This is a cool post for praying for your family and hearing the heart of God on how to care for one another. It has some really godly wisdom that will change up our hearts. A family post on bringing your gifts to the table so you can share with your family who you are, and how God has gifted you… and receiving God’s wisdom on how to be a person who has accepted God’s Challenge To Dare To C.A.R.E. God bless you and God bless your family, KimberlyMac Author, or in the reality of truth, I probably should sign it, PEN of the Author, Jesus Christ.
God Challenge: Dare To C.A.R.E
I was thinking this morning as I woke up with a question on my heart. What role do I play in my family? What do I bring to the table of my family to share with others? One easy one to think about is Care. We care about each other and we bring that to the table of our family. We watch out for each other, we protect each other’s back. How can we be better at caring for one another. Well… listen up to this Family Devotional, some God given wisdom about Caring and becoming a better person when it comes to caring for others in your family, in your neighborhood, in your community, God is calling us to Dare To Care. So, would you like to become a Champion In Christ and truly C.A.R.E. Listen Up To This 1 Minute Encouragement Video:
C. Consistently Caring ~ Develop Your Awe
The best way to develop consistency in your caring is to know where your AWE is founded on. Your Awe should be of God. I know that sounds like it doesn’t fit in developing consistency of caring in your life, but it truly does. Listen Up:
AWE! Consistency Is Not About Me. 1st 24/7 Flip-Flop Your Awe Point: Develop Your Awe. The world is in awe of a lot of things and we tend to have awe of people, places and things, more than we have Awe of God. Flip It Back To God-Awe 1st. Increase Your Thanksgiving And Be Praise Conscious Because This Is The First Step To Building Relationship That Lasts Forever. Awe becomes the foundation of a consistency in caring because your viewpoint is less about yourself and more about God. Look What The WORD SAYS:
Psalm 116:12 What can I give back to God for the blessings he's poured out on me? I'll lift high the cup of salvation—a toast to God! I'll pray in the name of God; I'll complete what I promised God I'd do, and I'll do it together with his people. When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love him. Oh, God, here I am, your servant, your faithful servant: set me free for your service! I'm ready to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice and pray in the name of God. I'll complete what I promised God I'd do, and I'll do it in company with his people, In the place of worship, in God's house, in Jerusalem, God's city. Hallelujah!
The more you get to know God and increase your Awe of Him, He becomes your endgame in every motive, every thought, and every action… it is Jesus first. Awe sets you up for consistency in caring because you are being completely His, it is a change up from religiosity, where your heart is not engaged, to personal intimate relationship. When you are developing your Awe of God, your respect, reverence, and worship of Him, you will find that you can maintain a consistent caring for others! How? Because, you know the heart of God better, when your life is positioned in AWE of God. When this scripture below actually comes into play in your heart, it becomes your reality of truth, and you can also pray this scripture for your family, so do it, pray it up:
Colossians 3:17-23 Let every activity of your lives and every word that comes from your lips be drenched with the beauty of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. And bring your constant praise to God the Father because of what Christ has done for you ! Let every wife be supportive and tenderly devoted to her husband, for this is a beautiful illustration of our devotion to Christ. Let every husband be filled with cherishing love for his wife and never be insensitive toward her. Let the children respect and pay attention to their parents in everything for this pleases our Lord Jesus. And fathers, don’t have unrealistic expectations for your children or else they may become discouraged. Let every employee listen well and follow the instructions of their employer, not just when their employers are watching, and not in pretense, but faithful in all things. For we are to live our lives with pure hearts in the constant awe and wonder of our Lord God. Put your heart and soul into every activity you do, as though you are doing it for the Lord himself and not merely for others.
Truly the miraculous musing of all of this Awe of God, is that it positions you in a consistency in your relationship with Him, which displays His character out of your life consistently, building a solid reputation of Whose you are as you care for your family members, and others God has put in your life path. When we invest consistency in our developing of our Awe of God, we gain God’s favor as we are consistently circling up with Jesus, in a heart to heart relationship with God. Our vital-vertical relationship with God is connected every day as our first step out, is bowed down to God in Awe of Who He is, and our second step out, is going with God, running the race of faith, being on mission with our God in caring for His people.
A-vailability To Care
Availability To Care In Season And Out Of Season. Every day of our lives we live as people who consistently care for others needs. How? By being in connection with God, available to God, to be navigated by His Holy Spirit. We press forward in our relationship with God, and walk as His Servant Leader with the goal of becoming His “seasoned servant” who is setting a consistent life-pace of being circled up with God, being available, and keeping Jesus as the center of our all and everything. Being available to God, we stay in pace with Jesus, Who cares more and most for the people He has set in our life path to care for, to encourage, to love, to support, and to be a vital part of their lives.
