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WELCOME TO GOD FOCUS THIS MORNING

The title of today’s episode:  INTENTIONAL CHRISTIAN PART 2

Yesterday, I started talking to you about being an Intentional Christian. Before I get into today’s video, I want to review what it means to be intentional.

Being an intentional Christian is all about just paying attention to the leading of the Holy Ghost that is within us. To ask God to help us hear His leading.

The word intentional means: to do something on purpose or to be deliberate.

Deliberate means to do something consciously.

We have to make a conscious decision to spend time with God. Deciding to daily surrender to his leading.

If we are intentional Christians, we will make an effort to always do the right thing. We will walk with a purpose and pay attention to the direction of our path. We will purposely do what is ask of us by God. Both in his written word and by the leading of the Holy Ghost.

One way to be intention is to acknowledge God and give him thanks.

COL 4:2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;

Many think that Thanksgiving is only a one day of the year holiday that falls before Black Friday. But Thanksgiving is a state of the heart. It aligns with gratitude. To be in a place that God can use us we have to be humble. He cannot use those with a proud spirit. Many verses speak about how we are to be humble. 

I CHR 16:8-12 Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. 9 Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. 10 Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. 11 Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually.

12 Remember his marvelous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth;

When we share what he has done for us. It is life and encouragement to others. This is why we are to testify about His wonderful works in our lives.

We need to have a grateful heart. There are a few simple things we can do to develop a grateful heart.

One is to pay attention and look for opportunities to show people you care about and appreciate what they did for you.  Simply meaning it when you say thank you. But think about the words when you say them, show sincerity.

Example: Have you ever gone through a drive thru at a fast food restaurant? The cashier hands you the bag with your order inside and says, with a tone like they don’t care, they mumble, “thank you have a nice day.” You don’t feel like they meant it, but were being coerced to say it.

But you go through another time and the person is friendly and smiles. When they say the words, they are intentional and act like they mean it.  It makes you want to go back to that restaurant.

We need to pay attention to our attitude when we say thank you and be intentional.

 We need to talk to God outside of our prayer time. Remember yesterday, pray without ceasing. We need to be intentional to acknowledge God is with us.Make a habit, before your feet hit the floor each morning to focus and thank God for waking you up. Thank him for the blank slate ahead of you. Depending on your day this could also be a good way to get your mind set ready for your devotional time and prayer time.

Some people get all legalistic that you should read your bible and do your study at the beginning of the day. But not everyone is wired to do that and not everyone’s life is structured so that can happen. I think God understands if we don’t spend two hours in devotions every morning. As long as we start our day with gratitude and with prayer. But we need to find time in our day to be intentional about our study of the word and devotions.

You don’t have to be knelt down at an altar or on the floor to pray. It is good to have times that you are not distracted by anything else. But sometimes we just need to talk to God while we do routine tasks.

I used to drive an hour each way to work and back. That was my time to talk to the Lord and reflect on the things that I needed to do. I always, have worship music going, anytime I am in my car. I would sing and worship the Lord.  Many prayers have been said behind the wheel of my car.

Sometimes, I have had to pull over when I was going through something that made me need to really dig down and pray hard. There is nothing wrong with pulling over in a safe place and focusing on prayer and worship. At one point in my faith walk, I considered that to be enough. It is like I checked off my prayer box for the day.

Our walk with God is not a check list. It is the way we live our lives. It should be intentional. Prayer time should be about lifting up others and asking God what he wants in our lives. This should come before any request we have of our own.

The second point under this category is at night, after your day is done. After you’ve said your prayers. Take a moment to just thank God for your day. If it was good then thank God for a good day. If it was a hard day or what we would consider bad, then Thank God for it also. (In everything give thanks) But we can thank him for helping us through it. We can be grateful that it was not worse. Then say I release the stress of this day to you Lord. I am thankful for a good night of rest ahead. Because he is better able to deal with it than we are capable.

I COR 15:57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Understanding we have victory through God, will give us the encouragement we need to face another day. We have victory. There are times when we may not feel very victorious. Even in those times we have victory because of the blood of Jesus. We often don’t see things clearly because of our emotions. We can’t see the big picture of how things are going to work out. We feel like we are defeated, but that is the enemy’s way of distracting us from the goodness of God.

God is faithful to pull us through anything we face in life. When bad news hits us like a semi-truck, we don’t feel victorious. We feel pain that has flattened us and taken the wind from our lungs. God is right there making sure we have air in our lungs to just keep breathing.

He already sees the way we will rise from our ashes and hurt. He sees us victorious. Even when we cannot imagine ever being in a place of victory. The same thing goes for anyone struggling with an addiction. God sees them on the other side of that struggle. He sees them victorious. But they cannot imagine a time that they will have victory.

Job is the perfect example of this, he had the victory. God knew that he would not let his circumstance dictate his victory. Satan tried everything. To everyone things looked like Job would never have victory again. But he held onto God through the process. He came out the other side victorious. Victory was always there; they just couldn’t see it for the circumstances. (We walk by faith and not by sight)

God’s love is unfailing. Being intentional means we walk in God’s love. We show the world His love. It takes practice to be intentional. The more we pay attention to the leading of the Spirit the more of a light we are to the world.

Walking in love means we do things out of our love for God and man.  Even if we don’t want to, even when we don’t feel like it. Love is an action word, a verb. Love is not a flowery feeling with the birds always singing, while butterflies dance about. Sometimes love hurts. At times it means doing the right thing through our pain.

Love is being genuine to the truth of God’s word. Standing for the right thing even if it disappoints someone or hurts their feelings. Walking in love is truly the way to be intentional as Christians.

Walking in love is not about saying the right things only, but in how we act out or do the right things with honesty.

1 JOHN 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

People can go through the motions of showing love to someone, but it’s fake. If we are intentional and just love people it will go a long way to winning the lost to Christ.

Ask yourself what you need to do to be intentional about your faith walk. Then go out today and share your faith with someone.

Until next time,

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND KEEP YOUR GOD FOCUS

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