Power Of The Kingdom of God

Key Scripture:  " Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and He gave them this reply:  "The kingdom of God never comes by watching for it.  Men cannot say, "Look, here it is", or "there it is", for the kingdom of God is inside you."  Luke 17:21, J.B. Phillips.

Power Point:

     Most of us don't think about salvation every day, but Jesus does.  When He died for our salvation, it meant a lifestyle of Salvation, not just an eventual door into heaven. He never intended for us to struggle through our lives day to day and then get to the pearly gates, and say, "Whew! I'm glad that's over!"

     Jesus meant for His death to bring His life into our lives on a daily basis.  His plan was to bring us God's peace-a place inside us where nothing is missing, and nothing is broken. His purpose was to bring God so near that we never have to take a breath without Him.

If you remember the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones, you might think about it as a story of our lives before and after Jesus.  Before, we were mere skeletons; no meat on our flesh, no strength in our muscles and no breath in our lungs. Then Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to breathe His breath into us and set us firmly on our feet to march as a part of God's army.

     When you think about it, God won't need an army in heaven, will He? He does need one here though and He's put you where you are right now to march with Him.  He needs your life to be living proof to a very dark and dying world that He is alive and well, and as close as your next breath.

     Beloved, the Kingdom of God is WITH us and WITHIN us.  You can be seated in heavenly places NOW!  If you've been sitting around waiting for heaven to show up, guess what! You've been wasting your time. It's here.  It's in you now.  And it's forever

     Could today be the day when you reach deep down into that well of living water inside you and draw it up and out? We were never meant to be a reservoir, you know. We were always meant to flow like a river and to create new channels for God to flow with us.

     It's your choice Beloved.  You can neutralize the glorious “POW” Power within you  and ignore it or you can choose to explore it.  Heaven is REAL.  Heaven is real right now.  All that God has in His kingdom is in you, if His Spirit is there.  There's no need ahead of you that doesn't have the capacity and power to be met. You can experience the glory of heaven in you and bring it to earth around you. That was the whole point of Jesus coming wasn’t it? He came to bring us Peace on earth, and God's glorious will being carried out through His children.

     Will He come again in GREATER Glory?  Absolutely.  Will heaven touch earth for the final time and become visible to everyone?  Absolutely.

    But for now, we walk by faith don't we?  We see the unseen in our spirits and call it out by faith so that our eyes see what our hearts perceive.

Know this Beloved:

Everything you need from heaven is in you right now.

Everything you could possibly need for tomorrow is in you right now.

You were meant to march in God's army and to release the breath of His life wherever you are right now.

You were always meant to bring heaven to earth because wherever you go, His kingdom is in you.

When? Right now.

Power Thought:

God is present with us from here through eternity. Quit looking around, look within.

Copyright © 2015, Suzanne Roberts, Unpublished Work

Power Of Well Done!

Key Scripture: "His lord said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.  Enter into the joy of your Master." Matthew 25:21

Power Point:

    I’ve seen a lot of grave stones with those affirming words on them. It indicates that the person who has gone before lived a life pleasing to God. It's important to realize that each of us is  responsible for the stewardship of the ‘talent” that God has given us.  If you read the story of the three stewards, you will realize that each of them was given a different talent based on their ability to steward it.  I don't have your "talent" and you don't have mine.  Things that are easy for me to do may be difficult for you to do, and vice versa.  When we allow the enemy to attack our stewardship, he's always seeking to steal away the good works that God has already prepared for us. God's plans for our future are full of hope. They are very good plans.  Guess who doesn't want them to happen!

     Sometimes our jealously of another person's talent steals the joy in our stewardship. Their "talent" looks a lot bigger than our talent.  If you remember in John 21, Peter asks the Lord what will happen to John?  Jesus says, "Whatever is my will for him should not concern you."  (Suzanne translation).

     There are too many people who are allowing Satan to steal the stewardship of their personal talent.  Those talents were given specifically according to their own ability. I've come to an important conclusion. 

I refuse to allow Satan to steal the "WELL DONE!" from my life!" 

When he steals your love, he's stealing your "Well done!"

When he steals your peace, he's stealing your "Well done!"

When he steals your confidence, he's stealing your "Well done!"

When he stops you from moving forward with God, he's stealing your "Well done!"

When he steals your passion for God, he is stealing your "Well done!"

