Thirst with Sheryl: season 2- Holistic Change

Patience and Self Control

Patience is a behavior showing high moral standards. 
The phrase “Patience is a virtue” means it's a good quality to be patient and tolerate delays, pain, or misfortune without losing your temper. Self-Control is a behavior where one is able to exercise restraint and/or keep composure. And let me remind you that both patience and self-control are fruit of the Spirit.  The fruit of the spirit is a set of attributes that the Holy Spirit develops in people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.  Supporting scripture,
Gal 5:22-23 The CEV reads as such, God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways.
 
 

The Truth

Ok let’s get right to it. The Big T, Truth!  The truth cannot be suppressed or hidden. Truth is indestructible. People may refuse to face the truth, they can disguise the truth, they may try to ignore the truth or even refuse to accept the truth. Although truth is not always favored, it is ALWAYS RIGHT!  And guess what? truth always wins in the end!

Don't Forget People

You see not only do we need to read, study & meditate on the word of God to help bear fruit, but we also need each other in the body of Christ.
Prov 27:17 NIV
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

Blossom End Rot

Just as the tomatoes, peppers and watermelon need the calcium, watering, & moisture to develop fruit, we as Christians need to read/meditate on the Word, develop intimacy, prayer time, and worship with other believers; if not, we too, will be deficient in developing our fruit. 

For the Rest of your Life, Ball it Up!

So here is a faith exercise, for casting all your cares, worries & anxieties, so that you, we, can enter into His REST.  Remember faith without works is dead in other words, listeners, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead
Write down a list of everything in your life that is causing you stress/worry/anxiety. Just a suggestion, write each worry separately on a piece of paper, because at times it takes us a minute to give certain things to God.
Be honest & transparent with yourself, because God already knows what is causing you unrest. Nobody has to know, just you and your Daddy.
Once you have it on a piece of paper, AFFIRM out loud, “God I give my worrying of my daughter over to you.
Then your action step is to Ball up that piece of paper, and toss it into the trash can.  And receive rest.  Receive inward quietness, composure & peace.

Why Rest

First, let me just clarify that rest does not mean sleep, inactivity or stillness. Biblically, the meaning for rest is to be inwardly quiet, composed, peaceful. Verse 10 tells us that even God ceased from his own works to rest.  Verse 11 tells us to labor to enter that same rest. Now if God entered into the rest, what makes us think that we don’t need to enter into that same rest? Aren’t we God’s children? I mean, aren’t we supposed to, “Act like our Daddy?”

Sowing and Reaping

The principle of reaping and sowing applies to Christians & non-Christians. This principle is irrevocable and there is no escape. It is a law of life. Charles Stanley, a well known American Southern Baptist pastor and writer, says that there are 3 principles that are considered to be true in all circumstances when it comes to sowing and reaping.
We reap what we sow
We reap more than we sow
We reap later than we sow
Let’s take my example of the butterfly bush seeds. I sowed seeds and reaped a bush.  The bush was way more than a couple of seeds and the bush did not appear until a year later.  So again, we reap what we sow, we reap more than we sow and we reap later than we sow.

Default

So, what is your default mode?
Do you have a plan for when the extremely challenging times come?
When it feels like your world is upside down?
When all Hell has broken loose?
Do you turn to the substance or turn to the Spirit?
What’s in your defaulted heart?
Is the word tucked in your heart?
Ps 119:11 NIV says I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Will your defaulted mind be filled with bleak or harmful thoughts that take you back?
Remember thoughts become words and words become actions.  
2 Cor 10:5b NIV says we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

A PowerFull Sip

You see, when we are dealing with menial tasks, or even the challenging ones, at times it may slip our minds that the Holy Spirit is with us, and is living in us.
1 Cor 6:19 TLB says Haven’t you yet learned that your body is the home of the Holy Spirit God gave you, and that he lives within you? Your own body does not belong to you.
At times we try so hard to get into the presence of God, but the truth of the matter is, that it is impossible to get away from Him.  He is in constant pursuit of us;
In Joshua 1:9 TLB the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
In Matthew 28:20 TLB says I am with you always, even to the end of the world.

The Merge

The Holy Spirit reminded me that there is enough time in the day.  In John 11:9-10 Liv says: There are twelve hours of daylight every day, and during every hour of it a man can walk safely and not stumble. 10 Only at night is there danger of a wrong step, because of the dark.” I believe God is saying that where He is, there is light and in darkness he is not there. So there are 12 hours of daylight to do the Lord’s work. So how do we do this? Is it possible?
What if we fellowshipped with God while working, cooking, tending to our fur babies, cleaning, bathing, shopping, driving, & gardening, which are all things we do during the daylight. I believe God never intended it to be a separation of secular and non-secular