our churches, the Body of Christ as whole, and ourselves to be “Houses of Prayer” or in sum, focus ourselves on prayer as He emphasizes that prayer should be a priority.

If the Lord wants us to pray, and it’s a true priority to Him, then why don’t we in turn really pray!? In fact, the Lord is the best role model of this for us as He constantly went to pray to the Father and He called His Disciples to pray many times. Each of us should be a house of prayer as we are His temples. (See 1 Corinthians 3:16) Not only this, but, He just plainly deserves our prayers and everything we are. Not to sound somewhat cliche but we should really become true “Prayer Warriors”, as this life is a real battlefield, spiritually and physically.

In Jim Cymbala’s book "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire", he has this to say about the apostles’ priority of prayer,

“The apostles had this instinct: When in trouble, pray. When intimidated, pray. When challenged, pray. When persecuted, pray.”

What a great observation! What a truly awesome challenge for us- Can we like the apostles, make prayer our priority in every circumstance, even when we’re not facing troubling times? Just making prayer so much a part of us that we pray throughout the day or set a special portion of the day a side to, intercede, cry out, praise, thank, communicate, etc., with Him through prayer! He wants to hear from us. It pleases Him so much when we focus our attention on Him through prayer.

Why not forget the New Year resolutions this year and consider instead, seeking God’s will for your life and telling Him the desires of your heart? Why not pour yourself out to Him through your fervent prayers and serving Him and others?

May you renew your commitment or begin making prayer a vital part of your life- every day! This can begin with you and I then maybe, just maybe, our example of a prayerful and a “prayer full” life will spread to the Body of Christ as a whole, then on into every Christian Church locally where ever we live around the world?! We can then be the houses of prayer, as the Lord would desire us to be.

Why not make this year an even more special New Year, by entering it in prayer! Seek Him today with all of your heart and be encouraged that He desires this and is ready and waiting to hear from you.

Ring in the New Year filled with hope and prayer!

Questions To Get Started With:

-What or Who is the foundation of your hope?

-What are the barriers in your life to holding on to true hope in Christ?

-Do you remain hopeful no matter the circumstances you face?

-Will you help build others up with the hope you have in Christ?
-Will you make prayer a priority in your life this New Year?
-Will you “pray in” the New Year this New Year’s Eve?
-What kind of changes do you need to make in order for prayer to be a priority?
-If prayer is already a priority for you, what can you do to encourage others to pray?
-Do you know someone that can help you be accountable to your commitment to the Lord in your walk with Him?
-Consider keeping a prayer journal chronicling / highlighting your prayer times with Him, answers to prayer, the revealing of His will for you over time, etc. This is a great exercise for us to make a habit to see Him at work in our lives.

Again, Happy New Year! Keep Seeking, Serving, and Loving Him with all that is within you! 

Your Brother and Servant in Christ,

Randolph Koch

-Founder and Servant-Shepherd of A Shepherd’s Heart

The Source of Your Identity

Dear Friend, 

I wanted to take a moment to simply remind you that if you are in Christ, you are a new creation and your identity in Him is what matters plain and simple!

No one's opinions defines you nor does your past!

"When we finally understand and are confident and secure in our identity in Christ, our past as well as the opinions of others regarding us will not shake or define us!" -Randolph Koch

To learn more about your identity in Christ, Dive into God's Word and abide in Christ and you will discover your true identity!

True security and identity will only be found in Him! He is truly the source of who you are!

For further encouragement from God's Word, Please check out this post and pass along the Truth of God's Word about who you are in Christ: http://www.ashepherdsheart.org/2012/03/who-you-are-in-christ.html

In Christ Alone,
Your brother and servant,

rlk

PS: Check out this new page on A Shepherd's Heart: 
http://www.ashepherdsheart.org/p/ministry-service-offerings.html which is a growing basic list of areas where I may be able to serve you!


#faith #hope #truth #wisdom #life #Jesus #identity #whoyouareinChrist#believe #christfollower #christian #Christianity #bible #scripture #Godsword#heart #mind #soul #strength #ashepherdsheart 

Growing Closer to God

It's time for a healthy dose of self-evaluation and planning...

Here's a quote I saw recently and wanted to share it with you: "Everyday, do something that will lead you closer to God." -Unknown

So the question and the challenge is this, what are you going to do today and planning on doing tomorrow and each day going forward to grow closer to God?

Any relationship takes work and especially your relationship with God takes commitment an investment of time for it to grow!

My prayer for you and I is that we'll keep seeking The Lord and seeking to grow in our relationship with Him each day finding at least that 1 thing that will allow you to grow still more for His Glory and your good!

Here are some Helpful Keys for growing in your relationship with God:

1- Regularly get into and stay in His Word - Study His Word!

2- Seek Him through prayer! - Communicate with Him!

3- Serve Him!

4- Live a Spirit-filled and Spirit-Led life for by taking God's Word and actively living it out!

Have a great week ahead and may you actively seek Him will all of your heart, soul, mind and strength!

Blessings,
rlk

For Freedom, Christ Has Set Us Free!

Had to share this encouragement with you! 

For Freedom, Christ Has Set Us Free! 