    

When I finish my earthly stewardship, like you, I want to hear "Well Done!"  Those words will bless me for all eternity and beyond. If, however, I've allowed Satan to steal the plans, the power and the direction for my life from me, he is stealing my "Well done!"

I refuse to allow Satan to steal my faith, my dreams, or my ability to prosper in whatever I put my hand to.

I refuse to allow Satan to steal the abundance that Jesus has promised me.
I refuse to allow Satan to steal my future.

     Instead, I am renewing and regenerating every promise that God has given me for MY life.  I pray that these words will be an encouragement to you to do the same.  It's really quite simple, Beloved:

Resist the devil and he must stop stealing, killing and destroying.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, bringing His blessings and His strength, His wisdom, and His plans for you. 

And, of course, He will bring His "WELL DONE!"

Power Thought:

I can hear the cheers in heaven right now!
GREAT JOB!  WELL DONE!










Copyright (c), 2015, Suzanne Roberts, Unpublished Work.

Power Of A New Language

Power Of A New Language

Key Scripture:  "They were all filled and equipped with the Holy Spirit and were inspired to speak in tongues-empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak in languages they had never learned!" Acts 2:4, TPT

Power Point:

       Over the many years I have contemplated that verse I always thought that  "languages they had never learned" meant Swahili, or Russian-you know, some other national language.  Today as I was reading it again for the first time, the Lord gave me a different perception. I realized that there was a language I never learned in my childhood.  Until the Holy Spirit opened my ears to His voice, I did not understand the language of encouragement. I knew how to point out your flaws, but never point out your future with Him, but inch by inch, as I follow the Leader, I'm beginning to understand and to speak this powerful new language. Fortunately, He is a good and patient Teacher.

     We will never hear the Voice of the Father, and understand it, unless we learn to understand His passion for encouragement. Let's face it, He knows every stupid, mean, and ugly thing I've ever done or said, and yet, He doesn't bring it up.  He may know that I am about to say a harsh word, but before I can, He'll say, "Do you really want to say that? Let me help you with that!"

For many years I would listen to certain words of condemnation, guilt, or discouragement, and think it was Him.  But I've learned to know His voice. It never contains any of those things.

Instead of putting me down, He is always pulling me up.

     If I'm allowing fear and doubt to control me, instead of asking me why I'm so faithless and, um, stupid, He will say "Remember when I promised to help you with that?"  He always reminds me of who He is and who I am to Him.

     Beloved, is it time for you to learn to speak a new language?  Our words are meant to point up, build up and keep us up.  That is the best representative of the nature of God and the Kingdom of God that I can imagine, and it's our job.  We are builders.  We are lovers.  We are encouragers. We are arrows pointing straight to the heart of God.  Every time we choose to bless instead of curse, to encourage instead of criticize, we are choosing the Higher Way. His thoughts and His words are always higher than we can imagine, but He's written us a letter that is full of them. If you've forgotten them, they're still there in black and white, but they are also engraved on your heart.

The greatest example of that is Jesus, of course.  He's brought heaven to our hearts, where "never is heard a discouraging word."

Power Thought:

We are filled and equipped by the Holy Spirit to be inspired and to fill and equip and inspire others.

Copyright © 2015, Suzanne Roberts, Unpublished Work

Power Of Remaining

Key Scripture:  “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”  John 15:4 RSV

Power Point:

     In learning to trust the Lord, there are times of intimacy when every word you hear is amazing.  However, the time will come when you don't hear anything new.  I used to blame myself, thinking that I had done something wrong, but as I've gotten used to the Kingdom Growth process I have realised that God still hears us.  He still protects us. He remains all that He ever was.  He does all that He has ever done.  God always remains. These are the testing times when we nourish what He has already sown in us. This is Kingdom Life; Planting and growing, sowing and reaping, ploughing and  pruning, and then of course, the harvest. 

In my early years of knowing God, I thought that the times of intimacy were when i had finally arrived and I knew it all. Then He would gently lead me to the seasons of growth where I realized I didn't know anything!  Recently,  I've learned that those seasons of growth are equal in importance to the seasons of intimacy.  When our children are growing up, we teach them to walk by holding their hands but ultimately the goal is that they will walk without our physical help but they are established in the Truth we have taught them. 

     God will take our hands any time we stumble, but He has given us everything we need to walk firmly on our own.  Those are the " remain" times.  To remain in Him means to stay in the same place today that you were yesterday with Him, even though it feels different. To remain means that no matter what is going on around you, His fruit is growing in you.  To remain means that when you are being pruned, you don’t move out of reach and you trust Him to know exactly what needs to come off.

