We are
currently studying the Hebrews 11 Hall of Famers. I mean, if their lives were lived in such a
way as to make it into the Hebrews 11 Hall of Fame … why wouldn’t we study how
and why they received such a high accommodation. Obviously, there’s information there for us
to take note of …and they received this recognition living in a time without
electricity, cell phones, google, etc. Yip,
there’s definitely some insight here that we can apply to our lives and as some
say … take to the bank.
Father God,
Yahweh, Jehovah-Jireh,
I give thanks
and praise to you for all you are doing in and through me. My heart is filled with peace, joy and
anticipation for what you have for me today.
With the authority, you have given to me, I speak to my eyes to be open
to see, my ears that they may hear, my heart that it may receive and my mind to
understand the insight you have for me today.
Thank you for your loving faithfulness.
In Yahweh, Jehovah-Jireh’s name, I pray.
Amen.
Today is a
ponder day on all that we’ve been reading and learning …
Go check out Hebrews 11 when you’ve read this. I hope to whet your desire to go read, study
and learn for yourself from these great heroes. See who made it into the Hall of Fame and then
look at the accounts of their lives. We’d
be here for a while if I were to go through all of them plus it’s like reading
the end of a great book first … so I bless you on your time of following the
Hall of Famers lives in the Bible.
Here’s some glimpses of some of their character that
encouraged and prompted accountability:
Noah – Okay, so we think we have it rough … There were no
others found righteous on the earth besides Noah and his family. First off, as a parent, I must say, that’s
some stellar parenting. The world was so
corrupt God wiped it clean like a white erase board … all except Noah, his
wife, his three sons and their wives.
Definitely not an easy feat to rise about flesh and not settle for life
like everyone else is living. Talk about
instilling very well founded morals and respect in himself as well as his
family. The rest of the world thought they
were “freaks”. Not hard to imagine the
ridicule and jokes they were the butt of … and the people then were in even
worse shape than the world now.
WoW! Then besides living such an
extreme lifestyle … Noah gets this idea to build this thing with very specific
measurements. Something that’s never
been done before (the ark) to prepare for something that’s never been seen
before (the rain/flood)? Oh yeah, talk about throwing fuel on the fire of
mocking and ridicule. And yet they still
stood firm. If any of you have built a
house or planned something with more than one person … you’re probably aware of
everyone wanting their input, their desires implemented, etc. Noah stood firm on following the exact
measurement and material type. He didn’t
try to cut corners or put his own personal tweaks to the design. (Yikes … going to have to check myself as
when I am given a recipe I often start tweaking it from the get go instead of
fixing it exactly as it was given to me … hmmm.) It boils down to, Noah knew God and didn’t
settle for less than what God said. He
knew if God said it, he could count on it with his very life as being so. Oh, there’s so much more insight in Noah’s
life for us go look deeper and see what’s there to help you through your now.
Take Abraham, another Hebrews Hall of Famer. How many of us sang the song Father Abraham
when growing up doing those energy depleting actions to help get us settled to
hear and receive whatever the teachers had for us. Did we even know or understand what or who we
were singing about? His life is filled
with Hall of Fame notations that give us much beneficial information to apply
in our lives today. He was human and
made mistakes but He trusted God with his life … all of it, not just a
section. Accountability check … do we
trust God with ALL areas of our lives or do we hold back and think we can do or
handle something better than Him or we don’t want to bother Him with some “little
thing”. Yeah right. Okay, faith check and stretch on that accountability
moment. There’s so much to learn and
apply to help raise my life up to new levels from studying Abraham’s life.
Shoot, I’m remembering back to when my husband and I were
praying for a child for two years. Oh, my
heart desires and talks with God during that season of waiting. Looks a bit humorous when I look at Abraham
who stood on God’s promise that he would have a son and not knowing when acted
daily expecting God’s promise to be fulfilled.
Even well after he and his wife passed their child bearing prime and essentially
everything was dried up and done for by the world’s standards. He held true for 25 years, faith walking and
believing that what God said would happen.
Yes, they were human and got their Ishmael by taking matters in to their
own hands. Like how many Ishmael
situations do we have in our walk? No need to count, just repent and move on. God already has. Even then, God stayed true to His promise and
after 25 years of believing (well beyond their fertile days) and gave them a
son. Whew … I thought two years was
long. Boy, have I got a lot of growing
to do! How exciting to have examples/mentors
to follow and live up too. Society is in
such a NOW mode.
Wow, this is obviously an accountability day for me. I need to go back and see what God has
directed for me that I have not held onto and focused as Abraham to the moment
of fulfillment. Honestly, it’s kind of
exciting! Okay, so I’m not even going to
dive in to all the other fine examples we should learn from Abraham (like going
to sacrifice son with the confidence of knowing God promised descendants and understanding
that sacrificing his only son was a bit detrimental to such yet the confidence
that God had a plan and he was going to walk in it. Yikes!!! How many times have I let my limited
knowledge and experience step in and “fix” a situation. Looks like I’ve got some accountability time
and repenting to do here too. Don’t
worry if you don’t see or hear from me for a while! LOL)
Okay, so I could go on down the list of Hall of Famers …
hopefully you get what I’m talking about in diving in and examining the lives
of these people and apply what’s laid on your heart to your life. However, we must get to today’s Ponder
Point.
