This new year, I'm unsubscribing to striving, planning, ambition, and goal-setting. And I am subscribing to surrender. Surrendering to the Lord doesn't mean you don't have any plans or goals. It means the Lord is the one guiding you. He is the one telling you which opportunity to say yes to. He creates new goals for you. He opens new doors for you. He gives you new ideas and desires. He will help you discern the right thing, the right one, and the right time. This year, slow

Today's post is inspired by a reading from Daniel 3:16-25, otherwise known as the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. These three men believed and declared that the Lord would deliver them from the fiery furnace and He did. Their story teaches us to have unrelenting faith and declare the Lord's deliverance over our circumstances. But sometimes deliverance doesn't look the way we want it to and that's when our faith is tested.

Sex, intimacy, and purity--these are all sensitive topics that aren't easy to talk about. But it's in the areas we keep private that the devil can easily slip in. I'm sharing my story so that hopefully you won't have to. Let there be light in dark places, words of truth and wisdom where there was once silence.

Single and Surrendered. You finally understand the beauty of God's design for mankind and marriage. You've established holy boundaries for dating and intimacy. You trust Him with the thing that was once the hardest to surrender. And yet...you're still hurting. You still feel the ache of your missing rib or missing mate. You fear missing out on love and intimacy if you don't settle. Being single and surrendered hurts. The price of hope is hurt. But without hope, there is only

God has always sought a home and a family. Even after Satan tried to steal His most precious creations from Him, the Lord found ways to remain present with His people and inhabit the earth. God's plan has always been to dwell with us on the earth. His presence endures with us always. In every situation and in every season, God is with us.

Cancer doesn't leave you untouched--not the patient nor the family supporting their loved one. But when the world turns you away, Jesus is still with you. When your hope is threatened, Jesus restores it. When you face a crisis that requires more of you than you have to give, Jesus strengthens and sustains you. Even in our times of greatest grief, all hope is not lost.

There is a difference between self-seeking and seeking the Lord. False teachers would have you seek wisdom from sources other than the Lord. Today, this may look like: inner divinity (the power of manifestation), astrology, tarot, secret knowledge spirituality (modern-day gnosticism), etc. The Bible makes it clear there are other powers, other spirits, other knowledge out there. But that is not the power, spirit, or knowledge we are called to seek. Jesus is the way, the truth

Your hope is proof of the thing not yet seen. Your hope is proof of the harvest to come. Your hope is the seed of the harvest to come. Your hope comes from God. He's not asking you to give it up. Let your hope be proof of God's goodness, proof of His love for you. Let your persistent hope be a reminder that God is working behind the scenes, aligning things that will one day present a harvest He ordained for you before you were even born.

My story of letting God heal my sexual trauma and free me from shame. For so long, I felt like God couldn't meet me in this area not because He didn't have the power, but because it felt like this area was off limits. But God belongs in every room and in every situation. His presence is what drives out darkness. If God isn't in our bedroom, then who else is? Expecting man to heal what the devil broke was never going to work. So, I invited God into the place where shame lived

Feeling like I am the problem, like there's something wrong with me, like every failure delays my blessings, like God's goodness is based on my performance, pricks the core wound from my childhood, deepens my shame and sadness, allows the hopelessness to resurface, and makes me angry at God. The old lie has risen that makes me feel like I was set up to fail, because perfection is beyond my capabilities. I realize I've been striving instead of surrendering.

This past week has been hard. As much as I've engrossed myself in God's Word, embedded His truths in me, and rebuked the lies the devil has poured into me, I could only hold my ground for so long before the hopelessness tried to take root again. But what happened this week is so much bigger than the past seven days, so I'm going to back up to the beginning.

Jesus was able to forgive not only those who betrayed and tormented Him, but all people to come, because He knew it was not man's fault. Man is God's creation, created perfectly in His image. By design, we are not evil or corrupt. The devil is who corrupts man, but it is more than corruption. It is inhabitation or possession. Separate the human from the spirit living inside them. There are no evil people, only evil spirits.

False teachers try to make us doubt in who Jesus Christ was, what He did for us, and thus doubt in the truth / Word of God. The devil's deception does not always come as strict opposition, such as to say that Jesus never existed or that God isn't real. Sometimes the devil's deception comes with a slight bending of the truth. The devil gains footholds in our hearts and minds by planting seeds of doubt, and then those seeds grow into weeds that consume us from the inside out.

No matter the circumstance you face, no matter how far you feel you've strayed, God is with you. God is waiting for you. God loves you. And, undoubtedly, His goodness has already shown up in your life. You need only to recognize it. The key to growing your relationship with the Lord and finding strength and peace in Him is through His Word. I encourage you to embark on your own journey through God's Word. Seek Him and you will find Him. Pray to Him and He will listen.

Through this multi-part blog series, The Divine Return, I'm going to address three major areas from my return to God. The first: the lies the devil uses to keep us from seeking God. The second: the difference between religion and relationship with the Lord. The third: how to truly surrender to the Lord and accept the Holy Spirit.

The Book of James reminds us to stand firm in our faith, seek God's wisdom, and exemplify true Christ-like love. It is a reminder of what true Christianity looks like and acts like. Let us remember the truth. Let us remember love. Let us remember we are not each other's enemy. There is only one enemy and his name is Satan.

Many people struggle with skepticism, like James, when it comes to the claims of the Bible. Because it was written by man, translated so many times, and some books were purposefully left out of Biblical cannon, it's easy for doubt to creep in, especially when we don't really want the truth.

If you're like me, you probably grew up hearing faith alone will get you into Heaven. But the Lord tells us, faith without works is dead like the body without the Spirit is dead. So what is faith without works? It's not faith at all. It is belief and even the demons believe that God exists.

Of all the words I've poured onto the pages over the last five years, these might be the hardest to come by and the most important.