DEVOTIONAL
Selfish to Selfless

Our default setting is selfishness.

Don’t believe it? Try hanging out with a toddler for a day.

Toddlers want what they want, and they want it now. Toddlers will fight (and sometimes bite) to maintain dominion over their prized possessions. Toddlers have little concern for schedules, agendas, or perfectly white walls.

The good news about toddlers—and people in general—is that they have the capacity to change into selfless people as they grow. But, if toddlers aren’t lovingly redirected and taught how to consider others, that selfishness will continue.

So if we’re naturally self-centered humans, how do we train our minds not to default to selfishness?

The Bible encourages us to model our lives after Yeshua…

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Messiah Yeshua…”
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2:3‬-5 ‭NIV‬‬

Yeshua didn’t leverage His authority for personal advantage—power, pleasure, control, or comfort—but took on the nature of a servant.

Yeshua spent His time investing in others.

Yeshua focused His attention on helping others.

Yeshua gave up His own life for others.

If you find yourself becoming self-obsessed, self-indulgent, or even a little self-righteous, consider asking Abba for His help.

Ask Him to help you see people the way He does.

Ask Him to use any knowledge you gain to love Him and serve others.

Ask Him to put opportunities in your path to lead others toward Him.
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The Word of G-d, the Set Apart Spirit, and relationships with other believers are what refines our hearts. And with G-d’s help, we can change our tendency from living selfishly into living selflessly.

SMALL STRAWS THE TRUMPET VISION SOUNDS
The Trumpet by Bill Burns
Believe in Me, for I am with you and for you. I will help you and empower you. The enemy will surely come against you, but greater is My Spirit within you, says the Lord. 1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Small Straws by Marsha Burns
You are entering a season of elevation when you can advance spiritually. You will be able to achieve greater heights, and you will see visions and receive revelation with precision and clarity. There will be a stirring in your soul of expectation and excitement that will confirm the establishment of the moving of the Spirit. Go with the flow. Isaiah 41:18 I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

We often accept things as true because so many people consider it to be true. Our feelings and our opinions will never turn fiction into fact if they conflict with the word of the Creator. Psalm 119:142, “Your goodness continues forever. And your teachings are true.”

But I will sing of Your power; Yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning;
For You have been my defense And refuge in the day of my trouble.

To You, O my Strength, I will sing praises;
For God is my defense, My God of mercy.
(Psa 59:16-17 NKJV)

https://open.spotify.com/album..../5C4AVr3WpP2sRtpiiKU

"If there be any that provideth not for his own, and namely for them of his household, he denieth the faith, and is worse than an infidel."

1Ti 5

Thought for Today: Sunday August 06:

Abba Elohiym will never let you be shaken or moved from your place near to His heart.

BREATHING PROBLEMS

A healing prayer for someone with breathing problems (including colds, bronchitis, pneumonia, sinusitis, emphysema, asthma lung diseases etc.)

References:
Proverbs 4:20-22 --- Psalm 4:3 --- Psalm 55:17 --- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 24 --- Psalm 48:1-3; Exodus 15:26 --- Psalm 38:15 --- Genesis 2:7 --- 1 Peter 5:9 --- John 10:10 --- John 16:24 --- John 16:23

Healing Promise:
“Give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh.” (Proverbs 4:20-22)

Healing Prayer:
My heavenly Abba, thank You for Your Word and all the healing promises it contains. I claim those promises now as I ask You to heal me of my breathing problems. I give attention to Your Word and I incline my ear to Your sayings. With Your help, I will not let them depart from my eyes. I will keep them in the midst of my heart, for I know that they are life and health to me. I know that You hear me when I pray my Adonai. And because this is true, I will continually pray; morning, noon and evening; to You. I will pray without ceasing and rejoice evermore, because I know You are hearing and answering my prayer. Thank You Abba. In everything I will give thanks to You O YHVH, for I know this is Your will for me in Yeshua Moshiach. Thank You for calling me to prayer and thanksgiving, for I know You are faithful in fulfilling all Your promises to me, including the promise of healing for my breathing disorder. You are so great Abba and You are greatly to be praised, because You are my refuge, You are my healer and my great hope. Abba, You are the breath of my life. Help me to breath the fresh air around me fully and deeply. May You truly be the air I breathe. Every breath I take, I take in You my Adonai and my YHVH. I come against satan’s attempts to wreak havoc in my life and I stand steadfast in faith as I resists his attacks against me. Enable me to experience the abundant life Yeshua has promised to me at all times. As I pray, I receive my healing from Your hands and my joy is full. Thank You for healing my breathing problems my Abba and for imparting to me the very breath of Your life. In Yeshua’ Name I pray, amen.

Throughout history Satan has moved to mask Christianity, the faith of Abraham; he has sought to give it a different face even more than he has sought to bring it under persecution and oppression. Thus the Roman Catholics brought in even the most obviously pagan things, such as worshipping statues, yet Roman Catholicism and its offshoots are the face of Christianity in many people's minds. Thus we have Christ depicted as a European. This was seen from the very beginning: archaeology finding pictures of the Messiah as an Ethiopian among Ethiopians, as an Asian among Asians, as a Roman among Romans (a Roman Caesar at that). Every group is either rejecting the Messiah, or altering him to claim he is the same as them: few submit to who he is.

At the very least in the English-speaking culture and those cultures influenced by it, there are two wicked groups constantly at war, which could be called the "upper-classists" and the "lower-classists".
The upper-classists are those who have altered our Messiah and the faith of Abraham into their image: the dainty, the prosaic, the sterile, the genteel, the prim, the passive, the elegant, the vegetarian, the puerile and effeminate.
The lower-classists reject upper-classism, and make exactly the same error as the upper-classists: treating the faith of Abraham as one and the same as upper-classism. Each group is happy to point to the other to prove the point they agree on: that Christianity equals upper-class "elegance".
Satan loves to keep these groups at war, and loves it when someone rejects Christianity thinking they reject the foolishness of upper-classism, as he loves it when someone embraces upper-classism thinking that he embraces Christianity.

This extends into many areas of life, one of which is art. The upper-classist dislikes things that are strange or grim: it isn't "proper" or "elegant". Because they believe "Christianity = upper-classism", therefore they conclude whatever upper-classism dislikes must be intrinsically unchristian and wrong. To this the lower-classists agree, exulting in everything that upper-classists dislike, thinking that by doing so they are attacking Christianity - because, again, they make the same error as upper-classists, the idea that "Christianity = upper-classism". So the upper-classist forever condemns, and even falls into superstitious fear of what is not to their upper-classist taste; the lower-classist mocks and revels, and Satan laughs at the rat-race he has crafted.

The truth is that this whole strife is man-made and Satanically inspired. The answer is to step out of it, leave the lie which both sides hold, and to open one's eyes to the truth: the faith of Abraham has nothing to do with upper-classism, which is not of heaven but of men.

As the blossom need not declare "I am of Yahweh" to glorify him, neither does the thorn. As the blossom glorifies Yahweh by being a blossom, the thorn glorifies Yahweh by being a thorn.

The specific passion and purpose of my life is the application of this in the arts, specifically in the Strange: the grim, the surreal, the gritty. Every night your mind creates the Strange and the surreal in dreams: I believe it is essential to the human spirit, in the image of Yahweh. Forever let the Strange live to the glory of Yahweh, its Maker.

TL;DR: some hate spiders, God likes them, I agree with God.

#sabbathposts 2023/08/05