Be Predictably All About God! When we are people who C.A.R.E in our family life, in our community life, we are people who are paced in predictability. How is that? We are wholly-holy available to God, our YES is on the table with God. We are available, and accountable to God first. Our first priority is God and His Kingdom matters most. Being paced in predictable behavior, the characteristic of one who has counted the cost, and is becoming wholly-holy God’s servant, this is a core value of availability.
2 Timothy 4:1-2 I give you a command in the sight of God and Christ Jesus. Christ will judge the living and the dead. Because he and his kingdom are coming, here is the command I give you. 2 Preach the word. Be ready to serve God in good times and bad. Correct people's mistakes. Warn them. Cheer them up with words of hope. Be very patient as you do these things. Teach them carefully.
To be a person who is predictable, is being available to God’s mission of caring, and developing a God consciousness. Are you ready to do that? In this Great God Adventure called life, are you ready for Jesus to be your tour guide by the navigation of His Holy Spirit?
1 Peter 1:18 Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God.
Our lives are dictated by our time, not God’s time. We constantly are looking at our watches and our availability is by the clock of humanity. Why not shake that up? How? Well, we can pray for and develop a keen sense of God discernment. If we truly want to be available to C.A.R.E for others in our family and our community, we will do what it takes to learn to see Jesus in all things, be more aware of His Presence and what He is up too. We can learn to hear and follow His Voice, because He is always up to something good in the unseen. We need to have a heart that desires to be available, to be a part of His Whole, as we build relationships with others, we need to set our watch by God time. Is my availability set in willessness? Not my will but Yours God? Not my timetable, but Yours God? Am I available for divine connections that God wants to set up for me in my family, with my friends, with people in my community, with spontaneous divine God appointments?
Available to care on our timetable is different than God’s timetable. This means for us that we are set and ready for a timeless commitment to JOY! Jesus 1st Others 2nd You third. JOY= You will have to choose between your plans-your schedule or His divine-spontaneous- adventures as you get set to C.A. R. E and make divine relational-appointments. This means you will be learning to be predictably paced with God, with Jesus as your Pacesetter. Where He goes, I will follow no matter: What Time – What Way – Or Why? I Will Be Available To Follow Jesus, My Pacesetter Into Every Spontaneous God Adventure!
When you become a person “available” to God 24/7, you are on your way to being a “seasoned servant”, uniquely sought out in relationships because your God “flavor” will be out of this world. So let’s strive in our family relationships, and with the people God brings into our familys’ sphere of influence, to be people who Dare To C.A.R.E. There is a timeless availability that stretches past the tick of the clock to an availability of soul and spirit, and these are the things we hope and pray for, because this is being a Servant like Jesus was, this was His kind of availability to us. We should be like Him, where He goes, we should follow. This might mean less of our favorite TV shows and more of God Time.
Soul Availability! When we are with people, we listen, we don’t discount their emotions, we own them, treating them as if they were our own, being emotionally available to them is being an empathetic listener. Everyone who is hurting, confused, in pain, or just seeking wisdom has emotions stirred up and they need empathy, they need to know you care before they will entrust you to give them the wisdom they need, the truth that will straighten out the crooked places where they have taken deceptive paths that led to dead ends. Truth makes crooked places straight, but truth always smoothly transitions from wrong thinking, to right thinking, on the pathway of empathetic listeners.
Luke 3:4-5 Fulfilling what was written in the book of the prophet Isaiah 45:2: “Listen! You will hear a thunderous voice in the lonely wilderness telling you to wake up and get your heart ready for the coming of the Lord Yahweh. Make straight every twisted thing in your lives. Bring into the light every dark way. Make right every wrong. Remove injustice. Every heart of pride will humbly bow before him. Every deception will be exposed and replaced by the truth to prepare everyone everywhere to see the Life of God!” Bring into the light every dark way.
Spirit Availability! When we are caring for people, the best way to C.A.R.E. is to point them to Jesus Christ. A lot of people have the need for a Holy Spirit correction adjustment. They are out of alignment with God. Be available to continually help them make adjustments to their God alignment by being a Promise Feeder. Feed them the Promises and Truth of God, because it is the Word that makes the best adjustments, the Word of God goes deeper than any of our personal words of advice could ever go.
