2 Corinthians 1:3-4 – “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.“

Trouble, trials, difficulties, and disappointments are a part of life.   But they are not the definers of life.  They are events and should be catalysts to higher realms.

Unfortunately, most people focus on difficulties from a “Woe is me” attitude rather than as a stepping stone or a transforming experience.   We look at life rather than through it to God’s purpose and finished product.   One way brings despondency and defeat, but the other growth and victory.  Choice is always involved, and choice is determined by how we look at life.

In 2 Corinthians 1:4, Paul reminds us that the ministry of Jesus is to come alongside us in Every suffering and comfort us.   Is the focus only on us?  NO!   It is to equip and enable us to comfort others who are being battered by life.  We can only give what we have.  So, if they are struggling and we don’t have this revelation and relationship, we will add weight to their trial, not relief. 

2 Corinthians 1:6 – “If troubles weigh us down, that just means that we will receive EVEN MORE comfort to pass on (to others).”

Difficulties, trials, struggles, and disappointments have a benefit.  Seriously!  They enable and teach us to Lose All Confidence or faith in ourselves.   We can’t do it, so we realize that our Only Hope is GOD!

2 Corinthians 2:14 – “God ALWAYS makes His grace VISIBLE in Christ, (seeing Jesus and His finished work is indispensable) who includes us as PARTNERS in His ENDLESS TRIUMPH.”   [Emphasis mine] Hallelujah!

The next verse says that through our yielded lives (hear that phrase), He (God) spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere we go!   Wow!  We can be the perfume of God in a world of putrid stench.  Talk about an attention-getter. 

People will flock to us to discover How we can have such a wholesome attitude in the midst of crushing pain and struggle.    Remember, it is Christ “In Us” before Christ “Through Us.”

Today, say to every struggle, pain, trial, and disappointment, your only result is to make me strong.  You cannot defeat me.  I am IN Jesus, and He defeated you.  Therefore, I defeat you.  

Read 2 Corinthians 4:7-18.   Please read it, meditate on it, and embrace it.  You, in Christ, are Victorious No Matter What Comes!

Have a Great Day, and keep this truth in your heart: God Never Fails.   

Psalm 66:10-12 – “For you, O God, have tested us; You have tried us as silver is tried.  ¹¹ You brought us into the net; You laid a crushing burden on our backs; ¹²  You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet You have brought us out to a place of abundance.”  ESV

At the beginning of the year, I heard in my Spirit that this was the year of the “Open Door; it will be the Pour of More!”  That resonated then, and as we are approaching 2025, I sensed in my spirit that the Holy Spirit was asking, “Will you Thrive in 25?”  I believe that, even in the midst of the overwhelming darkness, God’s goodness, grace, mercy, peace, and provision will be abundant for those whose hearts are fully centered in and on Him.  Total Surrender!

That makes me declare, “This is a great day to be alive and thrive!”  I am praying for the Peace of Jerusalem and for your peace in His presence.  May the Power of God become your strength to renew you daily.  May the Grace of God keep you at all times.  May the Wisdom of God inform and guide you through the flood waters of life.

As I read, prayed, and meditated upon the Word, God’s incredible keeping power and strength comforted me powerfully.  Psalm 66 raises some questions and offers hope!  We can focus on the problem or the promise and the provider.  It is a choice. 

God’s goodness is nothing short of amazing!   We all face the fiery, overwhelming battles of life.  God’s promise is to be there and bring us through them.  The Psalmist says we come through these difficulties Better than when they began.    In that promise, we can and should become Saturated with God’s goodness!

The Psalmist brings a powerful revelation about honesty and openness to God. Psalm 66:18-19 – “Yet IF I had closed my eyes to my sin, the Lord God would have closed His ears to my prayer.  19 BUT praises rise to God,  FOR He paid attention to my prayer AND answered my cry to Him!”

Surviving and Thriving as we go through difficulties, troubles, and trials is contingent upon being open, honest, transparent, and repentant.  God is our present help in trouble and in safety.  This God is a Father to the fatherless, a friend to the widows and needs, family to the lonely, and freedom to the prisoners.

Psalm 68:27-32 speaks of triumphant victory.  In verse 27, we read, “Astonishingly, it’s the favored youth leading the way…”  That is prophetic about the Last Days Outpouring.   The young and old who have wrestled with God in intercessory warfare are rising.  The troubles of this present problem are pathways to purity and power. 

We are training for reigning.  Don’t run from trouble; don’t focus on yourself or the problem.  LOOK at and to God.  As we read Psalm 69, we are made aware that we will be victorious In Him no matter what!  Troubled times are troubling, but they are not the focus – God is.  God’s purposes are!  Harvest is!

I’m declaring Victory today!  God is going to pull us out of this mess and not let us sink (Psalm 69:14).  We need to laugh at the devil’s feeble attempt to discourage and defeat us.  When it’s over, you will be better than when it started.  Laugh at it.  A good belly laugh is in order.  Hilarious laughter is called for!  Become almost hysterical in laughter and watch the joy, peace, power, and presence flood in.  It works!

Have a fantastic day in Jesus and rejoice; this is the time for more and to thrive in God!   We are Victorious through Jesus!