For those that know me, this will not be a surprise ponder
point at all. Especially those that we’ve
gotten to celebrate in our ministry home.
So now to my Ponder Point: Birthdays.
We celebrate birthdays of children to acknowledge the
accomplishments of the year. To mark a
milestone. My mom always made birthdays
a special day for the person. To honor
and reflect on what all we’d accomplished in the past year and to look forward
to the coming year with hope and expectation of what we’d accomplish. Yip, you guessed it, I do too. Honestly, I haven’t researched example of “birthday”
parties in the Bible. However, I have
noted celebrations of milestones or special events that were marked with a
pillar of stones or in other ways to help remind them. A prompter of accountability.
Under the world’s
influence or influence of the flesh, today birthdays of children tend to appear
in many cases to feed the lusty cries of flesh and give me, I deserve,
entitlement spirit. Many adults at some
point seem to just stop celebrating them all together and treat it as just
another day. As those that have been a
part of our ministry and in our ministry homes, you know we celebrate your
special day because you are worthy to reflect and mark all that you have accomplished
in the past and to seek and look forward to what God is going to do in and
through you in the coming year. An
opportunity to speak life into you and your spirit within. I have
always seen it from a perspective of the person not feeling worthy or valuable
enough to celebrate the day they were placed on this earth with a purposed
mission. In class this week I was
blessed with an ah ha moment and thus me ponder point …
Do we NOT celebrate our birthdays because we don’t want to be
held accountable of looking to see what has been accomplished in and through
our lives over the past year? Are we
ashamed of standing accountable to ourselves (forget others) of how we have
spent our time, energy, finances?
I mean, if we don’t look then we don’t have to acknowledge
whether we are sticking true to who we are, our dreams, goals, focus. As long as we stay in constant motion doing
something – playing games on our phones or computers, constantly prepping,
running in circles, moving piles from one place to another then back again –
then it is easy to “feel” productive as long as we are not checking the “fruits”
of our busyness.
OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! I’ve already been being stirred to look at why
I am doing what I am doing.
Questioning if it is truly beneficial or just busy work. Assessing if it is a step towards my focus or
if it is an activity to kill, steal, and destroy my time, energy, finances,
relationships, etc. Talk about stepping
it up to the next level of checking to see if I’m truly supposed to be doing
each action or step I do. Some are done
out of routine or learned patterns/expectations from others … not because it is
a part of who I am created to be and my called purpose. This puts even more accountability and
emphasis on when I’m asked to do something or feel obligated to do something … to
make sure I’m in the perspective of seeking that “I am to do it” rather than coming
from the perspective of “looking for a reason NOT to do it”. Our lives are constantly bombarded with “good
deeds”, help me, do this, do that, expectations of others, unhealthy self-expectations
… a very stealthy way for the enemy to access our lives to kill, steal, and destroy
the fruit bearers of our lives.
Ultimately, I’m accountable for my created purpose and
produced fruit from the fulfillment of living it out … not helping or doing someone
else’s called purpose. (Even in the
world’s standards if you don’t do your job you get fired.) I want to hear and see in my life the fulfillment
of
Matthew 25:21 “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and
faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over
much. Enter into the joy of your master.’,
I want to be found faithful with a little – so be busy focusing
on your own little and run with me as I focus on mine to be found faithful, given
much and ULTIMATELY … to “enter into the joy of the Master”. I sooooo want to bring Him joy as I treasure
the experience when the joy comes up from within the depths of my being that
happy tears flow while joy and laughter flow forth from my mouth, my eyes,
every pore of my being. I am made in His
image thus this experience, which is powerful in my limited being, is magnified
in His ultimate being. This experience
of the depths of joy has been manifesting in my life more and more each
day. In sharing with my husband and sons
what’s on my heart, I’m so overwhelmed with joy of being faithful with the
little that my being just expands with such excitement … I’m often unable to find
adequate words to express the joy and the joyful tears just flow … if this is
just even a sliver of the Ultimate joy my Master experiences then I’m going to
keep on keeping on because its beyond priceless.
So, I leave you pondering these things in your own life. May you be filled with a Christ perspective
and energized to “not settle” and go after the “Ultimate”. (Dare I even mention another of the Hebrews
11 Hall of Famers that didn’t even settle in death but even made preparation for
his bones as he was not settling for less than God’s promise. Go check I out! Alas I must go be a DOER.)
Ultimate blessings!
It is our
desire for you to KNOW God, to share His Word with you but also to share our
lives with you in love. We welcome
getting to know you and to be able to love you where you are. We are honored to support you on your journey
to get from where you are to where you want to be.
Thank you for the investment of your time.
May you hear and receive what is yours to hear from the sharing
of a portion of my insights.
Be blessed in the Name of the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah-Jireh.
Created
to Serve in Love,
Michelle Wendt
His
Beloved, blessed wife and mother
My
Father’s Blessing Ministries and Be Healthy His Way Mentor
For our Be Healthy His Way Team – Emotion Study Group:
Today diffusing and using:
Common Sense, Longevity, Clary Sage, Ledum, Ocotea
To support and expand in these areas:
Empowered, Flexible, Reasonable,
Gratitude,
Forgiveness, Moving
Forward, Humility
To be a part of our Be
Healthy His Way Team or purchase products:
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