Episode 259-Surrender Delights God

Why should we surrender to God? Because our surrender delights God. If there is anything we should want to do it is to please God. Surrender also has great value for us on our journeys which also delights God. Romans 12:1 AMP: “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, dedicating all of yourselves, set apart, as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational, logical, intelligent act of worship.” What does it means to be living sacrifices? It means to be alive to what Christ wants for us and dead to evil things. It means to surrender to God and that means everything on our journeys. When God talks about living sacrifices, He is talking about the fact that we have died to living for what we desire and have decided to live for what Jesus wants. Gal. 2:20 NLT: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice to God is intelligent, rational, logical because we are obeying God. We are following the God of the Universe who is bigger than we can imagine, but small enough to fit inside us at the same time. Who He is and who we are makes surrendering every single part of our lives to Him a rational, and at the same time a very emotional, course of action. Doing this now and every single day is more than a starting place. It will define how we live in tandem with Him for the rest of our lives.

Overcomers Academy Link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 258-Listen to God

Why don’t we listen to God? The other day I was jogging in the water and pondering what I would share on this podcast. I had been reading Romans 11 for several days but I had decided I was going to go on to do the next podcast on Romans 12 because I understood how it fit into my journey. Still, the last four verses of Romans 11 kept calling me back.

It’s a great section of scripture but I knew there was something I wasn’t getting. I have to grab hold of it first before I can share it with y’all. So I asked God to show me.

That’s when He asked me the question, “Why didn’t you listen to me when I told you to stop eating sugar the first time back in 1977?”

Then I saw clearly three reasons I didn’t and they all come from Romans 11:33-36 TPT, the passage I was going to skip over and not include in this series. But now I understand that it may be one of the most important lessons yet.

First, I want to read the passage.

“Who could ever wrap their minds around the riches of God, the depth of His wisdom, and the marvel of His perfect knowledge? Who could ever explain the wonder of His decisions or search out the mysterious way He carries out His plans?

“For who has discovered how the Lord thinks or is wise enough to be the one to advise Him in His plans? Or who has ever first given something to God that obligates God to owe him something in return?”

“For out of Him, the sustainer of everything, came everything, and now everything finds fulfillment in Him. May all praise and honor be given to Him forever! Amen!”

Here are the three things He dropped into my heart. All of them hit me hard because I remember believing them and feeling them at the time. They hit me hard because I knew each of these things aren’t true theologically, but at the time they felt very real to me personally.

1. You didn’t listen to Me because you felt I was too difficult to understand.

2. You didn’t listen to Me because you didn’t think I cared about you, really knew you or really wanted the best for you.

3. You didn’t listen to Me because you felt like you knew better than Me.

Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/

Episode 257-Grace is Amazing

I know a whole lot more about God’s amazing grace today than when I accepted Jesus at age seven. I knew I had been saved by grace, but that’s all I knew. I also knew it was amazing because we sang about that all the time in church.

I love how grace is explained to believers in 1 Peter 4:10 AMPC: “Each of you has received a gift, a particular spiritual talent, a gracious divine endowment. Employ it for one another as good trustees of God’s many-sided grace, faithful stewards of the extremely diverse powers and gifts granted to Christians by unmerited favor.

God’s grace is many-faceted because it is as vast as God. Grace is the DNA of God. It’s what He is made of. The grace of God cannot be explained or contained in a few words, but I see at least seven words that help us understand how grace operates in our lives. Each one seems to build on the other.

Grace saves us, sustains us, surrounds us, searches us, stretches us, strengthens us and stands us each in the place of our assignment or mission.

On this episode we are going to look at each of these aspects of grace.

Overcomers Academy link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers