I hope your new year is starting off well. I was reading Ephesians in the Life Application Bible I got for my birthday. (love it, highly recommend)
In God’s love we lack nothing, have nothing to lose and nothing to fear. We have the fullness of God available to us.
Life Application Bible, p.2052
When I saw this, it really spoke to me. This is the exact energy I am taking with me into 2021.
I pray that you are able to receive this and get it down in your bones as we start 2021. I pray it takes root in your heart and can sprout wings. Once we truly embody this, we will be unstoppable. No longer held down by our fears or even our own expectations. We will be able to live free as God truly intended. In Jesus name, Amen.
Authentic was my word for 2020. I had a few more as well, but when I sat down to decide what I wanted 2020 to look like, authentic was the first word that came to mind. Joy, fearless, inspired and determined ended up rounding out my top 5. I used these words to guide how I wanted to move in 2020. I wrote a prayer and found scripture to back up what I was trying to do. I like having a word of the year because it gave me something to stay rooted to. When I was frustrated with how things were not moving fast enough or if I had a set back, I would go back to those words and that prayer and it would give me something to lean on.
Instead of a rigid New Year’s Resolution, a Word of the Year is your constant—yet gentle—reminder to focus on creating positive change. Use your Word of the Year to help guide your decisions and continue moving towards what you want. The first step to manifesting anything you desire is awareness and intention.
Elizabethrider.com
In my quest to be more authentic I started learning more about my identity in Christ. Who does God say I am?
The answers to those questions have definitely been mind changing. It also lead the way to more questions. Why do I need to know that? Why does it matter? I am starting to discover the answer to those questions. If I know who God says I am, then I am able to know more of who He is. If I know who He is, then I know what I have access to, what I can accomplish and how I should be living.
You can’t really have anything else or be anything if you are not your authentic self. God is not going to bless who you pretend to be. Being authentic can be difficult because it goes against what the world says, however its easier to just be me than it is to be anything else. I am going to continue to work on this in 2021 because I have just tipped the iceberg.
These are all good concepts to think about, to put into practice week by week. God wants all of us, any way he can get us and putting pressure on ourselves is only hurting us. God is not condemning you, he wants you to be free and seek to have relationship with him.
We talked about do we need to say anything and is the Proverbs 31 woman still relevant?
We also were reminded that comparison is the thief of joy and how to start putting feet on your prayers.
As we enter the last two months of the year remember, you still have time to do whatever it is you want to do. You just have to get out of your own way.
I am so glad today is October 31. That means Thanksgiving is on its way and we can move right into Christmas. Happy Halloween!
He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. Ephesians 1:7 NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.1.7.NLT. So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free. John 8:36 NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.8.36.NLT I have been studying my identity in Christ and one of the things that we have is freedom. I’ve looked at it literally like free from sin which is true but lately I’ve taken another look at it.
I’m free to be me. I’m free to be the person God made me to be. I’m free from my past, from mistakes, from other people’s opinions, from my own expectations, from having to be perfect. None of it is necessary. I’m free to fail if need be. I’m free from timelines. I’m free from who I used to be, how I used to think, how I used to live. I’m free to go out and live life to the full. I’m not weighed down by anything.
If we can get that in our in head and in our heart, we will go far. We would be able to accomplish anything we went out here to do.
Take this with you as move through out the week. When your own expectations try to stop you, or you feel afraid, remind yourself you are free. Nothing can hold you back but you.
Always finding the silver lining 