Malachi 1:7-9 – “You are offering improper sacrifices on my altar, yet you ask, ‘How have we offended you?’ By treating the table of the Lord as if it is of no importance. ⁸ For when you offer blind animals as a sacrifice, is that not wrong?  And when you offer the lame and sick, is that not wrong as well?  Indeed, try offering them to your governor!  Will he be pleased with you or show you favor?” asks the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. ⁹ “But now plead for God’s favor that he might be gracious to us.” “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”

As I read, prayed, and pondered the Word, I received something that deeply resonated.   I’m not sure I can adequately relate it in a brief text.  I was reading in Malachi, and God spoke to me about demonstrating respect and honor.  The people challenged God’s declaration that they were dishonoring Him and demanded an example.

Malachi 1:8 revealed that they were offering second-rate offerings.  Wow!   Think about that.   Do we always give God our best?  Well, do we?    God told them that because of that, He would not bless them.  They were sacrificing and praying, but nothing was happening because of their second-rate offerings.

The statement in Malachi 2:9 stunned me momentarily.   “You have corrupted the Covenant of Levi.”  What?  The Levites were those who served by bringing gifts to God and thereby opening the door of blessing and favor for the people.   The second-rate offerings corrupted the process and blocked God’s servants from fulfilling their service rightly.  It closed the windows of Heaven.  

It might serve us well to examine our offerings and sacrifices.  Are they the best?  Are the spare change (not just monetary but second-rate)?  In 2:17, God said, “You have wearied Me with your words.”  Imagine that!  Second-rate living and giving causes our prayers and even praise to weary God.  That is not a good position or condition.

Then, the debated topic of tithes and offerings surfaces in Malachi 3.  Let me suggest or postulate that this extends far beyond money or possessions.   It goes back to the second-rate sacrifices and offerings.   It is about our lives as well as our money.

Malachi 3:8 – Tithes AND Offerings.   (Second-rate offerings bring the curse of a closed heaven. Giving God the best brings to us His best.) God promises that if we give to God what His (everything is) is, He will not only open Heaven for us in every way but also rebuke the devourer.

Here is the question, “Have you had the devourer steal from you?  Has that come at the most inopportune time?  Is there a way to stop it?”   What did God say?  (Malachi 3:10).   If we give God our tithes (monetary and life), first-rate sacrifice, and offering, He will pour an Overflowing Blessing upon us.   The Windows of Heaven will open.

Three facts.   

• We must Do this to receive it.   
• We must Believe it to receive. 
• We must expect it. I am not focused on tithing but on giving God our Best! Today, let us begin giving God the first-rate, not second-rate and watch what He does.

Victory is yours when you give God your best!  He always gives His best!   Have a victorious day in Jesus!

Genesis 3:8-10 – “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 

No, I am not asking if you are physically naked.   As I read, prayed, and pondered the Word in Genesis reading in the English translation of the Aramaic, God challenged my heart with several things, one of which was how disobedience affects us.

In the Garden, some interesting things transpired when Adam and Eve disobeyed by eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.   They became super self-conscious.  They are husband and wife, the only two humans on the planet, and suddenly, they become conscious of their nakedness.

I believe that flowed out of their awareness of spiritual nakedness and was a futile attempt to hide their sin of disobedience.   They covered themselves.  That’s what we do when we sin; we attempt to atone for our rebellion through works, penitence, or something to mask our guilt from visibility.  That was the first reaction—using human effort to cover our actual condition.  

The second result of disobedience is fear.  They heard God, who had come frequently to fellowship with them, and upon hearing His voice, they hid from Him.

Disobedience always causes people to try to hide from God.  His presence exposes and shines a light on the conditions we are trying to ignore, deny, and hide.  We may even say we don’t hear Him, but the truth is, we don’t want to be exposed, so we try to hide.  We don’t pray or read the Word; if we meet with believers, we are detached and guarded.  There is no Body Ministry to us or through us.

Then, we shift the blame.   Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the snake.  The devil made me do it… No, He Did Not!    He suggested, and we took the bait, but it was a choice.  The result was guilt and shame.

The problem is disobedience. Even the most insignificant action or attitude of rebellion brings shame and fear. It involves attempts to cover ourselves and often comparing ourselves to others. Disobedience breaks fellowship with God because we choose to hide from Him, not because He abandons or rejects us. 

That broken fellowship leaves us empty and produces a feeling of being without value, unloved, unwanted, uncertain, distrusting, and rejected.  It becomes a prison that we willingly incarcerate ourselves in and live beneath the spiritual poverty line.   We believe that is our fate.

However, God said to the snake in Genesis 3:15 –“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, AND between your posterity and her posterity; her posterity shall tread your head underfoot, and you shall strike him in his heel.”

In Jesus, we are and can be forgiven. Jesus said that no sin (other than blasphemy of the Holy Spirit) could and would not be forgiven (if we repent and believe), not even blasphemy against the Son or the Father. That is incredible!

So, if we find ourselves in a measure of disobedience instead of hiding, let’s run to the Cross for restoration.   We are destined to be overcomers. That the world and the kingdom need us to be.  Your life is to be abundant.  It can be, as you live free of guilt and shame.

The question is, “Are You Naked or Exposed and trying to Hide?”  Instead, receive God’s incredible Love and Mercy and rejoice in His Peace!

Have a Great Day in Jesus; when you are exposed, don’t let your nakedness cause you to run from God!