Tips from Dell

Hello world,

i always like to share some of the tips and tricks that still help me out to this day.  i hope some of them help you.

Tip #3:  When it’s all said and done, He loves me.

Kingdom principles work (even for people that aren’t in the kingdom).  However, sometimes the tides of life rage so strongly you can barely think straight.  When those times come, it’s difficult to draft an intercession plan or a weekly fast.  When things get too confusing,  I jsimply rest in the fact that God loves me, and He’s going to take care of me.  End of story.  If I get some cool third-heaven revelation in the midst of that, fine.  If angels appear, awesome.  But if none of that happens, just knowing that He’s faithful is enough. 

Tip #3:  Obey Quickly

Conviction is a good thing, but people usually get it backwards.  When someone stands firm on a topic, they are noted as having strong convictions.  Usually, believers equate conviction with feeling bad.  Don’t forget that believers have a new nature.  Did you know that if you are a believer, you have convictions that you don’t know about?  Your spirit believes things that your mind doesn’t.  That may sound crazy, but 1 Peter tells us that we’ve been giving a godly nature.  Your spirit man agrees with God totally.  Your mind, however, needs a tune up.  That’s why Paul tells us to renew our minds in Romans 12:1-2. 

When we do things that conflict with our godly nature, our born again spirits recongize it and we feel bad.  At times we allow this to take us into shame, but that’s not the point.  Believers are convicted of what’s right in God’s eyes; the conflict we feel when we step outside of His will can be equated to pain in the natural.  It lets us know that something is wrong so that something can be done to fix it.  God always convicts us with what we can do right; he doesn’t shame us with what we’ve done wrong.

As soon as you feel convicted about something, seek it out.  Find out what it is.  Obey quickly.  Do whatever you can to get on the right side of the fence.  The more you resist those pangings, the harder it will be to respond to them.  You may stop feeling them all together.  Instant obedience makes our heart soft and ready to move for Him.

Tip #3:  Learn how God speaks

God loves to talk!  he wants to talk more than you want to listen.  however, most of us approach hearing God as if it were a telephone call.  and then, even more of us expect him to speak in english.  clearly, he does; butenglish isn’t god’s first language. hebrew isn’t either. god’s slightly stubborn (in a good way of course); he actually wants you to adjust to how He does things.  usually when we can’t hear him talking, it’s not because he isn’t saying anything, it’s because we aren’t listening.

i was asking the lord about some trying situations that i’ve recently been involved in.  i wondered if i should back out, but i asked god for his permission.  he didn’t speak to me directly, but in a series of three days i’ve never heard so many “stay in the race” sermons in my life.  everything i saw was about endurance or perserverance.  god spoke to me, but it wasn’t a voice.  sometimes you have to “look” for his word. i’ll get into that on another post.