Hebrews 4:12-14 For we have the living Word of God, which is full of energy, like a two-mouthed sword. It will even penetrate to the very core of our being where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet! It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts. There is not one person who can hide their thoughts from God, for nothing that we do remains a secret, and nothing created is concealed, but everything is exposed and defenseless before his eyes, to whom we must render an account. So then, we must cling in faith to all we know to be true. For we have a magnificent King-Priest, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who rose into the heavenly realm for us, and now sympathizes with us in our frailty.
One thing we should never get over is how available God has been to us, we should never forget that God came here to us. This is an availability that can never be equaled and we should always seek to be like Him in availability. We need to keep our mind clear of our thoughts that sometimes include less than truth, more of speculation, assumption, presupposition, and be available to hear the Mind of Christ. Speaking out of the mind of Christ, is the kind of caring that helps people stretch their tent pegs of their mind past what they know, into the possibility of a Way-Making God. It is a good thing to help someone yield to God, modeling a willessness like no other, trusting God’s methods, and believing His endgame is good. We need Jesus, and being an accountability partner with someone who needs care, helping them to shape their will by showing them how to lean into the Sovereign Sway of God, is a good way to C.A.R.E.
R. Respond With Godly Care
God responded to our need for Him by coming here to us, it was the greatest grand gesture of love mankind will ever know. We needed that extra grace from God, He made a way for us to receive it. God builds into relationships with an EGR (Extra Grace Required) stamina and establishes us in His strength when we are loving and EGR person! The way God leads our life-run is always narrow, you do not Dare To C.A.R.E. on a broad life path. Relational roads are not easy to navigate as a servant-leader who God has dared to C.A.R.E. When you hit relational bumps, don’t react impulsively; look to Jesus and respond likewise.
Hebrews 12:1-3 The Race of Faith Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. The Discipline of God 3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.
In our family life, and in our relationships with people, there is the need for Extra Grace Required. This begins with giving Jesus our expectations, putting all our expectations for our family members, for the people God has us with, in His Hands. There are relational bumps in every family, there is always that EGR situation where people need extra grace, and this God Grace, it is required for all who Dare To C.A.R.E. Every one in our family has their own “style” as each person God has created, is fearfully and wonderfully made, shaped and designed by Him. We all even have our own set of fingerprints and caring well is learning not to shape someone in your image, but embrace the image God has shaped in them.
When we react to the EGR, it is usually in our flesh, it is us, not able to look past their style, and trying to dress them with ours. We have a point of view as we react, and it is usually conditional, trying to push people to be outfitted in the style of our expectations, which are set by our personal shape. We feel comfortable with our family members who are clothed in the purposes we are leaning into. We expect people to change to fit our God shape, when they have their own. This creates strife and friction in our family life. We need to learn to “Respond” out of God’s Kingdom perspective, not our worldly viewpoint. God’s response is unconditional love for each one of us, because we are all shaped differently, designed with a destiny that is uniquely ours. When we respond out of God’s love, we are embracing the shape of someone else, even if they do require extra grace, God is able to give us that too. Got an EGR pushing your human condition buttons? Anchor to God and respond out of His love for the people He has shaped differently, designed with a flare that doesn’t meet our expectations. Put all your expectations in Christ Jesus. This is a good verse to soak your soul in to learn wait for a godly response instead of human reaction with an EGR.
Psalm 62:5 My soul, wait only upon God and silently submit to Him; for my hope and expectation are from Him. He only is my Rock and my Salvation; He is my Defense and my Fortress, I shall not be moved. With God rests my salvation and my glory; He is my Rock of unyielding strength and impenetrable hardness, and my refuge is in God! Trust in, lean on, rely on, and have confidence in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is a refuge for us (a fortress and a high tower). Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
Respond Wisely To Sudden Emotional Tornados That Spin Up In Your Family Room! Jesus helps us respond wisely to emotional tornados. Reacting to an emotional tornado is walking into it and getting beat up emotionally. Responding is standing on the outside of an emotional tornado in play and letting God spin out the emotional whirlwind, and then respond in kind with God’s wisdom. EGR people love to stir up up emotional tornados. These are not fun, especially when they are family in your living room! Be patient, don’t react, and step into their tornado. I repeat, anchor (Hebrews 6:19) to God and do not step into their emotional tornado! When the emotions spin out and they will, they should land at the feet of Jesus. Get Set! Be Ready For Tornados. Wear His Shoes! (Is.52:7)
Here is some good God wisdom about emotional tornados: Treat other people’s feelings as very valuable, yet totally conditionless. Feelings spoken, but not acted out are not validated, but still valuable. Own their emotions; protect them as if they were yours. (Mark 12:33) (Ro. 12:3). Guard your heart for out of it, you react or respond. If you guard your heart with the word of God, you will not react defensively to relational disappointment, you will be prepared offensively to respond with Godly wisdom and unconditional love. (Prov 4:20-23)
Jesus Is My Response! Reacting is deceptive because it is dealing with symptoms only, it is surface relating. Responding is Inside-Out Relationships, where you dig deeper with Godly perseverance and bear with an EGR (Extra Grace Required) as they work out their salvation from the inside-out. (Heb 10:22) Don’t react to or judge someone because of outside appearances or surface symptoms. Be willing to invest in the hard relational work of digging deeper. Respond and be stretched in your relationships, and don’t just reach out to like-like people. It is your RESPONSE TO GOD, that helps you hold the one piece of a seen relationship and work with it by loving unconditionally, as you trustfully leave God in charge of putting together the whole piece. This responding to God during strife with an EGR (Extra Grace Required) assures that God’s purposes which are in play in the unseen, will be achieved. Response (From God) instead of reaction (Flesh Out) takes less of You, more of God.
