Tag: The Beautiful Reward

The Holy Spirit Comes With Fruit

- JaclynPalmer Leave a comment

Follow this thought with me. You get saved. Immediately, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your life. Along with the Spirit, comes His fruit. You naturally display this fruit, until your flesh demands its old position as boss. At this point, you battle within as to who is going to take charge of your heart, your dead self or the living Spirit.

Whom we choose has no effect on your name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life; your salvation is eternally secured. (John 10:27-30). However, this choice, as to who will reign, is the only visual others have of the changing power of the Holy Spirit in your life.

The Spirit will never leave you nor forsake you, but if you continually quench the Spirit you can cause His fruit to decay, leaving a sour display of the love of God.

~ By your fruit you are known.

~ All mankind has fruit.

~ Each life will produce something.

~ Life will produce the matter of the heart.

As you walk in the Spirit, His fruit begins to pour out of you. The Spirit enables you to become something new, someone full of sweet Fruit with a heart ready to submit to God’s leading. In Matthew 7, we see the Holy Spirit desires to lead us down the road less traveled, with kindness towards others and with open eyes toward hypocrisy.

Ultimately, the choice is ours to make.

Day by day, moment by moment. Prayers to you as you walk in the Spirit!

***Excerpt from The Beautiful Reward; Pages 68-69

Pick up your copy of my Bible Study on the book of Matthew today!

The Beautiful Reward

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The Key Difference in Prayer

- JaclynPalmer Leave a comment

The key difference between the empty prayer of the Pharisee and the new prayer instructed by the Lord is the spirit of humility and understanding as to what prayer is truly about. Prayer is about your relationship with your Father not a verbal affirmation of yourself.

How great is our God! Jeremiah says of him, “His ways are not our ways. His thoughts not our thoughts.” Yet, when He hears our prayers, He hears our requests simply. Although we may express them as big prayers and small prayers, He doesn’t. We saw in the last chapter that what we consider small (hatred and lust) are comparatively the same as what we consider big (murder and adultery). Just the same, the wants and needs of our hearts are comparably the same in God’s eye. God looks at your needs and desires as a way to shower down blessings on you. Open your hands wide when you pray, for when you pray, believing, you will receive. This is a promise.

Jesus tells His disciples, who were recently out of work, to think on this:

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” Or “What shall we drink?” Or “What shall we wear?” -Matthew 6:30-31

Food, drink, clothes what are those to you? Even the most practical of women have to admit that they are everything to us. Come on, without food we would be hungry, without drink we would be dead, and without clothes we would be celebrating our birthday one too many times. These three things are important to all mankind. They are a necessity.

That being said, because they are everything we need to live, they are everything to God. You are everything to God. He created the plants; He provides for them. He created you; how much more will He provide for you? Too many hours are wasted in panic and worry. Worry is a sin. It is a lack of trust in the Father. We do not know what tomorrow holds, God does. We are not promised tomorrow. Why waste today worrying over something completely out of your hands?

God created today. He created you. He knows what He is doing. Trust Him and take no thought.

Which matter of prayer needs to be brought to God and laid before Him with pure trust in His power to provide? Read Matthew 6:25-34 again and commit God’s commands and promises to heart.

**Excerpt from The Beautiful Reward; pages 57, 60-62

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The Blanket of Peace

- JaclynPalmer Leave a comment

When we believe on Him, His peace is in us. Did you catch that? His peace is in you. We do not have to pay a price to attain peace. Christ did that. We have Christ’s peace! So why do we sometimes feel like our peace is missing?

Do you ever feel that? Are you standing there in your personal struggle wondering where the “promised peace” is? This is hard. For one, it is hard to feel this feeling of loss and wonderment. And two, it is hard to admit that you are struggling with feeling the absence of peace.

May I offer an honest checklist evaluation regarding your peace?

  1. Have you confessed your sin of unbelief to God the Father and asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior? Y/N
  2. Have you been forgiven of your sins through the blood Jesus Christ? Y/N
  3. Have you been freed by Jesus from sin, guilt and/or shame? Y/N
  4. Do you like to curl up under your favorite familiar blanket? Y/N
  5. Do you think that last question makes me sound as if I lost my mind? Y/N

If you answered YES to all of those questions, then you are sure of your salvation through Jesus Christ. Which means His peace is in you.

Now answer my next question.

  • What blanket do you often choose?

I can see it now. Some of you are sold that I have become verifiably insane. Some are excited that I finally embraced the love of Home Economics. Meanwhile, others of you are looking at me with that look that says, “I think I know where you are going and I already know I don’t like it.”

Let me tell you some of my go-to blankets:

  • Past shame
  • Past guilt
  • Childhood heartache
  • Death of a parent
  • Family rejection
  • Man-made religious expectations
  • Self-inflicted expectations
  • Personal sin
  • Selfishness
  • Broken coffee maker
  • Exhaustion
  • Fatigue
  • Financial confusion
  • Medical confusion
  • Miscarriages
  • Self-image expectations
  • Health issues
  • PMS

Just to name a few.

Some of my blankets have been shredded and burned. Some have been carefully folded and stored away for later. Some of them lay across the foot of my bed for nightfall. And some are clenched in my hand dragging beside me wherever I go. Regardless of where these blankets are, they each represent a picture of my life. They are stifling, they are suffocating, they are binding, and they are heavy. Yet, these blankets are comfortable, they are familiar, and they are what I know. When they are used, they are the reason my peace is absent.

Praise be to God that this is not the end.

For there was an earthquake, and in that earthquake each and every one of my blankets were cast into the crest of the earth, buried, and carried far away from the eyes of my Heavenly Father.

There was an earthquake that shook the very presence of my earthly existence and replaced it with a quilt stitched together with the fabrics of the torn veil and with the robe of my Savior. This quilt doesn’t cover my other blankets. It replaces each and every one so perfectly, leaving no need for any other. This blanket is called peace.

***Excerpt from The Beautiful Reward; pages 283-286

***Matthew 28

*” I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” -John 16:33

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