Check out this brief Scripture Video: 


For Freedom, Christ Has Set Us Free from Harvest Bible Chapel 1 on Vimeo.

Blessings and love in Christ,

rlk

Don't Quench The Spirit

We live in a day and age where the Word of God and His Spirit, Our Great Helper are devalued - sadly even within many churches today.

The fact is that The Word and The Holy Spirit really go hand in hand in the life of the Believer. Why, because the key to living a Spirit-Filled and Spirit-Led life is taking God's Word and actively living it out in your life. The more your life is saturated with God's Word the More Sensitive you can, should, will become to The Spirit's leading.

We can and do sometimes ignore the messages we hear and just the reality we know tell us that we need The Word of God daily in our lives because, "I've heard this before". Well maybe you need to actually hear and do something about it this time!?

We can also do things; we can make decisions that cause us to in essence sort of "dull" the voice of the Spirit in our lives. We can also blatantly ignore The Spirit's leading.

You and I need to actively seek to be walking in the Word and in The Spirit and I think today's devotion is a great reminder from a trusted devotional "My Utmost for His Highest".

Take this to heart and actively seek God's Word and direction for the Word and the Spirit each day! Stop trying to do things on your own because to be truly honest this thing called life, sorry but you don't really "got this"! You need His Word and His Spirit to truly live and more importantly live for Him!

Check out the below.

In Christ,
Your Brother and Servant,

rlk
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"Do not quench the Spirit" —1 Thessalonians 5:19

By Oswald Chambers

http://utmost.org/do-not-quench-the-spirit/

The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.

Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, “Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.” If you have put your “hand to the plow” and are walking in the light, there is no “looking back”— the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to “walk in the light” by recalling your past experiences when you did “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.

Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.

Unforgiveness

If you’re a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ, then you’ve experienced the power of forgiveness first hand. Because of your own experience it has become typically easier for you to forgive others when they’ve done you wrong, right? :-) Ok, so maybe it’s not so easy sometimes but since God is helping us grow in the grace and knowledge of Him this is a very needful area that we need to work hard on and allow the Holy Spirit to direct our paths.

You see, unforgiveness has a lot of negative impact on people such as: it steals our joy and even more important it also is contrary to the teachings of The Word of God. It also cheapens the sacrifice He made for you and I when it comes down to it. He first loved and forgave you so in turn you and I need to really work on forgiving others. Now, this doesn’t me we need to “jump back into the snake pit” as they say because sometimes trust takes time but it does mean we are to forgive those, yes even those who “bite” us.

I wanted to share the below devotion with you that is a powerful reminder of unforgiveness and forgiveness.

But before I do, let me share some parting words: I can only imagine the hurt and pain you’ve been through at the hands of others whom you loved and trusted, let me encourage you to forgive them because even if the relationship isn’t back to 100%, you need to begin to heal from the wounds and if you can’t forgive, you won’t totally heal until you do nor can you fully honor God in your life until you do. Seek God, pray hard and give it some thought and God will help see you through!

Your Brother,
rlk

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Unforgiveness
By Pastor James MacDonald

"Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors . . . For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Matthew 6:14-16

We're on one topic today and we're not getting off it till I'm sure you get it.

Nothing will cut a swath of devastation across your soul like unforgiveness. It is the absolute opposite of the life God calls you to live.

I know someone has hurt you and I'm sincerely sorry for that but you don't have to prove you were right.

You don't have to demonstrate the superiority of anything.
You've got to let it go.

Matthew 6:14-15 says, "If you don't forgive, my Father
won't forgive you."

Living in unforgiveness is a barren, tortured existence. Even those of us who have experienced God's love and forgiveness need to be reminded about what we have received. It's so easy to slide into a self-centered mess of unforgiveness.

Contrary to what some might think, unforgiveness isn't private. People will seethe in silence, insisting, This is just between me and him. But that's not true. It's also destructive to innocent people around you. How many people in your life have suffered because of an unforgiveness issue in your heart that has absolutely nothing to do with them? It seeps into the tone of all your conversations. It leaks out in your impertinence and impatience, your short temper and rashness. People who you love, who have done nothing wrong, suffer because of the unforgiveness that you're holding over someone else.

Unforgiveness is sin. It will eat away at your being until you choose the crisis and commit to the process of forgiveness. But that can all change.

This could be an awesome day--you have the choice to change. You have the chance to choose. I wonder if heaven is leaning over you and wondering what choice you are going to make. Your destiny depends on it.

To clarify, you are not saved by forgiving, but forgiving is what saved people do. This is one of the litmus tests for reality. Making the choice to forgive is one of the things that prove you truly belong to God.

Father, it must grieve Your heart even more than ours to live in such a dark world where people say things and do things that wound so deeply. But by Your grace I can forgive. I can simply release the pain to You and let it go. I choose by an act of my will to trust You and Your Word. I'm not going to hold it over the person who hurt me anymore when I have to see him or talk to him. I'm not going to go over it in my mind anymore. I want to handle it as You would. I want to be a forgiving person.

Forgive me for my pride, my anger, and the pointed comments that reveal the woundedness in my heart. Cover me with Your love. Let Your grace displace all that is ugly and angry and unforgiving in me. By Your grace, I choose to forgive.
In His name. Amen.