“Go and enjoy good food and sweet drinks. Send some to people who have none, because today is a holy day to the Lord. Don’t be sad, because the joy of the Lord will make you strong.”  Nehemiah 8:10 NCV

He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you My lovingkindness and My mercy are more than enough—always available—regardless of the situation; for My power is being perfected and is completed and shows itself most effectively in your weakness.” Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may completely enfold me and may dwell in me. 2 Corinthians 9:12 Amplified Bible

Change It UP

Change it UP  to JOY. Joy isn’t what we picture it, it is kind of a paradox of sorts, we think it is something we want, but it is something we get when we give up what we want, cling to God and let Him work wholly-holy in us and through us. Joy comes in our lives when we change our focus from the finite to the Infinite. Change our focus up. We don’t have the whole picture, we see only a fragmented part of the beautiful whole that God has for us. It makes sense that it is better for us to live out of the whole picture instead of disjointed pieces. Seeing life through the Kingdom Perspective of JOY will infuse our human condition with heavenly strengths like no other.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 1 Corinthians 13:12 New Living Translation

Prepared To Endure

God wants us to be able to endure and bring Him great honor. In order to do so, we must learn to find the supernatural strength that helps us persevere with the fragmented pieces we see, until we can with heavenly hindsight, see the breakthrough of God, as He beautifies our fragmented pieces into His amazing picture of wholeness. JOY comes as we ask God for the puzzle pieces and let Him prepare us to endure, as we wait on Him, trusting He can complete the picture of our life story, in that perfect way of His.

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. Jeremiah 29:11-13 New Living Translation

Change Your Focus

God has a plan and it is totally good, it will be the best thing that ever will happened to us. We have some pretty dysfunctional situations in our lives and some of them are carrying forward from last year to this year. We need to be able to endure, to grow through waiting on God with patience, trust, belief and faith. How do we do this? We change it up. What do we change up? We change our focus from our finite worldly viewpoint to God’s Infinite Kingdom perspective. Change it up this year and live out of a Kingdom perspective that will grip you with your true hope and purpose in Christ Jesus.

The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. Matthew 6:32-33 NCV

See The Kingdom First

What does a “Kingdom Perspective” entail? You can see it perfectly in the word, JOY. Jesus. Others. You. When You get the whole of your life ordered and positioned in holy alignment with God’s JOY, you will have the wisdom and strength you need to prepare to endure and bring God honor with your life. Change it up, the whole order of things in your life. Put God first and everything you think you want will shed off of you and what will be left is JOY. Jesus, Others, You.

God’s word is alive and working and is sharper than a double-edged sword. It cuts all the way into us, where the soul and the spirit are joined, to the center of our joints and bones. And it judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts. Nothing in all the world can be hidden from God. Everything is clear and lies open before him, and to him we must explain the way we have lived. Hebrews 4: 12-13 New Century Version

Exchanged Viewpoint

God is our Way-Maker God. He has made a way for us to have the best kingdom perspective we can have. God has also given us His powerful Word, that exchanges for truth the lies, assumptions, presumptions, and rationalizations that are manifested out of what we see with our finite worldly viewpoints. We have the promises of God, these make an incredibly strong platform for a great kingdom perspective. We can exchange our viewpoint and create a kingdom perspective for our situation through the lens of God’s Word. Change It UP.

“How much room will you give God in your life? Room: The space between what you can do and God can do. God room is the place where miracles happen, where He handles the impossible in our lives. God’s room is a place within me that I choose to let God do only what God can do.” Dr. John Maxwell

Joy~Pray It Up

There is no greater way to JOY, to putting Jesus first in your viewpoint than by way of prayer. Prayer is our special one on one communication, heart to Heart with God. Jesus made a way for us to have a personal relationship with God. This is our number one way to changing things up, to having and walking out of a Kingdom perspective. The heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ is change and it is a “Change UP”. We exchange our finite understanding for His Kingdom wisdom and we do that through our vital-vertical relationship with Him. Joy comes to us when we receive Jesus wholly-holy in our hearts, giving Him the room in our heart to work out His Kingdom perspective.

Live in true devotion to one another, loving each other as sisters and brothers. Be first to honor others by putting them first. Do not slack in your faithfulness and hard work. Let your spirit be on fire, bubbling up and boiling over, as you serve the Lord. Do not forget to rejoice, for hope is always just around the corner. Hold up through the hard times that are coming, and devote yourselves to prayer. Share what you have with the saints, so they lack nothing; take every opportunity to open your life and home to others. Romans 12:10-13 The Voice

The Paradox Of Change

Changing things up starts with a paradox. There is always a paradox, a gap between darkness and light and finite and Infinite. The Holy Spirit is our bridge between the paradox gap. Nothing good really makes finite sense. Faith is all about praying and stretching our humanity past seeing to belief in an unseen God and His ways, truth and life. The best of our knowledge comes out of experiencing the transformation of our lives in a vital-vertical relationship with God. Change It Up. You can totally shake up and transform your finite life by shaking off your finite ways and gripping a Kingdom perspective of truth and real life. Life! Live it real, change it up. How? Put Jesus first, put others before yourself. Yes I said a paradox of the human condition. This is JOY. It begins with Jesus and His life in you and flowing out sacrificially from you to others. Change it UP to Joy.

