- Lord, I don't want to judge others. Please help me get rid of all the critical thoughts that roil around in my brain. I want to search for the best...to see the good...to look for the treasure. Please open my eyes. Overshadow me with Your merciful, unconditional Love.

+This prayer is all I need to set you in a place of freedom and love. Thoughts are always whirling, many of which have been designed by the enemy of your soul to keep you locked in a prison of unforgiveness. What you must learn is to take advantage of the Gift of the Holy Spirit, Who resides in you, to untangle all the thoughts that set you up for defeat (and separation from the Father's perfect Love). I came that you might have LIFE and the ability to truly love the way your Father loves. This is totally impossible without the empowerment that is yours at all times. You must learn to hand your feelings, which are unstable and often misleading, hand them over to Me! Speak to your soul like David did. Say, 'Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me.' You have the power...all the power you need...to choose what you think. When critical thoughts rise up in your heart, remind yourself that this is a chance to step back and make a choice. Choose this day...this one tiny moment...Who you will serve: Death (judgment and criticalness) or Life (mercy, pardon and forgiveness). The Holy Spirit is more than able to overshadow your responses and to set you on the road to life every time! What is necessary is your willingness to put the judgment down, to release it and to choose to exchange it for mercy. There is a tastiness (brief but real) to these judgmental thoughts. They are remnants of the very first battle for supremacy. The enemy wanted to be chosen over Me. The choice (death) was made. The residual inclination to want to be 'better than' still lives in the old self. This is why the renewed mind and seeking to operate out of it is so critical to your freedom. The enemy wins when you choose to think you are better than someone. Basically, this is what you are saying (even to yourself, when you don't even give voice to the judgment but say it in your head). You think this is a relatively small battle, but, my love, this is the heart of the war for your spirit! You have been born again. The new you understands that all that was sin about you was buried in the tomb with Me! When you criticize and judge, you are trying to revive that old wineskin, the old, dead you! If you try always to remind yourself that judgment is a tool of the enemy of your freedom, you can learn to put down any critical thought of anyone. Remember, He is the accuser! When you accuse, you align yourself with his agenda...with him! So, my little redeemed lamb, you need to repent - have a different thought. This is not impossible, because with God All things are possible...especially things close to His enormous heart! Learning to love like He does is in your power because you live and breathe and move in Me. Choose this day...every minute...who you are going to serve and rest easy, knowing you will be given strength and power to do so. Your weakness is overshadowed and absolved by My Strength. That right there is a good example of how you let go of judgment...just give me your weakness and live in my strength. Your spirit already knows that, ultimately, this battle has already been won. "It is finished."

-Another New Year...another year closer to eternity. Oh Lord, my Lord, help me to live my life in You and to gratefully savor each day that I have left.


+The old expression, "Waste not. Want not." is full of wisdom. Time has a way of fooling even the most heavenly-minded ones. The days are short and few. The time of using this life I've given you as best you can is NOW! Actually, an "as it is in Heaven" mindset automatically sets you in the eternal Now, where there is no passing time...only NOW! This is the challenge and the path to a free life! You live your true life - your already-eternal life - in Me, and so, all the impossibilities and limitations of earth-bound time melt away and all things are now possible. You have been given the mind of Christ. This gives you the power and creativity to face each moment of your life as a child of the Kingdom. Nothing...nothing is impossible! You are with/in God! so consequently, ALL things are possible! Walk through the minutes and the hours of this day, knowing that your faith creates a path through all the time zones, all the measurements that tick and count. I am the One Who keeps every heart beating like the ultimate, internal clock. I silently monitor and work the valves that keep life flushing through your veins...rivers of life kept flowing by My design. Now, just as a person can go through his or her whole life oblivious to the machinations I keep so meticulously running, so you can let this elusive gift of time slip away...disappearing into this cold, winter day, unmindful of the Majesty that is ever beckoning..the Reality that is perpetually true. Be very intentional, then, to be conscious of all the gifts and blessings you take for granted; your body, so fearfully and wonderfully made; your senses, given to bring you pleasure and nourishment; and most importantly, the people I have carefully chosen to be in your life...people put there for you to bless and to love with eternal Love. I have given you everything you could ever need to live a life of joy and blessing...of fruitfulness and freedom. I want you to live under My yoke of timeless freedom. This yoke looks like a constraint, but is the exact opposite; it is My instrument of liberation. Indeed, My yoke is easy. All of heaven, throughout all time, bears witness to the glory and splendor of My ways. Learn of Me. Live each moment very aware of the Spirit within you. He is the Gift that cannot ever be revoked or returned. You have been baptized outside of time...with Fire! This is not for yourself, but so...like Me...you can hear the Father's Voice in everything you do. It is a new year, and in the world you will face tribulation and trouble, but in Me...since every moment is New...you can live undaunted in complete peace; confident, full of courage, certain and full of good cheer. Be completely Mine. Remember, you are safe and protected from all the ravishes of time because you are eternally now in Me forever! You are Free! Every moment has been redeemed and set like a gem into eternity. This is cause for great rejoicing. So rejoice, my beloved one, rejoice! 

 -Lord, You are my Lord. How do I really let you be Ruler and King over my whole life? I feel like I battle against a divided heart. How I long to be "All in"...totally and completely Yours for all the world to see...Free...truly and completely free.

+If you owned a horse and kept it in a fenced-in area its whole life, and one day, opened the gate and left it open, it could take a while for that horse to realize the magnitude of the world that has been opened up to him. So perhaps he stays...safe and comfortable within the confines of his little patch of world. You have provided him with food and water. His natural inclination to run free has never been tested. But now, the gate is open and perhaps he tentatively visits the fields and woods that stretch before him. So you, My little colt, you have lived a great portion of your life fenced inside the limitations that you have unwittingly built around you. You interpret these confines as safety, but truly, they have functioned as self-imposed limits. Your spirit has been born again and everything has changed, and yet, My love, often you act like you have no choice but to remain where you were with your old identity intact, actually held back from the freedom that beckons, preferring to wait for the food and water that comes with the territory rather than busting out (like a calf from the stall) and looking to find and enjoy the sustenance and provision that waits to be discovered. I came to set you completely free. I want you to take this freedom and run with it! I've told you many times to look neither to the left or right (like the horse seeing only the fence posts and not the open gate)! I want you to run into your destiny with fire and power...with exuberance and confidence not in who you are, but in Who I am IN YOU!  The life I have given you is not for yourself. Just as I lived to open up hearts and lives to the Beauty and Glory of the Father's Perfect Love, so you live to bring this same revelation. You can't do it within the confines that you have known and accepted for too long. I have given you everything you need to live a life of beauty and freedom. You hear My Voice as I call you out to explore the waiting world. Come away, my love, and see the wonders I have prepared for you. Come out of the gates. Listen for my voice as I teach you what freedom is. You won't ever want to return to the "safety" of your old life. That life was buried long ago. Indeed, you are a new creation! Enjoy the new you and run like mad from all the ways you once were confined.
Freedom is yours! Revel in it as you bring your Father Glory and feel His smile over you everywhere you go!