John 3:30-33 It is necessary for him to increase and for me to decrease. “For the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks from the natural realm. But the One who comes from above is above everything and speaks of the highest realm of all ! His message is about what he has seen and experienced, even though people don’t accept it. Yet those who embrace his message know in their hearts that it’s the truth.
E.ternally Daring – Caring
When we are caring for other people, especially those in our family, we need to be eternally minded. People act in such predictable ways as we are human beings with a human condition. Being eternally minded is guarding our heart with truth, God’s Kingdom Truth. The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in our relationships. (Ro.14:17) We have a Huge Hope to cling to and the promise of things to come that we cannot even begin to hope for or imagine. (Ro.5:3-6) I say that is pretty unpredictable, and therefore, so we should be.
Hope should be the unpredictable part of our daring to C.A.R.E. for others in our family and those God puts all within the grasp of our sphere of influence. You should not even be able to predict the creative heights and lengths we will go to in giving C. A. R. E to those we are in relationship with! We should be care givers who do not underestimate the power of God, and who are full of active faith. Jesus should be our huge hope. We should be speaking the power of His ability to make all things reversible. We should be a testimony of that there is nothing irreversible in Christ Jesus.
Psalm 145: 10-13 All Your works shall praise You, O Lord, and Your loving ones shall bless You [affectionately and gratefully shall Your saints confess and praise You]! 11 They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom and talk of Your power, 12 To make known to the sons of men God's mighty deeds and the glorious majesty of His kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
Leave a living legacy in every relationship. How? It begins with prayer! (John 15) Jesus established a living legacy in prayer. Pray for those in your family and all those God divinely connects you too! Pray the word, it does not return void and makes an eternal difference. Choice by choice, relationship by relationship, choose huge hope in Almighty God and keep our faith active. We serve a timeless dominion that is everlasting, with a clock that will not tick out. Set your life-hope by “Kingdom Dominion Time” with unlimited perspective. Jesus Is Setting Me Up To Make An Eternal Difference. Al Denson sang a song called: “Will You Be The One”! He asked us to answer the Kingdom Call, to be unpredictable and spontaneous and dare to be different, by standing when those around us fall and making an eternal difference. (Philippians 3) Dare To C.A.R. E. Listen Up To This 1 Minute Encouragement Video
GO! BE God ADVENTUROUS! Dare To C.A.R.E
Jesus IS Our Common Denominator! Therefore, Be as unpredictable as Jesus was to His disciples, to his family (Luke 19:1-10) and be willing to be navigated by the Holy Spirit to do things that shake up the cultural status quo. Be open, courageous (Joshua 1:9) to do the new things God leads you in! (Isaiah 43:18-19) Don’t lean on your past experiences! Experience is overrated! Don’t stay within your circle of busy (this side of heaven) life-doings! Jesus was always bringing the kingdom of God on earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10 Stretch your life circle from the comfortable world to the eternal conquest! Take hold of eternal life! (1 Timothy 6:11-12) Dare To C.A.R.E This song was the song God used to call me into a wholly-holy-his servant leadership, where my life was ALL IN with Him and His Kingdom. It has been a great God Adventure since then.
Thank you for stopping into The Bridegroom’s Cafe today at the Family Life Table. We hope this spiritual meal has nourished your soul and equipped you to Dare To C.A.R.E. for your family members and for all those God has placed within your sphere of influence. We hope you share it with someone else on your social media outreach platforms. We hope you enjoyed our 1 Minute Encouragement videos today! Please make a subscription to this Website and to our Rumble Channel:https://rumble.com/c/KimberlyMac We so appreciate it. God bless You. May The Bridegroom’s Voice always be heard by you from every moment to every choice. KimberlyMac, Author