Remaining is holding HIS words so close that you don't hear anything else.  Remaining is reminding yourself of what you heard Him tell you before He began the pruning process. Remaining is grabbing on to His promises and plans for your future and not letting go.  It's repeating those promises and plans every minute of every day with the faith that has grown through your times of intimate conversation with Him. Your Father will be releasing your hands, one finger at a time.

This is the time where you choose to remain or retreat. 

     Learning to remain is the most important thing you can do.  You see, Beloved, He is only taking off the things in your life that are not like Him; that are not bearing His fruit.  If you retreat from the pruning, you will never become a fruitful plant but if you remain and offer yourself up for the pruning, you will discover, at the end, that you are a perfectly shaped, fruitful, and flourishing plant.  

     He's happy because you have chosen to remain.  You're happy because you have chosen Life and you have chosen to yield to the pruning so that only GOOD fruit remains. You have been given an open invitation to the place where you can ask what you will and it will be done for you.

The Father is glorified and you remain in His love. 

It really will be worth it all won't it Beloved?

Power Thought:

Copyright © 2014, Suzanne Roberts, Unpublished Work

Power Of The Secret Garden

Key Scripture:  “The Lord God planted a garden…”  Genesis 2:8

Power Point:

     My home is literally in the center of a garden. All around me are and trees and wonderful colors. It is the most amazing place. This morning the Lord sent me to a “new” garden- the garden of my heart.  He led me to Song of Solomon where I had been reading recently and suddenly I got a whole new revelation of what this wonderful book is telling us.

 In chapter 2, the Beloved is talking about His beloved one.  He describes the Beloved as  someone with whom He has an intimate relationship.  He says that in that heart there are fountains marked by His own seal of authority and as He walks through this garden, He finds beautiful, plentiful fruit; fruit that pleases Him.  This fruit is available to Him any time He asks for it. There are no barren fruit trees in this garden.  It is a secret place, set aside for The Beloved and His Beloved.

     This garden, this Secret Place, seems to symbolize the garden of our hearts.

We are commanded to guard that garden, to keep it as He intended it to be, a flourishing, amazing array of beautiful colors and an incredible amount of gorgeous fruit. We are to enclose it so that nothing will destroy its peaceful beauty. Just as Adam and Eve were told that it was their job to “tend” their Garden, so are we commanded to keep the garden of our hearts “well-tended”.  The Garden of Eden was a place where the Lord loved to come and walk with Adam and Eve every day.  He let them be fruitful and multiply and “tend” each day and then when they were resting, He would come and spend intimate time with Him.  I wonder what those times were like.  Did they tell Him how they had spent their day?  Did they ask Him questions about how they could be more fruitful and multiply?

     The saddest thing to think about was when God came into the Garden and could not find Adam and Eve. You can see it again in Song of Solomon when The Beloved comes to His bride, and she is too busy to open the door to Him. It reminds me of the parable of the 10 Virgins, half of whom were busy with other things; things other than tending to their preparations for the Bridegroom to come.

     Can you imagine a picture of what the garden of your heart might look like today?  Is it a serene place, with the sofa cushions plumped and ready for the Bridegroom to sit down in the cool of the day with you?  Have you cleaned up all the newspapers, and dirty glasses lying around and swept everything clean?  Is your lamp lit with plenty of oil and have you put on your best robes to welcome the King of Kings into your heart?  Are there shoes of peace on your feet and are there wonderful bowls of fruit filling the air with their fragrance? Will He find fresh water in sparkling glasses to quench His thirst?

     In other words, is this Secret Garden ready for the Presence of God to come and be blessed by your preparations? Be sure the door is unlocked, and the room sparkling clean as He peers through the windows trying to find His Beloved?

     Are you listening with great anticipation for the sound of His voice and His knock at the door?  Is the Secret Place ready and waiting for Him? Are you?

Power Thought:

"God's desire is to not only have you experience His love, but to totally overwhelm you with His love.  To have you experience it to overflowing.  To have you sense, feel, taste, and touch His love for you.  He really wants you to experience Him."

Linda Boone, "Intimate Life Lessons, Developing the Intimacy with God that You already Have.

Copyright (c) 2014, Suzanne Roberts, Unpublished Work