His wrath, you see, is fleeting, but His grace lasts a lifetime. The deepest pains may linger through the night, but joy greets the soul with the smile of morning. Psalm 30:5 The Voice

Bowing Down IS The Way To UP

Change it UP to JOY. Well this begins with a paradox of course. If I want to change things up, I must first bow down. Every finite situation has a worldly viewpoint. I step out into every single day knowing I will face a difficult finite circumstance. It is inevitable. I live in a fallen world, with hurting people who hurt people. There is sin acted out in our human condition and it is all around us, therefore I know the negative impact of the consequences of sin will touch my life everyday. No doubt about it. Life is not easy here on this earth, especially now. To get to the “up” that I need, the kingdom perspective that I need, it begins with a “down” first thing in the morning. And the paradox again is that down is the way to UP. Night is the way to morning. Sadness is the way to smiling. The paradox is: Change It Up, Bow Down.

“Step out with God. Know God. Experience the depth, breadth and height of God’s great love and allow God to do things in your life that you could never accomplish on your own.” Quote By~Dr. John Maxwell

Step Out With God

Every day of my life, there is a starting point. At that beginning of my day, I step down instead of up and out. I bow down. I begin my day by stepping out and down. I bow my life before God’s life. My first step out is down. This is where my heart is redirected from me, my finite viewpoint, to God and His Kingdom perspective. I connect heart to Heart and spirit to Spirit with God. In a split second, that connection with God’s way, truth and life, it begins my day UP. There is no connection of my day that is more powerful than that step down, that bowing of my finite down before and surrendered to God’s Infinite.

I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be liberated, will go in and go out, and will find pastures. The thief approaches with malicious intent, looking to steal, slaughter, and destroy; I came to give life with joy and abundance. John 10:9-10 The Voice

Vital-Vertical Relationship

I will undoubtedly be offended today in some way by the human condition of another. I might even be lied to our lied about. I may face the ugliness of the human dysfunction of hurting people who hurt people. Even though God has won the war, I may lose a battle to evil today. Because of my vital vertical relationship with God, because I bowed my flesh, my way, my rights, the all of me to Him, I see through a Kingdom Perspective. I let God work in whatever way He chooses and I follow after Him in trust and belief that this day, He is going to do something good in me and through my Kingdom perspective. I will walk in JOY as I walk in followship of Jesus, Other, You. I will know the abundant JOY of the Lord, which is my greatest preparation to endure and bring honor and Glory to God.

This God made us in all our diversity from one original person, allowing each culture to have its own time to develop, giving each its own place to live and thrive in its distinct ways. His purpose in all this was that people of every culture and religion would search for this ultimate God, grope for Him in the darkness, as it were, hoping to find Him. Yet, in truth, God is not far from any of us. For you know the saying, “We live in God; we move in God; we exist in God.” And still another said, “We are indeed God’s children.” Acts 17:26-28 The Voice

Living In JOY

God is with us and His JOY is our existing, enduring strength. God will use the preparation of learning to keep JOY alive in our lives. JOY is something that needs a wholly-holy alignment at all times in our day. With every moment that we live with our enemy, who likes to punch our gut, shoving a dark worldly perspective in our face. We will need to readjust our holy alignment with God and we do this through our Kingdom Perspective which is alive an active through our personal relationship with our Way-Maker God, His Holy Spirit and His powerful Word. We live in God, being His, we move in His light so we don’t stumble in the dark. We exist in the strength of our God and this is true JOY.

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not even see Him now, you believe and trust in Him and you greatly rejoice and delight with inexpressible and glorious joy. 1 Peter 1:8 Amplified Bible

Kingdom JOY Is A Forever Thing

I leave 2015 with the wisdom of God that I can have a Kingdom Perspective from every moment to every choice I make on this earth. I can have Kingdom JOY in the midst of all things of this fallen world. God has asked me in 2016 to “change it up” the focus of my followship by making it a kingdom perspective. God has promised me in 2016 that as I stay wholly-holy aligned with Him, He will prepare me to endure and I will bring great honor and glory to Him and His Kingdom. I bow before God today and I ask Him to “change it up” in 2016, because I desire with all my heart to be prepared to endure and “grow through” 2016 bringing honor to Him and His Kingdom. Let it be so. Change It UP.

I hope you enjoyed this meal on Change It UP. I am a prayer mentor, therefore this will be the prayer I pray up this year. I am hoping huge you share this with others and it mentors them in that special way only God can, so we all can walk in and experience God’s JOY. Feed Your Soul Daily At The Bridegroom’s Café. I highly suggest you purchase a copy of The Bridegroom’s Voice and take a journey with Jesus that will change it UP for you in that special way only God can. God bless you MUCH, KimberlyMac